Marco Carpiceci

The Quincunx as Architectural Structure. Geometry and Digital Reconstructions After Leonardo Da Vinci’s Centralized Plan Temples

The success of the Quincunx plan in the religious architecture of 15th and 16th century Italy is generally related to the suggestions coming from some monumental sacred buildings, from the places where these buildings are located and their ancient and oriental origin. Added to this, this scheme demonstrated an ability to adapt to different sites and themes and to be contaminated by forms and types coming from distant sources. Some of Leonardo da Vinci’s studies on centralized temples, which are collected in the Codex B at the Institute de France, in the Codex Ashburnham 2037, and in the Codex Atlanticus, testify above all the value of the Quincunx as a flexible geometric and compositional device with great semantic and didactic potential, providing a medium for the subsequent 16th century developments by Bramante and his Roman followers.

Between Antinomy and Symmetry. Architectural Drawings of Presentation and Comparison in the XVI Century

As part of a wider enquiry on the historical typologies of architectural representation, this essay addresses a classification of XVI century architecture drawings that exploit the presence of one or more symmetry axes in the represented building. This kind of split drawings have never been studied as a specific group of works inspired by the specific peculiarities of buildings but only occasionally to mark a new role of architectural drawing. Actually, symmetry combined to orthogonal projections allowed the development of graphic procedures with peculiar goals. Initially restricted into the circle of artist and his assistants, they were gradually addressed to a wider audience. They show a diffuse attitude to draw or copy only half-building; to match interior with exterior; to combine distant elements from a building; to compare alternatives; to confront geometry and perspective effect. All of these practices deeply changed the visual code of architects, evolved the relationship between the artist and commitment; and improved the ability of ordinary people to understand partial and analytical drawings.

Representation Tools for Pedestrian and Cyclistic Fruition of Urban Area

The fruition of a natural or anthropic territory depends basically by the access and moving condition inside the area. These aspects are related both to the paths network characteristics, like slopes and road accessibility, crossing methods and usability. In addition, a second aspect, which combine all the firsts, is represented by the way in which humans decide to experience this territory, creating a relationship between the way of thinking and movement, contextualizing their thought identity with the external environment. Starting from an analysis that consider both the relation between thought and movement, merging personal and collective identity, and the historical evolution of human’s walking and cycling, the article suggests a critical analysis about accessibility of an urban area close to Rome centre, using drawing and representation tools to support and visualize this process, in order to suggest a simplified and optimized territory access, meanwhile trying to keep alive and foster the basic connection between thinking and movement.