The Four Books on Architecture

Rating:
Summary: Andrea Palladio: The Four Books on Architecture
Review: One of the most celebrated and influential of architectural texts has been republished in a highly readable version by Robert Tavernor and Richard Schofield (the first new English translation since 1738!) with facsimiles of Palladio's woodcuts, correctly placed in the text. It makes a wonderful introduction to the timeless principles of architecture and to Palladio's dazzling oeuvre. How agreeable it would be to browse this classic in the shade of the Villa Rotunda on a hot summer afternoon. (Michael Webb is the book reviewer for LA Architect magazine.)

Rating:
Summary: Modern Translation Details Ancient Architectural Secrets
Review: Palladio was not the first to publish a book illustrating principles of classical architecture but he was the most convincing. Palladio's finely detailed, measured wood cut illustration --reproduced at a slightly smaller scale in this translation--, made the long lost principles of Roman architecture and construction easy to understand.

In his Four Books of Architecture of 1570, Andrea Palladio balanced illustrations of ancient Roman construction, that he had drawn from observing ruins, with brief, straightforward practical interpretations of historical descriptions of Roman architectural design and construction from Vitruvius's First Century BC Treatise on Roman And Greek architecture, which had been found a century before in a Swiss monastery. To this treatise on Roman architecture, Palladio added examples of his own imaginative designs to demonstrate how ancient principles of engineering, planning, construction and decoration could enhance public and private buildings of his day.

Palladio's successful Four Books were published and translated many times. They became one of the most cited references for architects in the West, where they dominated architectural studies until academic training for architects became standard in the 19th century. Variations on Palladio's designs are everywhere. Thomas Jefferson's house, Montecello, is one of the best known examples in the U.S.. Jefferson owned a copy of Palladio's 1570 edition of the Four Books.

Robert Tavernor and Richard Schofield's well written, carefully annotated scholarly, 1997 translation of Palladio's Four Books --the first new English translation since 1738-- from MIT Press is a pleasure to read for what it reveals much about both great principles and fine detail of classical design and construction practices. The text explains how Palladio organized rooms in urban palaces as well as how he arranged living, storage and work areas in his rural villas to take advantage of the climate. Practical details about construction include building foundations, sizing windows, designing classical columns as well as instructions for to selecting and harvesting timber: Cut trees only in the fall after the sap has run out. Cure the lumber, covered with excrement, under a shelter for two years to prevent rot.

The text also details how to quarry, cut and set stone --always in place--, how to prepare cement, mortar and concrete and how to build masonry formed concrete walls, as the Romans did. The reinforced masonry used today is the same in principle as Roman walls. We have merely modified the pratice in this century with larger hollow bricks, Portland cement and steel reinforcing.

It's not possible to understand Roman and modern architectural history in the West or building technology with without studying Palladio. Original editions of Palladio's 1570 book are available in a few rare book libraries. Occasionally a copy turns up in rare book auctions. Robert Tavernor's new English translation of the Four Books makes Palladio accessible to modern English readers.

Rating:
Summary: An exemplary edition
Review: This is one of the most important of architectural manuals. Palladio's influence was enormous; one magnificent example of American Palladianism is Thomas Jefferson's University of Virginia Library; others can be found in the work of Philip Johnson. The design of The Four Books of Architecture is one of the reasons for this success. Drawings and plans fill the page, comments are sparing, invitations to use the eye and imagination as well as practical instructions. In this respect Palladio's book resembles that of the equally influential, equally visionary Paul Klee in his Pedagogical Sketchbooks. Seeing so much of his influence in public buildings, it is hard not to find the original sourcebook refreshing. I'd suggest looking through it alongside a general survey of the buildings themselves, like translator Robert Tavernor's Palladio and Palladianism (in Thames and Hudson's World of Art series). Tavernor has done his job very well. The english translation is neither anachronistic nor colloquial, but as lucid as the original. The book's designers have really done brilliantly in finding the most suitable typefaces to match Palladio's original woodcuts and in choosing a size and format, down to the weight and colour of the paper, that makes these ideas handsome and vivid now. An exemplary edition. Richard Bernas.