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Show principles the Egyptians had been using for some time. Euclid gave us the plane geometry that is studied by all high school students today. Stephen Barker philosopher of mathematics asks the pertinent question: Are points then just ideas in our minds? Are they fictions with which we delude ourselves. Or are they real things but of an unobservable kind? In either case, why is it that the principles of geometry can be applied to the world by architects and engineers?. . . It is hard to see how the study of geometry can have any significance unless it involves pursuit of truth about space. (7) "The truth about space" was given in Euclid's definition. To quote precisely "...that which has no part" is a definition of nothing. Nothing organic or inorganic is without parts. Euclid gave us the ultimate concept of utter abstraction. Frank Lloyd Wright in his quest for the "organic" gave us the ultimate indictment of the profession of architecture. Unknowingly: Architecture is abstract. Abstract form is the pattern of the essential. It is, we may see, spirit in objectified forms. Strictly speaking, abstraction has no reality except as it is embodied in materials. Realization of form is always geometrical. That is to say, it is mathematic. We call it pattern. Geometry is the obvious framework upon which nature works to keep her scale in "designing." (8) Where should I start? Wright has given us the humbuggery of 7000 years of biiilding. Spirit is not "objectified form" (9) and such form is not the "essential" on the contrary it destroys the very thing you're trying to observe in the infinite variety of nature. True "abstraction has no reality" why then have it be the hall mark of the environment. Living "form" is certainly not "geometrical." Geometry is "mathematic" but not a model of spacial reality. And -20- |