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Beauty Memory Unity: A Theory of Proportion in Architecture Paperback – May 1, 2019

by Steve Bass (Author), Keith Critchlow (Foreword)

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Ancient architects and artists had a way of striking resonant chords in those who viewed of their work. However, this skill seems to have disappeared. Beauty Memory Unity points toward a possibility of regaining a new sense of unity in the visual arts through a combination of theoretical ideas and practical methods, of narrative description and visual exercises.

Proportion―the use of number and geometry as the tools of design―is seen in the context of the search for the Beautiful, a state the soul achieves when one recognizes the phenomenon of unity. From the theoretical symbolic mathematics of the Pythagoreans, Platonists, and Neo-Platonists, Steve Bass proposes an aesthetic theory―a way of approaching beauty―rooted in the idea of psyche, expressed through the ancient arts and sciences of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.

“All those possessing even a small share of good sense always call upon the Divinity at the outset of any undertaking, small or great; therefore we, who are proposing to present a discourse concerning the universe, must invoke the Gods and Goddesses, praying that all we say may be approved by them in the first place, and second by us. Grant then that we have duly invoked the Deities; we must also invoke ourselves so that you may most easily learn, and I may most clearly expound on the subjects before us.

“Thus Socrates, if in our treatment of a great host of matters regarding the Gods and the generation of the Universe we prove unable to give accounts that are always in all respects self-consistent and perfectly exact, do not be surprised; rather we should be content if we can furnish accounts that are inferior to none in likelihood, remembering that both I who speak and you who judge are but human creatures, so that it becomes us to accept the likely account of these matters and forebear to search beyond it.” ―Plato (Timaeus 27)

Print length

372 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Lindisfarne Books
Publication date

May 1, 2019
Dimensions

8.9 x 0.7 x 12 inches
ISBN-10

1584209674
ISBN-13

978-1584209676
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Steve Bass was born in 1947 in Brooklyn, New York. He graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School in 1965 and holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Pratt Institute, 1970. He received a Master of Arts from the Royal College of Art, London, 1991, where he studied under the direction of Dr. Keith Crichlow and participated in the initial Prince of Wales’ Summer Course in Architecture in 1990. In 1974 he began his architectural practice, which has consisted of a variety of modestly scaled commercial and residential projects, mostly in the New York City area. Since 1992, Steve Bass has taught a variety of classical subjects, focusing on theoretical and practical aspects of proportion at the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art in New York City. From 2006 to 2008, he was Visiting Professor of Architecture at Notre Dame University. Mr. Bass is currently a Fellow of the ICAA, where he continues to teach. He has written for the ICAA journal, The Classicist; for Traditional Building magazine; and for American Arts Quarterly.

Prof. Keith Critchlow (1933–2020) was a well-known lecturer and author and a founding member of Research Into Lost Knowledge Organization (RILKO), a founding member and Director of Studies of Kairos, and a founding member and President of the Temenos Academy. He was Professor Emeritus and founder of the Visual Islamic and Traditional Arts Programme at the Royal College of Art, now the Prince’s School of Traditional Arts. Trained as a painter, Critchlow discovered geometry intuitively. A period of intensive geometric practice (and work with Buckminster Fuller) led him to the recognition that the universal principles of geometry are revealed and confirmed both by the area of design where art and mathematics meet and in the study of nature and ancient and medieval sacred cosmological stone, temple, cathedral, and mosque architectures. Keith Critchlow had been a senior lecturer at the Architectural Association in London, and taught Islamic Art at the Royal College of Art. He also participated as geometer in various sacred architectural projects. His books include Islamic Patterns: An Analytical and Cosmological Approach (1999); Time Stands Still: New Light on Megalithic Science (2007); and The Hidden Geometry of Flowers: Living Rhythms, Form, and Number (2011).

