Palladio and Serlio in 3D CAAD. A Contribution to
Classic Language Decoding in Architecture
Gian Piero Calza, Andrea Cammarata
Politecnico di Milano, DiAP – Dept. of Architecture and Planning, Milan, Italy
gianpiero.calza@polimi.it , andrea.cammarata@polimi.it
Abstract. The historical architecture can be studied with the same criteria and
tools used to study modern architecture as the searching the rational bases of
the design concepts and the formal choices of the architectural language; such
search could be carried out using instruments as 3D CAAD BIM tools.
A significant model of this search could be Peter Eisenman' study “Ten
canonical buildings 1950-2000”, where some important modern architecture
works are analytically "deconstructed" in order to restore the logics governing
their "construction". This type of cognitive operation is at the same time a
planning operation, since it "rebuilds" the invisible net of the conceptual order
sustaining the designed and possibly built work. Such operation is all the more
feasible because the architecture refers to a recognizable order principle. This
kind of inquiry method is carried out on some (realized) Palladio‟s villas and
on project of an ideal city by Serlio.
Keywords: CAAD, Proportions, Symmetry, Representation, Analysis, Model
1
General remarks
The workgroup is represented by Gian Piero Calza and Andrea Cammarata,
lecturers, Matteo Cattaneo and Andrea Torri, assistant lecturers, Ermanno Foresti,
Nicola Marinaro, Riccardo Nemeth and Alexandros Oikonomoy (Palladio) and
Ludovico de Sanctis, Filippo Galbiati, Emilio Lombardo, Elisa Sottotetti, Alexandru
Stoica (Serlio), senior students.
The Autodesk Revit Architecture and Graphisoft Archicad1 programs have been
used for these "redesign" and "reconstruction" tutorials of significant works in the
history of architecture.
Without analyzing the detailed differences between the various programs, we will
only describe their potential, especially with reference to the architectural elements
and compositive criteria of the treated works.
The choice of these programs as opposed to the available CAAD modelers is not
prearranged. The students in charge of realizing the models chose the programs to be
used, based on their capabilities and personal preferences. The lecturers requested to
use different programs, in order to make comparisons and face technical issues that
could allow to understand interaction, import and export processes.
1
The aim of this paper, or the authors' task, is not describing these programs and/or their
potential. We will restrict ourselves to describing the parts and the components that we
consider as worth stressing for understanding the work produced and the paper itself. Readers
who wish to deepen the subject can visit www.autodesk.com and www.graphisoft.com.
2
Historical framework
Facing the three-dimensional reconstruction of bygone historical architectures is an
interesting challenge both for professional researchers and designers and for those
who are closing their architecture training.
For the latter, the historical architecture must be studied with the same criteria and
tools used to study modern architecture: i.e. by searching the rational bases on which
the design concepts are based and the formal choices of the architectural language;
such search must be carried out by means of IT tools.
A significant model of this search could be Peter Eisenman' study “Ten canonical
buildings 1950-2000”, where some significant modern architecture works are
analytically "deconstructed" in order to restore the logics governing their
"construction". This type of cognitive operation is at the same time a planning
operation, since it "rebuilds" the invisible net of the conceptual order sustaining the
designed and possibly built work. Such operation is all the more feasible because the
architecture refers to a recognizable order principle.
The whole of classical architecture contains this principle - the Vitruvian treaty is
the unquestionable summa - and the more so we can find in the Renaissance
architecture, which is a true coding of classical architecture, as proven by the treaties
by Alberti, Serlio, Palladio and Vignola. If Alberti's treaty contains no pictures, and
Vignola's just illustrates the individual elements of the five orders, Serlio's and
Palladio's treaties are entirely design manuals, built on a repository of architectural
typologies which constructive and formal components have been recovered through
"design". With a more modeling approach by Serlio, and more related to his own
works by Palladio. Serlio could be considered as the author who organized the basic
elements of the classical architectural languages, the "orders", and he acknowledges
Palladio as the most rigorous interpreter of this language. That's how the choice of
certain works by these authors as quite significant case studies is justified for a
disassembly and re-assembly operation of the "constituent" logics supporting them.
