728 research outputs found
Rainbows Between Art and Science. An Unconventional Analysis
No full textWhat do have in common a friar lived in the 17th century, a contemporary American artist of the Land Art movement and an Italian structural engineer popular between the two World Wars? The answer can be certainly found in the common scientific approach of the three authors, but more precisely in their shared passion for the natural phenomenon of rainbow. This paper focuses on the contextualization of studies related to this atmospheric phenomenon starting from the classical period – considering its depictions in the history of science and art. Between the protagonists of this story, whose approaches go from aesthetic researches to natural philosophy, we can find the friar Emmanuel Maignan (1601-1676): a scholar of optics who was the author of one of the most important gnomonic treatises in the Baroque period. Since 1980 the artist Charles Ross has used big glass prisms –precisely oriented– to project the chromatic spectrum within architectural scale installations. Then, in the early decades of the 20th century the engineer Arturo Danusso (1880-1968) developed a method to evaluate the tension stress of the reinforced concrete structures based on photoelasticity. In addition to the examination of the heterogeneous uses of rainbow in art and science, this paper also intends to focus on the relationship between light and optics intended as a ‘universal method’ to study natural phenomena over the centuries
Il teatro Andromeda di Lorenzo Reina, tra performance teatrali e installazioni site-specific
No full textLorenzo Reina (Agrigento, 1960) began the construction of the Andromeda Theatre in 1984 on the heights overlooking the village of Santo Stefano Quisquina in Sicily. The first construction phase
involved the correct orientation of the future theatre, according to the east-west axis, as in the most ancient traditions related to the foundation of sacred buildings. In the first construction phase, the western slope of the hill, the one most open to the landscape towards infinity, was flattened to accommodate the stage space characterised by a small elliptical stage. On the opposite slope, the one to the east, were placed the 108 seats of the stalls, each formed by two parallelepiped blocks of Sabucina stone, placed one on top of the other, positioned to form the counter-projection on the ground of the stars of Andromeda constellation. In the same years, these first elements were surrounded by a drystone wall made of irregular stones, characterised by a number of openings oriented by the artist according to archaeo-astronomical principles linked to the two solstices. If the celestial alignments have remained unchanged over time, the same cannot be said of the complex's tectonic elements: starting from October 2022, Lorenzo Reina has decided to bury the archaic theatre in order to build its definitive version on top of it. The stage space has been enlarged and made circular, while the precarious dry-stone masonry enclosure has been replaced with cyclopean blocks of yellow-gold calcarenite from Sicily. In addition to tracing the theatre's evolution over time, the essay focuses on the analysis of a performance that took place there in 2022, Margherita Stazione 19 by and with Laura Ingiulla, by director Manuel Giliberti, and on the description of a site specific work by the artist Barbara Crowford, Mirror of the sky, installed on the stage of the Andromeda Theatre in 2023
The sphere between stereotomy and cartography. From stony traits to the representation of the cosmos / La sfera tra stereotomia e cartografia. Dai tracciati lapidei alla rappresentazione del cosmo
No full textAll’interno della Cattedrale di Murcia si trova un importante repertorio di sistemi voltati, di grande raffinatezza strutturale e decorativa realizzati con tecniche stereotomiche. Tra le figure coinvolte nella costruzione di questa imponente fabbrica ci sono l’architetto e pittore Jacopo Torni (1476-1526) e il trattatista Alonso de Vandelvira (1544-1626). Il presente contributo si concentra sull’analisi dei tracciati di due originali casi studio presenti nel trattato di Vandelvira: la volta anulare ad asse orizzontale a copertura della Capilla de Junterón e quella semisferica con orditura decorativa elicoidale che interessa lo spazio dell’anti-sagrestia. Verrà quindi offerta una restituzione digitale dei casi studio, destinata a evidenziare le genesi geometrica del loro congiunto lapideo attraverso l’intersezione tra volumi architettonici ed enti geometrici fondamentali.
