Designs of Inigo Jones and others
Construction and Symmetry
‘The Design of Indigo Jones and Others: Consisting of Plans and Elevations for Public and Privat Buildings’ is divided into a first and second volume. It consists, as the title already gives away, of a massive amount of architectural plans. The book starts of with a dedication to George, the King of Great-Britain, France and Ireland, followed by an advertisement of his state of the art designs.
The book does not include detailed descriptions of the works, but rather chooses a constructive approach. It features different types of buildings such as palaces, parks, pavilions or chapels; all the works seem to follow a common concept: symmetry. But what I like most about the book is that the focus of the planners lay with the way the buildings are perceived – both from afar as well as when inside. From outside, the buildings should be impressive and of top notch constructive manner, differentiate themselves from the landscape, but also meet the functional requirements.
What bothers me about the book is the lack of structure. More precisely, it is cumbersome to look for something specific. There is a table of contents with a short description of whats to be expected on each of the pages, but there is barely any more information on the page itself. Furthermore, in regards to the page size, the page numbers or the text in general is way too small and in some occasions illegible.
Keywords: conceptual, contrast, lack of structure.