As a first attempt, I tried to find books related to architecture and Paul Heineken. So I used Xenotheka Libraryas “Alice’s brain”, as Topic of conversation architecture and as search I typed: Paul Heineken. I got 10,000 results, but I didn’t really know how to approach them.
With the further use of Alice, I realized that I would not get far with such a general search. So I tried to be more specific with the questions:
- What do I know about my book? -> Perspective, illustrations, Heineken, etc., geometry, printed, no photos.
- What do I want to find? Books that relate to Luciduum prospective speculum or at least have similar characteristics or themes.
Searching further, I kept coming across applicable and also interesting titles like:
- Koolhaas, Elements of Architecture
- Acocella, Stone Architecture Ancient and Modern Construction Skills
- Bergdoll Oechslin, Fragments Architecture and the Unfinished
- Macarthur, The Picturesque
However, when looking at the books, the elements central to Heineken’s work – illustrations, drawings, measurements of columns, capitals, ceiling paintings, etc. – were not noticed. – were not even remotely represented.
Among all the respected books, there are exactly two that I more or less associate with Heineken:
- Eighteenth Century Architecture by Van Eck.
I am not completely satisfied with this book either. The first thing I notice is that there is a content list. That speaks for itself: this book is hardly about perspective and the ratio of text to illustrations is very large. But why I chose it is the nature of the illustrations: Figure 2 is exactly in the style of Luciduum prospectivae Speculum. Figure 5 also shows a building that is precisely divided into individual structures.
Figures 3.1, 3.4 and 3.5 are drawings that could have been found in Heineken’s book.
- The Projective Cast – Architecture and Its Three Geometrics by the author Robin Evans published in 1994 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
This book is ultimately the work I associate most closely with Luciduum prospectivae Speculum. As in Heineken’s case, a representation can be assigned to quite a few sections of the text. The ratio of text to illustrations is thus roughly balanced (also important with Heineken). What should be noted is that the book is the only one to contain geometric shapes, illustrations and solids that cannot be easily described. It does contain photographs, as it was written much later, but for example pages 61, 109, 116, 149, 150 and many more.