Il contributo si vuole inoltre interrogare sul rapporto tra stereotomia, astrolabica e cartografia, ipotizzando come gli strumenti per l’osservazione e il calcolo dei fenomeni celesti (astrolabi e planisferi) possano essere stati assunti quali modelli ispiratori per la suddivisione in conci di alcune superfici voltate. Mappe celesti e terrestri, intese come proiezioni sul piano di modelli spaziali, potrebbero quindi aver indirettamente influito sulla storia delle costruzioni attraverso una logica di suddivisione in conci che avrebbe risolto il problema dello sviluppo piano della sfera secondo logiche cartografiche, ovvero approssimando meridiani e paralleli a porzioni di superfici rigate.
In the Murcia Cathedral there is an important repertoire of vaulted systems showing very refined structures and decorations which were built with stereotomic technique. The painter and architect Jacopo Torni (1476-1526) and the essayist Alonso de Vandelvira (1544-1626) are some of the personalities who were involved in it. This paper focuses on the drawings published in Vandelvira’s treatise and analyses in detail two uncommon case studies in the field of this construction technique: the Capilla de Junteron’s vault and the one covering the room of the anti-sacristy. A digital restitution of the case studies will then be offered, with the aim of highlighting the geometric genesis of their stone joint through the intersection between architectural volumes and fundamental geometric entities.
The contribution is also intended to investigate the relationship among stereotomy, astrolabes and cartography. We would like hypothesizing how the tools for the observation and calculation of celestial phenomena (astrolabes and planispheres) may have been assumed as inspiring models for the subdivision into blocks of some vaulted surfaces. Celestial and terrestrial maps, assumed as projections on the plane of spatial models, could therefore have indirectly influenced the history of constructions through a logic of subdivision into blocks that would have solved the problem of the development of the sphere on the plane according to cartographic logics, or by approximating meridians and parallels to portions of ruled surfaces
The skin of void: Luce e vuoto tra forma e materia
No full textil contributo si concentra sulla produzione artistica del prof. Paul Robinson. Il suo metodo di lavoro, che prevede la scansione a raggi X di oggetti rinvenuti presso le studio dell'arch Joze Plecnick a Lubiana, ha offerto l'occasione per alcune riflessioni relativamente alla rappresentazione dell'invisibile e al rapporto tra pieno e vuoto in architettura
Rappresentare i confini : percorsi di ricerca tra scienza e arte
No full textLa collana dà forma e riconoscibilità alle attività di ricerca del Dipartimento di Culture del Progetto dell’Università Iuav di Venezia. Le tematiche affrontate sono riconducibili a diversi gruppi di studio pluridisciplinari. Il progetto come ipotesi di trasformazione del mondo, attraverso lo sviluppo e l’approfondimento delle conoscenze verificate da pratiche sperimentali, è il terreno privilegiato di dibattito. I quaderni fanno riferimento a quattro parole-chiave che indicano possibili luoghi di confronto collettivo. Al Veneto, come ambito territoriale privilegiato, rimandano le prove su campo delle attività di sperimentazione progettuale. Al patrimonio, in rapporto alle sensibilità emergenti nel campo delle risorse non rinnovabili e del paesaggio in una visione ampia e problematica della patrimonializzazione. All’immaginario, riferito a quei processi di elaborazione del progetto che nel mobilitare necessariamente sedimentazioni di valori, figure, memorie, concrezioni visive e narrative, costituiscono ‘immaginari’ plurali e sempre culturalmente situati. Ai territori altri, come dialogo, in una dimensione internazionale, di luoghi e situazioni esito di
storie, concezioni antropologiche e culturali anche molto dissimili dalle nostre
Emmanuel Maignan’s gnomonic wonders in the project for Villa Pamphilj by Francesco Borromini
No full textEsiste un progetto non realizzato nella Roma barocca particolarmente rappresentativo del rapporto tra Architettura e Scienza. I disegni di progetto,
che sono stati attribuiti a Francesco Borromini (1599-1667), si accompagnano ad un manoscritto di Emmanuel Maignan (1601-1676). Il suo testo descrive, tra gli altri, alcuni giochi scientifici relativi a orologi solari a proiezione diretta, catottrici e diottrici.
It exists an unrealised project in the baroque Rome particularly able to stress the relation between Architecture and Science. The drawings of the project
have been attributed to Francesco Borromini (1599-1667), they stay with a handwritten by father Emmanuel Maignan (1601-1676). The text by him
describes, among the others, the scientific games referring to direct, catoptric and dioptric sundials
- …
