Task 3 Friends with an old Book

First of all, I entered Problèmes d’architecture in the Alice search engine, since this is the main topic of my book. It came up mainly umbrella terms like problems of technology and knowledge and the ecosystem. These are difficult and critical issues for us nowadays, which also influence architecture.

My Second words I searched in Alice was, the geometry of architecture.

I found a interesting quote by Rousseau, Collected Works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

‘’Astronomy springs from superstition, eloquence from ambition, hatred, falsehood, and flattery, geometry from avarice, physics from idle curiosity, and even moral philosophy from human pride.’’

I think its very interesting because he says, that geometry and so the astronomy has many interrelationships and does not stand on its own.

Again in Rousseau, Collected Works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau:

‘’Well trained minds are the pillars on which human knowledge is most deeply engraved.’’ This sentence isvery wise and goes well with the book by Francois Blondel, as he has written and drawn a lot about columns and their importance.

In Xenotheka I found an interesting book from Gerbino, François Blondel: Architecture, Erudition, and the Scientific Revolution.

He writes about him as the first director of the Académie royale d’architecture. François Blondel established a lasting model for architectural education that helped transform a still largely medieval profession into the one we recognize today.  Blondel, remembered for his 1676 map of Paris, was also acclaimed as a mathematician, scientist, and scholar. 

I chose this first book because I think it’s great to learn more about him personally.

The other book I have chosen is called Le Camus de Mezieres, The Genius of Architecture.

Nicolas Le Camus de Mézières (1721 – c. 1793) is today seen as one of the most intriguing and influential architects of the French Enlightenment. Jacques-François Blondel provided the theoretical basis for the formal explorations of Etienne-Louis Boullée, Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, and John Soane. So Blondel also shaped French neoclassical theory with its theories and knowledge.

Student number: 20-710-943