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Wood as an Essential Material in Architectural and Civil Engineering Models from the Renaissance to the Architectural Avant-Garde

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Digital Wood Design

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering ((LNCE,volume 24))

Abstract

The mock-ups, as important project instruments, have accompanied the work of the technician from ancient times. In this process, wood has always been an essential material due mainly to its abundance and properties, particularly its flexibility, strength and even some malleability. This work aims to provide an overview of the history of wooden models through some notable examples of the use of this material in architectural and engineering mock-ups, analysing their purpose from antiquity to the present day, as well as their role today as an alternative or complement to virtual models.

Theme or topic: History of representation in wood design.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Several authors have included in their books references to the work Leonardo’s Kitchen Notebooks, written by the couple of historians Shelagh and Jonathan Routh with the intention of entertaining their readers, giving for certain some of the “supposed facts” that appear there, such as attributing to Leonardo the realization of architectural models with marzipan, possibly inspired by Vasari, which speaks of edible models.

  2. 2.

    The first Spanish translation of Alberti’s work, De re aedificatoria, was published in 1582 under the name of Los diez libros de Architectura de Leon Baptista Alberto and included the following year in the index of forbidden books of the Inquisition.

  3. 3.

    The wooden model was fundamental for the design of the dome, but for its construction Brunelleschi used the Cupulina discovered in 2012, which he kept secret from his competitors. With its almost three meters in diameter, it was used to test the famous structural placement of the herringbone bricks that saved him a huge scaffolding.

  4. 4.

    Among others, Juan Luis Blanco Mozo, lecturer at the Department of History and Art Theory of the Autónoma University of Madrid, in the conference entitled “Idea and Project. Giovanni Battista Crescenzi and the model of the Alcázar de Madrid”, given during the conferences organised by the National Archaeological Museum of Spain on 22 February 2018 (the conference is recorded and can be consulted online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi4Rkf4rWmo).

  5. 5.

    Juan Gómez de Mora (1586–1648) is credited with works in the Alcázar, the Plaza Mayor, the Prison of the Court of Madrid—currently the Palace of Santa Cruz, originally attributed to Crescenzi—and the Casa de la Villa, among others.

  6. 6.

    The successive modifications and enlargements of the museum can be consulted at: https://www.museodelprado.es/museo/ampliacion-jeronimos.

  7. 7.

    https://www.museodelprado.es/coleccion/obra-de-arte/maqueta-o-modelo-del-tercer-proyecto-de-juan-de/af672159-8cbd-4714-a4c0-6fb71e676044?searchid=8e8d02ca-3e32-9d30-13cc-a5a72b6824c0.

  8. 8.

    http://correr.visitmuve.it/en/eventi-en/archivio-eventi-en/wooden-architectural-scale-models-from-the-18th-century-presentation/2016/10/18211/louis-vuitton-wooden-architectural-models-restoration/.

  9. 9.

    Idem.

  10. 10.

    The International Stratigraphy Commission, belonging to the International Union of Geological Sciences, is studying the incorporation of the term Anthropocene within the geological time scale.

  11. 11.

    De izquierda a derecha, Sofía Dymshits-Tolstaia, Tatlin; Tevel Shapiro e Iósif Meerzon, 1920.

  12. 12.

    https://www.mimoa.eu/projects/Belgium/Antwerp/Huis%20van%20Roosmalen/.

  13. 13.

    https://www.designboom.com/architecture/em2n-draws-from-adolf-loos-for-parsian-social-housing/.

  14. 14.

    http://www.sardegnacultura.it/j/v/253?s=19398&v=2&c=2488&c1=2130&t=1.

  15. 15.

    The 21 February 2002 the President of the institution announced that «Frank Gehry, Alvaro Siza, HsinMing Fung and Craig Hodgetts have been chosen to plan a series of “significant structures”» (http://www2.artcenter.edu/news/wire/02-02-21.html, last access: 03/15/2018).

  16. 16.

    Master of the carpentry workshop of the School of Beaux-Arts of Cadiz.

  17. 17.

    http://bibliotecadigital.rah.es/dgbrah/es/consulta/registro.cmd?id=12892.

  18. 18.

    http://www.bibliotecavirtualmadrid.org/bvmadrid_publicacion/i18n/consulta/registro.cmd?id=725.

  19. 19.

    According to the digital library of the Community of Madrid, cavalier perspective, which is wrong.

  20. 20.

    http://www.bne.es/es/Micrositios/Exposiciones/BNE300/resources/img/300anos_160_01_gr.jpg.

  21. 21.

    Project for Arnold Aronoff in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (https://eisenmanarchitects.com/House-X-1975).

  22. 22.

    Sculptural element for the entrance hall of the ARUP Offices, Madrid. Design and production: Controlmad. Sergio Alonso del Campo and Diego García Cuevas. Contributors: Víctor Armas and Aitor Jaurrieta. The software used was Rhinoceros, Rhinonest and Grasshopper. See http://www.tectonica.es/espacio-tectonica/pdf/controlmad.pdf.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Higher Technical University College of Architecture, University of La Coruña, Galicia, Spain

    José Antonio Franco Taboada

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  1. José Antonio Franco Taboada
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Correspondence to José Antonio Franco Taboada .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Polo di Ingegneria, PERUGIA, Perugia, Italy

    Fabio Bianconi

  2. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy

    Marco Filippucci

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Franco Taboada, J.A. (2019). Wood as an Essential Material in Architectural and Civil Engineering Models from the Renaissance to the Architectural Avant-Garde. In: Bianconi, F., Filippucci, M. (eds) Digital Wood Design. Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering, vol 24. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03676-8_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03676-8_10

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-03676-8

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