Preliminary Study Of Architectural Geometrical Property：perfect Form In15^th-18^th Century Italy And Ming-Qing China

This article focuses on architectural geometrical issues. In order to findout what exactly the architectural geometry is, the author attempts to searchfor substantial meanings of architectural geometrical property from thousandsof cases in architectural history. The “Architectural Geometrical Property” isa general pattern established for analyzing the most essential geometricalcharacters of different architectures and criticizing their odds. The elementsinclude geometrical precondition, geometrical prototype, mathematicalrelation, initial value, rounding-off numbers and expedient.Secondly, the article selected two architectural paradigms,15th-18thcentury Italian architecture and Ming-Qing Chinese timber construction, inwhich all involved cases with perfect modal of regular polygon, circle andoval rules. The author firstly collected accurate surveying data, analyzed theirgeometrical features and constraint relations, and then discussed thearchitectural geometrical property of each case. Finally, the author concludedthat the architectural geometrical property is limited by geometry knowledgeand closely related to the religion, philosophical and political belief ofarchitect which is beyond the geometry.