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Drawings & Numbers: Five Centuries of Digital Design

Graduate · Historical course

Fall 2002

Topics

  • Introduction: Drawings, Numbers, and the Power of (Printed) Images
  • The Primacy of the Word: Vitruvius and the Mystery of his Missing Images
  • Alberti and the (Untrustworthy) Power of Man-made Images
  • Alberti’s Improbable Image-making Technologies
  • Discussion of Final Presentation Topics
  • Image-making Technologies, Architecture, and Identical Replication
  • On Some Semi-automatic Machines for the Drawing of the Architectural Orders Oddly Invented in the Seventeenth Century
  • Final Lecture

Readings

  • Alberti, Leon Battista. “Cahiers d’Humanisme et Renaissance.” In Descriptio Urbis Romae . Vol. 56. Edition critique, traduction et commentaire par Martine Furno et Mario Carpo. Geneva: Droz, 2000.
    Listed reading
  • Benjamin, Walter. L’oeuvre d’art à l’époque de sa reproduction mécanisée , 1936. Reprinted in Écrits français . Edited by J - M Monnoyer. Paris: Gallimard, 1991, pp. 117-192. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechnical Reproduction.” In Illuminations: Essays and Reflections . Translated by Harry Zohn. Edited by Hannah Arendt. New York: Schocken Books, 1968. ISBN: 0805202412.
    Listed reading
  • Buy at MIT Press Carpo, Mario. Architecture in the Age of Printing: Orality, Writing, Typography, and Printed Images in the History of Architectural Theory . Cambridge, MA, and London, England: The MIT Press, 2001. ISBN: 0262032880. ↗
    Listed reading
  • ———. “How do You Imitate a Building That You Have Never Seen? Printed Images, Ancient Models, and Handmade Drawings in Renaissance Architectural Theory.” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 64, no. 2 (2001): 223-234.
    Listed reading
  • ———. “Drawing with Numbers: Geometry and Numeracy in Early-Modern Architectural Design.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 62, no. 4 (2003): 448-469.
    Listed reading
  • Crosby, Alfred W. The Measure of Reality: Quantification and Western Society, 1250-1600 . Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
    Listed reading
  • Ivins, William, Jr. Prints and Visual Communication . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1953. Reprint, The MIT Press, 1992.
    Listed reading
  • Koyré, Alexandre. “Du monde de l’‘à peu près’ à l’univers de la précision.” Critique 28 (1948). Reprinted in Cahiers des Annales. Etudes d’histoire de la pensée philosophique . Vol. 19. Paris: A. Colin, 1961, pp. 311-329. ISBN: 2070712788.
    Listed reading
  • Krautheimer, Richard. “Introduction to an ‘Iconography of Medieval Architecture.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes V (1942): 1-33. Reprinted in Studies in Early Christian, Medieval, and Renaissance Art . New York: New York University Press, 1969, pp. 115-150. ISBN: 0340118628.
    Listed reading
  • Lotz, Wolfgang. “Sull’unità di misura nei disegni di architettura del Cinquecento.” Bollettino del Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio 21 (1979): 223-33.
    Listed reading
  • Smith, David Eugene. History of Mathematics . Vol. 2. Boston and New York: Ginn and Co., 1925. Reprinted in: Special Topics of Elementary Mathematics. New York: Dover, 1958.
    Listed reading
  • Stafford, Barbara Maria, and Frances Terpak. Devices of Wonder: From the World in a Box to Images on a Screen . Los Angeles: The Getty Research Institute, 2001.
    Listed reading
  • Thoenes, Christof. “Il modello ligneo per San Pietro ed il metodo progettuale di Antonio da Sangallo il Giovane.” Annali di Architettura, Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio 9 (1997): 186-199.
    Listed reading
  • ———. “Zur Frage des Massstabs in Architekturzeichnungen der Renaissance.” In Studien zur Künstlerzeichnung . Edited by Stefan Kummer and Georg Satzinger. Stuttgart: Gerd Hatje Verlag, 1990, pp. 38-55. ISBN: 3775703063.
    Listed reading
Sources