Francis Ching's Proportion and Scale

Golden Section:

The textbook defines the "golden section" as, "the ratio between two sections of a line, or the two dimensions of a plane figure, in which the lesser of the two is to the greater as the greater is to the sum of both.".

The Orders:

To the Greeks and Romans of classical antiquity, the Orders represented in their proportioning of elements the perfect expression of beauty and harmony. The Orders are not based on a fixed unit of measurement; the intention was to ensure that all of the parts of any one building were proportionate and in harmony with each other.

Renaissance Theories:

Renaissance architects believed that architecture was mathematics translated into spatial units. Applying Pythagora's theory of means to the ratios of the intervals of the Greek musical scale, they developed an unbroken progression of ratios that formed the basis for the proportions of their architecture.

The Modular:

Le Corbusier developed his proportioning system, the Modular, to order "the dimensions of that which contains and that which is contained." And according to the textbook, "He saw the measuring tools of the Greeks, Egyptians, and other high civilizations as being “infinitely rich and subtle because they formed part of the mathematics of the human body, gracious, elegant, and firm, the source of that harmony which moves us, beauty."

The "Ken":

The traditional Japanese unit of measure, the shaku, was imported from China and is almost the equivalent to the English foot and divisible into decimal units. However, the "ken", was introduced in the latter half of Japan's Middle Ages. Although the "ken" was originally used to designate the interval between two columns and varied in size, the "ken" was soon standardized for residential architecture.

Anthropomorphic:

Anthropometry refers to the measurement of the size and proportions of the human body. Anthropometric proportioning methods seek not abstract or symbolic ratios, but functional ones.

Scale:

Scale refers to how we perceive or judge the size of something in relation to something else.

Citations:

Ching, F. D. K. (2015). Architecture Form, Space, and Order. John Wiley & Sons Inc.