Penobscot model?
Ever have the vague feeling the Penobscot Building is staring at Detroit? I superimposed Da Vinci's "Vitruvian Man" over a plan of the building and discovered the building shares certain key proportions with the human body, particularly those of the arms, neck and face.
It is unlikely that the similarity is coincidental. The building's designer, Wirt Rowland, an architect, artist, and musician, was well-studied in symmetry, geometry and proportion--the underlying principles of all art. Once the general size and shape of the building were determined, Rowland would have approached the problem of final design using these tools.
As Rowland sought to find some aesthetic scheme to determine where to place the setbacks in the top section of the building, perhaps he noticed the similarity in the proportions of the building to those of the human body. Rowland might have considered an opportunity to utilize the human body as a model too good to pass up.
Artists, architects and sculptors have used these proportions since ancient times. In Book III of his Ten Books on Architecture, the Roman writer Vitruvius states: "The design of a temple depends on symmetry, the principles of which must be most carefully observed by the architect. Without symmetry and proportion there can be no principles in the design". Vitruvius goes on to describe in great detail the symmetrical relationships between the human body and its various parts.He points out that "it was from the members of the body that (the Greeks) derived the fundamental ideas of the measures which are obviously necessary in all works", and "it was by employing them that the famous painters and sculptors of antiquity attained great renown".
Penobscot model?
Ever have the vague feeling the Penobscot Building is staring at Detroit? I superimposed Da Vinci's "Vitruvian Man" over a plan of the building and discovered the building shares certain key proportions with the human body, particularly those of the arms, neck and face.
It is unlikely that the similarity is coincidental. The building's designer, Wirt Rowland, an architect, artist, and musician, was well-studied in symmetry, geometry and proportion--the underlying principles of all art. Once the general size and shape of the building were determined, Rowland would have approached the problem of final design using these tools.
As Rowland sought to find some aesthetic scheme to determine where to place the setbacks in the top section of the building, perhaps he noticed the similarity in the proportions of the building to those of the human body. Rowland might have considered an opportunity to utilize the human body as a model too good to pass up.
Artists, architects and sculptors have used these proportions since ancient times. In Book III of his Ten Books on Architecture, the Roman writer Vitruvius states: "The design of a temple depends on symmetry, the principles of which must be most carefully observed by the architect. Without symmetry and proportion there can be no principles in the design". Vitruvius goes on to describe in great detail the symmetrical relationships between the human body and its various parts.He points out that "it was from the members of the body that (the Greeks) derived the fundamental ideas of the measures which are obviously necessary in all works", and "it was by employing them that the famous painters and sculptors of antiquity attained great renown".