Overview
"Vitruvius's ""De Architectura"" is the only major work on architecture to survive from classical antiquity, and until the 18th century it was the text to which all other architectural treatises referred. While European classicists have focused on the factual truth of the text itself, English-speaking architects and architectural theorists have viewed it as a timeless source of valuable metaphors. Departing from both perspectives, Indra Kagis McEwen examines the work's meaning and significance in its own time. Vitruvius wrote ""De Architectura"" for Augustus Caesar, the first Roman emperor, near the end of the 1st century BC. McEwen argues that the imperial project of world dominion shaped Vitruvius's purpose in writing what he calls ""the whole body of architecture"". Specifically, Virtuvius's aim was to present his discipline as the means for making the emperor's body congruent with the imagined body of the world he would rule. Each of the book's four chapters treats a different Vitruvian ""body"". Chapter 1, ""The Angelic Body"", deals with the book as a book, in terms of contemporary events and thought, particularly Stoicism and Stoic theories of language. Chapter 2, ""The Herculean Body"", addresses the book's and its author's relation to Augustus, whose double Vitruvius means the architect to be. Chapter 3, ""The Body Beautiful"", discusses the relation of proportion and geometry to architectural beauty and the role of beauty in forging the new world order. Finally, chapter 4, ""The Body of the King"", explores the nature and unprecedented extent of Augustan building programmes. Included is an examination of the famous statue of Augustus from Prima Porta, sculpted soon after the appearance of ""Da Architectura""."
Full Product Details
Author: Indra Kagis McEwen
Publisher: MIT Press Ltd
Imprint: MIT Press
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 2.60cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.749kg
ISBN: 9780262134156
ISBN 10: 0262134152
Pages: 507
Publication Date: 31 December 2003
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
"""... An exemplar of scholarship in architectural history... recommended."" D. Sachs Choice ""This new, rhetorical Vitruvius deserves to be taken seriously... [a] highly original book."" Vaughan Hart TLS"
This new, rhetorical Vitruvius deserves to be taken seriously ... [a] highly original book. -- Vaughan Hart, TLS
Author Information
Indra Kagis McEwen is a postdoctoral fellow at the Canadian Centre for Architecture and lecturer at the National Theatre School of Canada in Montreal.
