A medida como suporte da Arquitetura.

Abstract

This dissertation emphasizes the importance of measure in architecture. Measure is always omnipresent in all design process and in the construction of architecture. It defines the human body actions in space, determines physical modulation and the experiment in space, participates on architecture composition process and it is a way of project control playing a fundamental role in the construction of architecture. The aim of this essay is to study the presence, the relationships, the evolution and the influence of measure in the architecture composition process and understand the variousness of measure systems, modules and proportions methods used by architects in the past. It's important to analyze also the necessity of precision, proportion and scale in the construction of architecture, the relationship between architecture, man and his body as well as the transformation, in architecture, caused also by the appearance of the new standard unit of length (meter). The study is divided into two parts. On the first one we focus on the presence of the measure in architecture in the past. We begin by studying the source of the first measure systems, followed by a brief explanation of historical evolution of metrology in Portugal. Then we analyze the measure (the proportion methods, disposition and modulation), used by a group of ancient architects such as Vitrúvio, Alberti, Filarete, Martini, Serlio, Vignola, Palladio and Perrault, chronologically placed between the first century b. C. and the seventeenth century a. C. On the second one we focus the presence of the measure in architecture in the Modernity comprehending the period between the eighteenth century and the twentieth century. We begin with a brief explanation about the slow establishment, use and definition of the meter. Next we analyze the different series of standardized measures created and used by a group of modern architects such as Corbusier e Neufert. This is a time where the architectonic spirit is associated with industrial development and the desire of metric normalization of the entire architecture, answering to the mass production and to the needs of this period. Through the study of these two parts which develop chronologically we show the origin, diversity, evolution and the different measure systems, modules and proportions methods use in architecture, between Antiquity and Modernity. Show also the essential role that measure plays in the architecture. Measure is one of the main basis of architecture.