The City of Domes : a walk with an architect about the courts and palaces of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, with a discussion of its architecture, its sculpture, its mural decorations, its coloring and its lighting, preceded by a history of its growth — John Shaqi
The City of Domes : a walk with an architect about the courts and palaces of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, with a discussion of its architecture, its sculpture, its mural decorations, its coloring and its lighting, preceded by a history of its growthBarry, John D. (John Daniel)
History
The City of Domes : a walk with an architect about the courts and palaces of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, with a discussion of its architecture, its sculpture, its mural decorations, its coloring and its lighting, preceded by a history of its growth
Barry, John D. (John Daniel)
Panama-Pacific International Exposition (1915 : San Francisco, Calif.)
Here the builders had used the Corinthian column, with the acanthus
leaves varied with fruit-designs and with the human figure. "It was a
lucky day for architecture when the column came into use. It doubtless
got its start from a single beam used for support. Then the notion
developed of making it ornamental by fluting it and decorating the top.
In this Exposition three kinds of columns are used, the Doric, which the
Greeks favored, with the very simple top or capital; the Ionic, with the
spiral scroll for the capital, and the Corinthian, with the acanthus
flowing over the top, and the Composite which uses features from all the
other three."
"Do you happen to know how the acanthus design was made? Well, Vitruvius
tells the story. Anyone that wants to get a line on this Exposition
ought to read that book, or, at any rate, to glance through it and to
read parts of it pretty thoroughly. It is called 'The Architecture of
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio.' There's a good translation from the Latin by
Joseph Gwilt. It has become the architect's bible. According to
Vitruvius, the nurse of Corinthian girl who had died carried to the
girl's tomb basket filled with the things that the girl had particularly
liked. She left the basket on the ground near the tomb and covered it
with a tile. It happened that it stood over the root of an acanthus
plant. As the plant grew its foliage pressed up around the basket and
when it reached the tile the leaves were forced to bang back in graceful
curves. Callimachus, a Corinthian architect, noticed the effect and put
it into use."
IV
Under the Tower of Jewels
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account