It is exceedingly probable that many of
these apparent geometric coincidences really arise, quite naturally,
from the employment of some fixed measure of division in setting out
buildings. Thus, if an apartment of somewhere about 30 feet by 25 feet
is to be set out, the builder employing a foot measure naturally sets
out exactly 30 feet one way and 25 feet the other way. It is easier and
simpler to do so than to take chance fractional measurements. Then comes
your geometrical theorist, and observes that "the apartment is planned
precisely in the proportion of six to five." So it is, but it is only
the philosophy of the measuring-tape, after all. Secondly, it is a
question whether the value of this geometrical basis is so great as has
sometimes been argued, seeing that the results of it in most cases
cannot be judged by the eye. If, for instance, the room we are in were
nearly in the proportion of seven in length to five in width, I doubt
whether any of us here could tell by looking at it whether it were truly
so or not, or even, if it were a foot out one way or the other, in which
direction the excess lay; and if this be the case, the advantage of such
a geometrical basis must be rather imaginary than real.
[Illustration: Figs. 26 through 28]
Having spoken of plan as the basis of design, I should wish to conclude
this lecture by suggesting also, what has never to my knowledge been
prominently brought forward, that the plan itself, apart from any
consideration of what we may build up upon it, is actually a form of
artistic thought, of architectural poetry, so to speak.
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