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Lindisfarne Books (May 1, 2019)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 372 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1584209674
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1584209676
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.73 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.9 x 0.7 x 12 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #203,046 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #45 in Architectural Criticism
- #97 in Architectural Drafting & Presentation

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jewmakin

For those who are interested in what lies behind the Classical architectural features we admire

Reviewed in the United States on April 21, 2020

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The author invites us on a journey (with compass and ruler in hand) beginning at the dawn of civilisation, a search for beauty through number, geometry, and harmony. He takes on the subject in a manner that maintains its mystery yet feels comprehensible and completely human.

3 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Proportion explained

Reviewed in the United States on November 9, 2020

Verified Purchase

Great review of use of proportion, great examples and how to apply to projects.

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David Arbogast

Contemporary Numerology for Contemporary Classical Architects

Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2022

For centuries architects have striven to find meaning in the rather prosaic task of designing and constructing buildings. The Renaissance saw a huge upsurge in this interest which saw its final gasp with W. R. Lethaby's "Architecture, Mysticism, and Myth" at the beginning of the twentieth century. Modernist apologists of all sorts, including Frank Lloyd Wright, tried their hand at it, as well, but in reaction to what they perceived to be the dead hand of slavish imitation.

With the decreased interest in Modernism in architecture (as in other fields) has come an increased interest in historicism. In architecture a new generation of neo-neo-neo-neo Classicists, or, more easily defined, contemporary Classicists, has developed. Most are quite content to revive motifs from historic architecture and use them with varying degrees of verisimilitude on new buildings reflecting contemporary needs and lifestyles. None have yet recreated ancient Greek temples with absolute precision to be used by contemporary society.

What this movement has lacked thus far is an apologist who can explain all the hidden and esoteric meanings that provide an almost-divine imprimatur for Classical architecture. In short, the search for the divine, infallible Truth concerning architecture has now been resumed by Steve Bass. It is a search which began with the rediscovery of Vitruvius in the Renaissance which led to the archeological examination of the surviving structures (not unlike the search for the original inspired scriptures of the Bible) but which ended up with great contradictions in the archaeological record which could not be harmonized, leading to various proponents of the Five Order of Classical Architecture asserting their various versions of the Truth

This book is a curious mashup of architectural history (only Western unlike Lethaby's tome and focused on Classical architecture with brief coverage of Islamic, Romanesque, and Gothic) and mysticism. Mr. Bass has done his homework and in the heady brew of the book has supplied an overview of the findings of other Classicists intermingled with mystical strands ranging from snippets of the Bible to Freemasonry.

If one is inclined to an interest in arcane postulations and theories in architecture, then this is a really great book. Even more interesting, in my opinion, is Lethaby's book. On the other hand, if one is of a pragmatic turn of mind, then most of this book reads as silly twaddle.

2 people found this helpful

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Catesby Leigh

The Magic of Proportion

Reviewed in the United States on December 19, 2020

Steve Bass has produced an important work based on long years of study that assesses the classical architectural tradition in relation to a magico-mystic belief system he dates back to Imhotep, the architect of Djoser's Stepped Pyramid. As regards the chain of continuity within that tradition--mainly associated with the Pythagoreans, Orphics, and Plato's Timaeus--Bass detects what might strike many as improbable links, such as the Knights Templar, or, at the chain's end, Thomas Jefferson. Yet in his many impressive drawings he deploys mystic, ontological concepts of the power of number to shed valuable light on the nature of architectural proportion, whether in the form of geometric "trans-rational" ratios--especially the Golden Proportion--or harmonic ratios involving small whole numbers, or arithmetic matrices that were quite possibly used by the likes of Vitruvius to translate essentially qualitative geometric and harmonic systems into quantitative specifications workmen could use at the building site. Bass's own mystic convictions also fuel stimulating discussion of architectural and artistic developments and broader cultural trends over the course of Western civilization. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Enlightenment comes in for harsh scrutiny. It is worth noting that this is a theoretical opus. Bass is, on the whole, careful not to overstate his case. Even classicists of an unmystical bent will benefit from reading this book.

3 people found this helpful

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Peter Pennoyer

A seminal work at the heart of architecture

Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2020

Steve Bass has produced a masterwork on the classical cannon. This painstaking exploration of the orders, proportion, harmony and beauty in architecture is a rich source for designers and scholars alike.

4 people found this helpful

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