Stereotomy gets finally codified, merging Construction Science and proto-Projective Geometry, when Philibert de L'Orme writes and then publishes his theoretic and applied knowledge in his Le Premiere Tome de l'Architecture (Paris, 1567). Today the golden age of Stereotomy is almost forgotten by architects and builders, even in its homeland France: Rationalism, Modernism, and steelwork definitively shifted the interests of architects and engineers towards totally different conceptions, and shapes. In recent years there have been only few pale attempts to update and focus on the stereotomic approach, even though the CAD softwares and other digital tools seem to hold great possibilities for further developments. The premises of our achievements are both technical, and cultural in a wider meaning. On one side, with the new technologies we can not only virtually "sculpt" even complex curved surfaces, but also carve these elements with CNC pantographs in a flexible way, as in a new form of custom crafts. On the other side, it could become determinant to consider this technical opportunity in relation to the chosen architectural paradigms adopted and celebrated during the digital era, as a manifestation of contemporary theoretical models. For example deformation (in Vidler’s meaning) - be it obtained with topological or other manipulations on the environmental surfaces - could be provided with a different type of coherence in regards of structure by means of Stereotomy. It will be interesting to understand if this approach will be proved to fit the conceptual and formal demand of architects for today's society, since architecture appears to be in the need to overcome the contradictions of the post-modernist movement; in the meantime, it could be useful to make the designers aware of its existence and of its theoretical and practical instruments, starting again from the obviously analogical drawings that come from the past to better understand which directions are available today, with the digital machines.
From Analogic to Digital Stereotomy: Rediscovering a Forgotten Instrument for the Architecture of the Digital Era
BERGAMO, FRANCESCO;LIVA, GABRIELLA
2012-01-01
Abstract
Stereotomy gets finally codified, merging Construction Science and proto-Projective Geometry, when Philibert de L'Orme writes and then publishes his theoretic and applied knowledge in his Le Premiere Tome de l'Architecture (Paris, 1567). Today the golden age of Stereotomy is almost forgotten by architects and builders, even in its homeland France: Rationalism, Modernism, and steelwork definitively shifted the interests of architects and engineers towards totally different conceptions, and shapes. In recent years there have been only few pale attempts to update and focus on the stereotomic approach, even though the CAD softwares and other digital tools seem to hold great possibilities for further developments. The premises of our achievements are both technical, and cultural in a wider meaning. On one side, with the new technologies we can not only virtually "sculpt" even complex curved surfaces, but also carve these elements with CNC pantographs in a flexible way, as in a new form of custom crafts. On the other side, it could become determinant to consider this technical opportunity in relation to the chosen architectural paradigms adopted and celebrated during the digital era, as a manifestation of contemporary theoretical models. For example deformation (in Vidler’s meaning) - be it obtained with topological or other manipulations on the environmental surfaces - could be provided with a different type of coherence in regards of structure by means of Stereotomy. It will be interesting to understand if this approach will be proved to fit the conceptual and formal demand of architects for today's society, since architecture appears to be in the need to overcome the contradictions of the post-modernist movement; in the meantime, it could be useful to make the designers aware of its existence and of its theoretical and practical instruments, starting again from the obviously analogical drawings that come from the past to better understand which directions are available today, with the digital machines.
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