| "In the Beaux Arts tradition
the understanding of the role of detail as a generator of the character
of buildings determined that a very peculiar graphic means for the study
of it, the analytique. In this graphic representation of a designed or
surveyed building the details play the predominant role. They are composed
in different scales in the attempt to single out the dialogue among the
parts in the making of the text of the building. Sometimes the building
as a whole is present in the drawing, and generally it is represented at
a minuscule scale, and so it seems a detail among details. The origin of
the analytique and its role in the construing of architecture can be traced
back to the technique of graphic representation and composition developed
by Piranesi in his etchings surveying the Magnificenza of Roman
architecture. These are a graphic interpretation, with a stronger Vichian
bias, of Carlo Lodoli's understanding of the built environment as a sum
of inadequate details to be substituted with more appropriate ones. Another
form of the analytique, illustrating the architecture of Italy, can be
found in the Italian lire notes today." (Frascari, p. 24). |
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