Vitruvius: Writing the Body of Architecture [Hardcover]

Indra Kagis McEwen (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0262134152 | ISBN-13: 978-0262134156 | Publication Date: October 4, 2002

Vitruvius's De architectura is the only major work on architecture to survive from classical antiquity, and until the eighteenth 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 dedicated De architectura to his patron Augustus Caesar, the first Roman emperor, whose rise to power inspired its composition near the end of the first century B.C. McEwen argues that the imperial project of world dominion shaped Vitruvius's purpose in writing what he calls "the whole body of architecture." Specifically, Vitruvius'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 programs. Included is an examination of the famous statue of Augustus from Prima Porta, sculpted soon after the appearance of De architectura.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Indra McEwen's book is an elegant and imaginative exploration of Vitruvius's intellectual horizons that allows us to look at *De architectura* with new respect. In her hands it transcends the dimensions of a technical handbook and becomes a window onto the Romans' conceptual construction of their world."--Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Director, The British School at Rome, and Professor of Classics, Reading University

"... 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

"Vitruvius has provided architects with guidance across two millennia. At the beginning of a third, McEwen demonstrates, with the authority of considerable scholarship, the significance of an architectural approach in which form and content are in balance. Here we are presented with the kernel of traditional architecture, not just its shell." Robert Tavernor , Professor and Head of Architecture, University of Bath

"With her vast and nuanced knowledge, Indra McEwen is able to restore Vitruvius's oeuvre to its rightful place within the world of the beginning of Augustus's reign. She demonstrates that the intentions and precepts of De architectura conform to the political and religious context of the period to a greater extent than is generally maintained. The continuity she establishes between Vitruvius's 'perfect man,' Polyclitus's Doryphorus, and the idealized statue of Augustus is bold indeed, but proves its relevance upon reflection and compels us to consider the whole of the Vitruvian project in new terms." Pierre Gros , Université de Provence, France

"With her vast and nuanced knowledge, Indra McEwen is able to restore Vitruvius' oeuvre to its rightful place within the world of the beginning of Augustus' reign. She demonstrates that the intentions and precepts of 'De architectura' conform to the political and religious context of the period to a greater extent than is generally maintained. The continuity she establishes between Vitruvius' 'perfect man,' Polycletus's Doryphorus, and the idealized statue of Augustus is bold indeed, but proves its relevance upon reflection and compels us to consider the whole of the Vitruvian project in new terms."--Pierre Gros, Université de Provence, FrancePlease note: Earlier version had author's name misspelled. Apologies.

"Vitruvius has provided architects with guidance across two millennia. At the beginning of a third McEwen demonstrates, with the authority of considerable scholarship, the significance of an architectural approach in which form and content are in balance. Here we are presented with the kernel of traditional architecture, not just its shell."--Robert Tavernor, Professor and Head of Architecture, University of Bath

About the Author

Indra Kagis McEwen is a postdoctoral fellow at the Canadian Centre for Architecture and lecturer at the National Theatre School of Canada in Montreal.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 512 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (October 4, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262134152
• ISBN-13: 978-0262134156
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,962,029 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Guaranteed to bore the heck..., October 1, 2003

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Saul Boulschett "Anyway" (Dry land) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Vitruvius: Writing the Body of Architecture (Hardcover)

out of any reader who thinks s/he loves architecture, confusing architecture's greasy, grimy engine of manifestation as a 'built thing' with the SPECTACLE of architecture. The book deals with the ten books by V. It has a lot of Latin, with references to contemporary intellectual influences, namely Stoicism and Pythagoreanism. As much as I respect the author's labor, I must admit, she does get a little dry at times being so sincere (read pedantic) to her calling as a scholar. There is a bit more information than any thinking practitioner of architecture would really need. But then, any thinking architect will know what to cull from this rich feast/tour of the post Civil War Augustan Roman imperium.
So as to not repeat the content of the existing review, I shall speak more of how this book is relevant now by reminding the reader that the structure of the American Imperium is not all that different from the Roman. Just as it was true of Rome, it is still true today that all 'avante-gardes,' despite their rhetoric, work to actually further the Work of Empire. In fact, their very podium on which they utter their battle cries is built into the very structure of Empire.
The current fascination with the idea of 'body' can be, it turns out, traced back to V himself, who was among the very first to use the term 'corpus' to refer to his writing, as well as to architecture. By corpus, he meant 'whole' as opposed to fragments, and there were many commentaries at the time lying about on many a topic, but all in fragments. So V sets out to put it all together into a co-ordinated whole. According to the author, ORDINATIO is a word that crops up often in V's 10 Books but not as often as RATIO. The book makes it clear why these terms do not carry the meaning when translated into Order and Reason, respectively. This is where the author's surgical description of the Roman conception of the world comes in handy as well as fascinating.
The author, unlike the reviewer, finds her own conclusion "unsettling": namely that architecture as V defines it for the rest of the Western world henceforth (V distinguished it from 'building') is, by fate, inextricably tied to IMPERIUM. That is, Architecture IS the shadow of IMPERIUM.
As the archetype of Empire's Architect, V speaks for all architects who serve Empire, all Empires everywhere. While this book makes the modest claim to be looking only at the 10 Book's Roman context, the content, if read carefully, will reveal how V's "prophecy" about architecture is coming to fulfillment more today than ever before now that architecture can move so much faster and shift shape with digital ease, having long ago jettisoned the baggage of the 'perfect proportion/body.'
V was the first to write about the central role of machines (especially machines of war (killing) and spectacle (laughter and forgetting)) in architecture. Le Corbusier was perhaps the last "classical" architect to bring the circle of fate to its point of origination with his saying that, "A house is a Machine for Living in."