With reference to Eisenman's study again, these architectures can be defined as
"canonical", meaning «the history of architecture as a continual and unremitting
assault on what has been thought to be the persistence of architecture: subject/object,
figure/ground, solid/void, and the part-to-whole relationship».
These concepts are now canonical starting from our authors' work: their works have
therefore become canonical too. «Rather, the idea of the canonical begins to describe
potential methods of analysis, which derive from an interest in reading architecture
in a more flexible and less dogmatic way».
3
Modularity, symmetries, proportions
As we all know, the "theory of proportions" is not just a branch of mathematics and
geometry: it has long been the foundation of architectural design, until the modern
movement depreciated it as a residual of academic architecture.
But Le Corbusier was still using a
proportional measure system based on
the harmonious ratio of the human
body's measures (Modulor). This
system was not as much based on the
theorems of scientific disciplines as it
was on the tradition of architectural and
artistic culture, from Vitruvio to
Leonardo.
But our reference can still be Eisenman,
not only for referring to the abovementioned "rule" concept, but also for
using the "close reading" concept. This
is how he explains it: «Colin Rowe first
taught me how to see what was not
present in a building. Rowe did not
want me to describe what I could
actually see: for example, a three-story
building with a rusticated base,
increasingly less rustication in each of
its upper stories, and with ABCBA
proportional harmonics across the
Fig. 1. A. Palladio, Villa La Rotonda
façade, etc. Rather, Rowe wanted me to
(Vicenza), study of the organizing layouts
see what ideas were implied by what
on iconography from the 1570 Trattato
was physically present. In other words,
(proprietary processing).
less a concern for what the eye sees –
the optical – and more for what the mind see – the visual. This latter idea of “seeing
with the mind” is called here “close reading.».
What exactly is the meaning of "close reading"? Or, as Eisenman put it: “close
reading of what?” A possible answer that we consider significant is the following:
«Close reading can be said to define what has been known until now as the history
of architecture. But for our purpose here, close reading also suggests that a building
has been “written” in such a way as to demand such a reading.». In other words,
"close reading" concerns what the author calls "critical architectural ideas", which
must be seized not in the "optical" coexistent elements of the works, but in the
"visual" ones. The distribution is explicit: «Visuality does not refer to a prima facie
response to image, but rather to what is apparent and implied by aspects of the
building‟s formal organization.».
So, as far as Serlio's and Palladio's architectures are concerned, «each of the
buildings requires close reading.» Each ideal buildings requires it, by embodying an
ideal castrensian city, which dimensions and distributive articulations are ruled by
the Geek historian Polibio (6th book of "Histories"), but recreated by Serlio in his
residential or public architectural typologies. Therefore there is an order, ruling the
urban system based on the geometric and symbolic structure of the Roman castrum;
there is another order ruling the architectural language of building authorities and
their aggregation's criterion into serial sequences based on the reiteration of
planimetric basic modules, defined in their turn by the application of buildingformal basic modules.
Only the decomposition and recomposition of this modular language - through a
computer-assisted "close reading" - accounts for the "architectural ideas" conveyed
by Serlio in his project, highlighted here for the first time.
As with the analysis of Palladio's works, especially his Villas. Here the effort to
"conceptually" read and systematize the designing standard of these country
dwellings by Palladio was already made by Rudolph Wittkower in a famous 1962
essay, where the "geometry of Palladian villas" was compared with the general
"architectural principles" of Humanism.
Fig. 2. A. Palladio, Villa La Rotonda (Vicenza), 3D model (proprietary processing).
Wittkower thought that the reference to a general theory of proportions - which
considered the Palladian method of establishing the room height as one third of the
two surface measures - was exceptional but consistent. No remarks on the
"analytical" feature of the Palladian methods, i.e. his conceiving the work as a
"whole" made of "discrete elements" summing up based on a standard order ruled
and controlled by proportional ratios.
Figure 1 shows how this spatial concept takes shape by solving on the three
dimensions the complex connections between modules' immateriality and building
elements' materiality, between functionality needs and shape needs.
4
Modeling of specific architectural elements
Modeling through the most up-to-date CAAD programs is strictly linked to the use
of modern technologies. We must not forget that these packages are designed and
developed specifically to be suited and functional to the architectural design of
contemporary artifacts and building techniques.
