Post on 13-Dec-2015
And the advent of systematic measuring
BODY PROPORTIONS
Vitruvius was an ancient Roman architect who wrote a series of ten books on
architecture - one of the few collections of books of its type that survived into the
Renaissance. In the third volume, which is on the proportions of temples, he states
that these buildings should be based on the proportions of man, because the human
body is the model of perfection. He justifies this by stating that the human
body with arms and legs extended fits into the perfect geometric forms, the circle,
and the square.
VITRUVIUS
An illustration of Vitruvian man by
Cesariano in his Cosmo Vitruvius of 1521 reeks
of failure. Cesariano drew a perfect circle
and square tangent to each other at the four points of the square;
then he forced a figure of a man into the design
so that his hands and feet touch the points.
NOT QUITE THERE…
"Vitruvian Man“
Illustration in the edition of "De
Architectura" by Vitruvius; illustrated
edition by Cesare Cesariano, Como,
Gottardus da Ponte, 1521
STILL, NOT QUITE…
It took the genius of Leonardo da Vinci to solve the problem.
Leonardo started by drawing a perfectly
proportioned man and then found the circle
and square in the figure. The circle and
square are only tangent at one place,
the base.
HERE WE GO!
Will these ‘standard’ measurements be the
same across the world?
HOW TO MEASURE…
INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM OF UNITS
• The standards were published in 1960 as the result of an initiative started in 1948.
• In addition to defining a new realisation of the metric system, the General Conference on Weights and Measures, an organisation set up by the Convention of the Metre in 1875, succeeded in bringing together many international organizations to agree not only the definitions of the SI, but also rules on writing and presenting measurements in a standardised manner around the globe.
• The system has been adopted nearly globally. Only Burma, Liberia and the United States have not adopted SI units as their official system of weights and measures.
INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM OF UNITS