Formal Design in Renaissance Architecture [Paperback]

Michele Furnari (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Rizzoli (May 15, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0847818608
• ISBN-13: 978-0847818600
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 10 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,961,428 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars forgotten treasure, February 20, 2009

By 

curt dilger (phila usa) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Formal Design in Renaissance Architecture (Hardcover)

This is a great book of architectural analysis, and it does, as the title indicates, focus on the formal assembly of classical architectural components-- columns, domes, vaults, arcades, etc. The layout is so exceptional it is worth calling out. A book of formal analysis should be led by the clarity of the visual diagrams, and supported by carefully parsed text which avoids too much editorial rambling and stays focussed on the formal construction. Furnari provides this, with scrupulous scholarship, and has excellent chapter headings, which are an historical and typological collection of building plans distributed across a two page spread, drawn at the same scale, and placed within a time-based chart. These are great, high information displays which reward careful study. As a review of Renaissance building types and evolving spatial concepts, this is one of the best I've seen. Perhaps a digital remake of this volume could benefit from new technology, as one reviewer has suggested, but it's more likely to be ruined by people who will fail to recognize the elegance and rigor of the layout. The abstraction of the drawings, the efforts to discover the formal essence of the architecture, is a big part of the point. Not sure tawdry photorealism would help this pristine book. Highly recommended.

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars formal design in renaissance architecture, January 7, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Formal Design in Renaissance Architecture (Hardcover)

Well done research starting w/ Sacrestia vecchia di Brunelleschi on; the drawings could being done better, w/ the aid of a computer, this could make the book much more appealing.