Posted by d on August 17, 2002 at 00:00:59:Over the past months I have noticed that the ancient use of the technique known as "entasis' is mentioned occasionally.
Almost all architects seem familiar wih the term and its use in the Greek temples, etc.
Furthermore, it is given credence as an actual phenomenon; entasis seems accepted as a method of subliminally influencing the eye of the observer so that, for example, the parallel sides of columns do not seem to narrow at their middles...
But this raises a question: it would seem that the same architect who appreciates the subtleties of ancient building, and even accepts the theory of subliminal corrections and its application in ancient work, rejects this in modern design.
I may be wrong (not being an architect) but it seems to me that the modernist rejects entases in his designs not only because ,in practice, variations in parallelism will conflict with the assembly-line origin of building materials; but also, because modernisn must eschew concessions to the mechanics of visual perception in order to achieve what is seen as a higher theoretic or even ideological goal: the production of "explicit" forms, whose attributes are unambiguously manifest to all as products of their method of construction.
In fact, the "subtlety" performed by the Greeks seems, perhaps, regarded as optical illusion and thus a "dishonesty" by modern designers.
But of course I am supposing, in this commentary, that modern architects do not make use of entasis; does anyone know whether this is ,in fact , true; and what the view of modernists is regarding this ancient practise?
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