School of Culture and Communication - Research Publications

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Ian Friend: cryptic architecture

WHITE, ANTHONY (Andrew Baker Art Dealer, 2008)

It is often assumed that structure is the antithesis of chaos, that architecture must define itself against nature’s randomness. But things are not that simple. The Italian Rationalist architects of the 1930s, for example, argued that a mathematical equation known as the Golden Section was visible in nature. The fact that the structure of nautilus shells adhered to this formula was read as evidence that order pervaded the natural world. Similarly, chaos theory has told us that what seems like disorganized activity in nature conforms to patterns that have shape and form.