2 proportional systems
Introduction: Two Kinds of Proportion
The subject of architectural proportional systems in the history of architecture, the topic of this special collection of essays in Architectural Histories, has long been characterized by a fundamental ambiguity: the word and concept of proportion simultaneously signify two unrelated and in some ways opposite meanings. Proportion can refer to ratios, or it can refer to architectural beauty. In this introduction to the papers that follow, Matthew A. Cohen proposes a simple clarification of this ambiguity as a framework for continued discussion of this subject: that whenever scholars use the word proportion, they specify whether they intend ‘proportion-as-ratio’ or ‘proportion-as-beauty’.
