http://mcewenstudio.com/web/vmm-on-whiteness-descartes-and-grids/
Here's a mini-podcast on Descartes, whiteness, and grids. Let's liberate geometry from empire. Especially in honor of today's American holiday.
Posts are sporadic. Topics span architecture, urban design, planning, and tangents from these. I sometimes include excerpts of academic articles.
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Don't trust the wikipedia. Read the actual Géométrie. I wish I could recommend a good English translation, but they all suck. The French is surprisingly fresh and readable, but admittedly I have only read thoroughly a few chapters and mostly studied the pictures (joke- they are very much not pictures in the Robin Evans sense). The Ethics of Geometey by Lachterman is great.
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Don't trust the wikipedia. Read the actual Géométrie. I wish I could recommend a good English translation, but they all suck. The French is surprisingly fresh and readable, but admittedly I have only read thoroughly a few chapters and mostly studied the pictures (joke- they are very much not pictures in the Robin Evans sense). The Ethics of Geometey by Lachterman is great.
The surface is a cone, and the lines for x y and z don't even necessarily have to meet at 90 degrees. The main work of Géométrie is to use algebra on the problem, and 90 degrees keeps the algebra manageable for someone working with a pencil and paper.
Here's a useful summary of Descartes math (mostly from Geometrie)
- https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-mathematics/#BooOneDesGeoAna
And a good summary of the diagrams in French here - http://www.debart.fr/pdf_dp/geometrie_descartes.pdf
i love that modern geometry is based on a french guy staring at a fly on the ceiling while tripping on ergot spoiled grain
I have since 25 Years studied how female architects could express themself in for ex geometry in architecture.
Theres an tradition in Vitruvius Palladio Le Corbusier.
But where is Vitruvian Woman Most of my study is based on Le Corbusiers Le Modulor
Read more
http://cinearchitecture.blogspot.se/2014/01/about-la-modulor.html
Welcome to contact me if You interested in this issue !
Agneta Eriksson Hilden arkitekt SAR MSA artist developer
info@cinearchitecture.com
Found an excellent cheap paperbook version w/ original drawings, text, and English trans.
Title: The Geometry of Rene Descartes
Author: Rene Descartes; Marcia L. Latham (Translator); David E. Smith (Translator)
ISBN:
9780486600680
List Price: $12.95
Publisher: Dover Publications, Incorporated
Date: 1954-06-01
Binding: Trade Paper
Was into geometry, P. Scott Cohen etc. and all that while studying but totally lost interest in it the last couple of years, your blog has triggered something, I might give that Descartes guy a try. Thanks. Didn't yet listen to the podcast but will later :)
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