Fig. 3. S. Serlio, city model from the VIII Libro (1548; ed. 2001)
Subduing them to constructive structures and formal language elements belonging to
another age is a fascinating, but complex procedure. Facing an architectural and
stylistic element such as the capital, for instance, was methodologically easy, but
complex from the application viewpoint.
The archive of the two programs that were used do not provide specific models for
drawing classical capitals. We should therefore draw them with a specific modeler,
import them into the database and then insert them as finished architectural element,
with their physical, dimensional and figurative features. Another example to be
considered is column processing.
The mentioned cases refer to finished elements, typical of "classical" architecture,
which on the other hand do not represent a remarkable parametric element from the
viewpoint of CAAD representation. Some capitals were in fact already realized by
other people on the Internet, imported and then appropriately scaled and used.
The processing of constructive and formal elements that necessarily became
parametric - such as trabeations, tympanums, cornices, metopes, triglyphs, doors,
windows, etc. - has been more interesting, because they can be considered as real
"constituent units" in classical architecture.
Fig. 4. S. Serlio, the amphitheater building, iconography from the VIII Libro (1548; ed. 2001)
In these cases, depending on the software, we modeled the various components and
assembled them, keeping the main parametric dimensions and geometries, in order
to easily adapt them to the different usage conditions.
The fundamental building elements, such as arches and especially vaults, proved to
be quite complex. The most frequent and challenging cases are the kinds of vaults:
barrel, cross, pavilion, and depressed round vaults. These are the bearing
"horizontal" elements par excellence, together with the already mentioned "vertical"
elements, i.e. columns and pillars. They are the most commonly used typical
elements of past architecture. Yet, these elements are not very recent and are not
considered by CAAD modelers.
In all these cases we had to apply a manual geometric modeling, through a
mechanical modeler, of the individual elements, and then import them into the
CAAD programs.
All these examples and the ensuing doubts were notified to the manufacturers of the
software programs we used, because we believe that their relationship with history
and architecture is a very important development field, especially in Italy. Not
facilitating, or not making the relationship with classical architectural elements such as those that were mentioned here - more manageable seems to go against the
use of object-oriented parametric CAAD modelers in a field like architectural
restoration or protection and preservation of cultural assets. We also believe that this
type of remark can be extended and applied to all Europe and could be a quite
attractive market sector.
Fig. 5. S. Serlio, the amphitheater building, 3D model (proprietary processing).
5
Geometrical simplifications and detail level
Another methodological aspect that we faced relates to the decorative complexity of
the classic architectural language and its graphical/geometrical representation. The
modelers we used prefer the geometrical element, rather than meshes, patterns and
raster images, for a better object definition. This is a proper and common approach,
allowing to accurately control each part of the final architectural artifact. But the
size and the management of the generated files is a big issue.
We therefore decided to simplify, at least partially, the complexity of the individual
elements. The choices were aimed at balancing the best possible representation and
the available hardware resources, so that each building model, even the most
complex among the many models making up Serlio's ideal city, could be easily
managed by a commercially available standard laptop.
This cut costs and allowed students to work outside the university, more flexibly and
devoting more time to the project.
Another issue faced by the workgroup concerns the project's general graphical
definition degree. This problem is especially linked to Serlio's ideal city
"reconstruction", because the planning definition level of the author's original
project is quite varied. In some cases the building details scale is 1:20, while in
others the scale is 1:200.
This generated some clear homogeneity issues in dealing with the different
buildings. If, as previously stated, we could not dwell upon the details too much to
avoid weighting down the whole, some leveling still had to be done.
Also in this case the aim was a comparison with more detailed works by Serlio or
some other buildings of the same project, trying not to alter the different functions of
the various components, and to obtain an adequate consistency of the individual
parts.
Because of the definition of the
building methodologies we often had
to resort to a comparison with other
architectural works, which project
details were more explanatory (such
as the roofing's building details).
It must be said that both Serlio and
Palladio are among the first treatisers
of architecture who largely used
cross-section views, which were quite
uncommon until that time, but this
has some interpretative limits too. In
the 16th century cross-sections were
not exactly "technical" sections as
they are now, i.e. designed to
highlight the fact that the internal part
is broken down into the crosssectioned parts of the walling, but
were used as general guidelines on
the constructive frame of the
building.
