January 30, 2020
Lecture with Steve Bass
at Carpenter's Hall of Philadelphia
Beauty, Memory, Unity: a Theory of Proportion in Design
Architect Steve Bass presents a view of the proportional idea based in the ancient philosophical systems of Pythagoras, Plato and later Neo-Platonists. In this view number and geometry, the substance of proportion, are endowed with qualitative, harmonic, life-like properties. These ideas are then linked to numerical and geometrical methods of application: the methods used to describe the elements of classical architecture in reference literature such as Vitruvius, Vignola and Palladio. A central theme is the philosophical nature of beauty as a form of the good, beauty’s relation to proportion and its significance in classical art. Such a view of beauty not only fully justifies the study of the classical elements today but could even provide a pathway out of the alienation, anxiety and intentional ugliness of modernism.
February 1, 2020
Workshop with Steve Bass
at Tyler School of Art, Temple University
Theory of Proportion
This one-day workshop, taught by Steve Bass, provides an overview of the concept of proportion as a design tool in traditional architecture. The content includes an explanation of the idea of symbolic or qualitative number; an introduction to Pythagorean and Platonic numerical philosophy; the nature of beauty, its relation to number, and its relation to the good; the derivation of the ancient musical octave and its use as a guide to harmony; a discussion of the Golden Section, its mathematics, geometry, relation to philosophy, and particularly its role as a geometrical “logos”; and the connection of all these ideas to the numerical-geometrical canons of classical architecture. These ideas are applied to the historical archetype of the four column portico, through demonstrations using arithmetic, geometric, and harmonic ratio methods of application in pursuit of the beautiful. The workshop may be taken as an introduction to these ideas or as a review for those who have some background with the subject. Format, pre-requisites, and more here. 6 AIA HSWs.
Steve Bass was born in 1947, grew up in New York City, and has maintained a small personal architectural practice in the New York City area since 1974. He holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Pratt Institute, 1970; a Master of Arts from the Royal College of Art, London, 1991, where he studied under the direction of Dr. Keith Critchlow; and was a participant in the initial Prince of Wales’s Summer Course in Architecture, 1990. Steve is currently a Fellow of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art in New York City where he teaches on the theoretical and applied aspects of proportion and geometry in design. He has also taught at Notre Dame University, the Grand Central Academy of Art, the New York Open Center and other venues. He has written for ICAA’s journal The Classicist, Traditional Building magazine, and American Arts Quarterly. His book, Beauty Memory Unity – A Theory of Proportion in Architecture and Design is now available from Lindisfarne Books.