Proportion (architecture) - Sacred Proportions

Sacred Proportions

Among the Cistercians, Gothic, Renaissance, Egyptian, Semitic, Babylonian, Arab, Greek and Roman traditions; the harmonic proportions, human proportions, cosmological/astronomical proportions and orientations, and various aspects of sacred geometry (the vesica piscis), pentagram, golden ratio, and small whole-number ratios were all applied as part of the practice of architectural design.

In the design of European cathedrals the necessary engineering to keep the structures from falling down gradually began to take precedence over or at least to have an influence on aesthetic proportions. Other concerns were symbolic astronomical references such as the towers of the Sun and Moon at Chartres and references to the various astrological and alchemical relationships being discovered by the natural philosophers and sages of the renaissance.

The Roman Mille passus became the Myle of medieval western Europe and Roman arches and architecture while the mia chillioi influenced eastern Europe and its Gothic arches and architecture. Today in the Western hemisphere the foot is longer than the foote because of the researches of Galileo, Gabriel Mouton, Newton and others into the period of a seconds pendulum.

One aspect of proportional systems is to make them as universally applicable as possible, not just to one application but as a universal ideal statement of the proper proportions. There is a relationship between length and width and height; between length and area and between area and volume. Doors and windows are fenestrated. Fenestration is important so that the negative area of openings has a relation to the area of walls. Plans are reflected in sections and elevations. Themes are developed which spin off and relate to but expand upon the themes found in other buildings. Often there is a symbolic sacred geometry which goes outside the proportions of the building to relate to the oservations of the beauty of nature and its proportions in time and space and the elements of natural philosophy.

Then it occurred to someone that there is more to it than just pleasing proportions. Thomas Jefferson wrote of how the substantive scale of public buildings made a statement of government stability and gave a nation consequence.

Going back in time the same logic applied to the Pyramids of Egypt, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepset, the Temple of Solomon, the Treasury of Athens, the Parthenon, and the Cathedrals and Mosques and Corporate Towers. The casinos of Las Vegas and the underwater hotels of Dubai are all competing to be the tallest, the biggest, the brightest, the most exciting to get international trade to come there and do business. In other words the modern business ethos is to be out of proportion, overscaling all the competition.

Part of the practice of feng shui is a proportional system based on the double tatami mat. Feng Shui also includes within it the ideas of cosmic orientation and ordering, as do most systems of "Sacred Proportions".