Spatial ordering systems in contemporary architecture and interior architecture based on any form of meaningful geometry is rare, the geometric ordering principles taken for granted in the great architecture of history are no longer understood, are ignored or derided as being stultifying and formulaic. That without exception these principles were based firmly on the numbers, patterns and geometries to be found in the natural world counts for very little. Our understanding of, and connection with, nature has deteriorated to such an extent that we are virtual foreigners in our land. That such a relationship between the great architecture of the past and its context was understood to be of fundamental importance, reflecting a healthy relationship between the building and the natural world, is of no importance in an age when the personal aesthetic sensitivities, predilections and tastes of the artist/designer, no matter how ill informed, are held to be the ultimate determinant of the configuration and nature of the built fabric. The gulf that has opened between humankind and the natural environment. so blindingly obvious in the ever-increasing environmental degradation wrought by human hands, cannot be argued to be unrelated to this ignorance.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37113/ij.v3i1

Published: 29.05.2002