Proportion and Scale

"nature is the model, variable and infinite, which contains all styles"

- Auguste Rodin

"Harmony can be defined as the resonating play of shapes. Harmony came from pattern. Pattern was measurable. It was understood that a building was a form of music... The old buildings sang."

"Design is intuitive. Intuition is the practical way to design patterns. The goal of design is not to find the correct proportions; the goal is to express life. Intuition is innate judgment. Intuition makes contact with nature. It is time to reintegrate intuition into our daily lives, as to recapture the way of seeing."

- Jonathan Hale, architect
author of The Old Way of Seeing

Perhaps the most famous declaration from De architectura is one still quoted by architects:

"Well buildings hath three conditions: firmness, commodity and delight."

This quote is taken from Sir Henry Wotton's 1624 translation, and is a plain and accurate representation of the passage in Vitruvious (I.iii.2) A modern translation of Wotton's English might render it thus:

"The ideal building has three elements: it is sturdy, useful, and beautiful."
- commentary on Vitruvius' De architectura
Book I, Chapter iii, Paragraph 2