In most cases, in order to understand
how many of the project components
were built, we had to resort to period buildings still present on the Italian territory.
This concerns Palladio more than Serlio, by whom only a few factories still exist in
France.
Fig. 6. S. Serlio, thermal baths building,
porch and arcade detail, 3D model
(proprietary processing).
6
Technology of architecture
What stated above leads to another problem diverging from the representative
aspects. There are very few technological references to cross-sections and, more
generally, to the whole documentation on Serlio's Libro VIII on the ideal city. Of
course the 16th century architecture was not extremely complex from this point of
view, therefore everything that was not represented in Serlio's drawings was argued
from analogy with other still existing coeval building. Also the whole treaty by
Serlio has been an important source of information.
The structural part was linked to the use of simple materials: it was an ideal city, but
of a military kind. References to the Castrum Romano are more than obvious and
known, so we shall not mention them here.
In the case of Palladio, since we have been working only on buildings created by
him, this aspect is less problematic, at least for buildings supported by a rich
documentation. Please note that many Palladian buildings are private property and
are not easily accessible, either by the public or by scholars.
In visitable buildings only the "public" areas are open, such as the main floor, but
private areas, such as servants' rooms, corridors and service areas, warehouses, etc.
are hardly accessible. Unfortunately these are quite interesting areas for scholars,
because they are less known and have a scarce documentation.
Also in the case of La Rotonda by Palladio, since it is private property and its
owners are often present, the access is quite restricted and limited to the main floor.
We therefore lack complete information on many rooms, even more so on the
facilities and the architectural structure.
In short, we proceeded by analyzing the available historical sections and the 1960
overall survey commissioned by the Centro Studi di Architettura “Andrea Palladio”
of Vicenza.
7
Missing architectural elements
As already mentioned, the project documentation in the 16 th century was extremely
scarce and partial. There are no signs of canalizations or facilities. Toilet facilities,
when existing, are not represented. Heating is poor and uses fireplaces and, maybe,
stoves.
There are not many traces of this in Serlio's project, while for Palladio the issue must
be differently tackled. His buildings were modified over the centuries, and the
facilities, services, distribution and usage logics were modernized. Nothing radically
changed the old structure, but the adaptations carried out over the years are now
stratified, are extremely difficult to pinpoint and their origin cannot be traced. So in
the case of Palladio the reconstruction is subject to a crossbreeding process, typical
of "living" organisms that modify over time.
Trying to imagine the original state and/or formulating assumptions would be even
more daring and historically less interesting.
Many of the architectural elements making up the building must already be
imagined and therefore conceived as congruent with the period elements. Structure
systems, floors, roof structure, etc.: all these components must be deduced by
similarity, both in the case of Serlio and of Palladio.
In Serlio, moreover, many commonly used elements are missing because the
buildings have never been built.
8
Project versions
A further issue in the working process is that in the case of Serlio we work on a
project, drafted with 16th century graphical techniques, with many implied data. In
many cases, Serlio also provides for a rather high number of possible versions of the
same building and often such versions are also marked by different detail levels.
Serlio actually proposes different compatible formal solutions, implying that the
detail level and the decorations are chosen during the building stage.
Such flexibility applied to the 16th century is a really innovative concept, sort of a
handbook with different possibilities, depending on the circumstances and
availabilities.
Therefore the workgroup had again to make some choices on the whole "package"
of original proposals. The regular CAAD BIM programs can manage the concept of
"project version" and offer interesting possibilities to represent the various
proposals.
But during this working stage we could not study Serlio's city reconstruction in such
depth. The concept of project version was instead applied to a commonly known
project, which might better highlight this type of processing: the reconstruction of
La Rotonda, by Andrea Palladio.
As we all know, the present villa originates from the Palladian project revised by
Scamozzi during the building stage.
The differences between the two projects are quite obvious and the visible parts of
the buildings, especially the dome and the four staircases at the main floor, are easily
recognizable.
The different vision of the two designers, both extraordinary masters of architecture,
is clearly represented by the differences in the two projects, which convey a
different way of conceiving space.
Studying the complete and never built version by Palladio in depth, as opposed to
the building modified by Scamozzi, is especially significant for the study of the 16 th
century architecture, to which this work is going to contribute.
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