9 - From astronomy to architecture
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 October 2009
Summary
The Project of Building is as natural to Mankind as to Birds, and was practised before the Floud. By Josephus we learn that Cain built the first City, Enos, and enclosed it with Wall and Rampires; and that the Sons of Seth, the other son of Adam, erected two Columns of Brick and Stone to preserve their Mathematical Science to Posterity, so well built that thô ye one of Brick was destroy'd by the Deluge. ye other of Stone was standing in ye time of Josephus.
Wren's ‘Discourse on architecture’ (‘Tract V’), Bolton & Hendry (1923), vol. 20, p. 140.That Wren referred to building as a ‘mathematical science’ is both natural and significant. When he wrote to William Brouncker in 1663 about the entertainment of the King on a proposed visit to the Royal Society, he mentioned his ‘Designes in Architecture’, along with his recent work in geometry, astronomy, perspective, optics, engines and navigation (see Wren to Brouncker, 30 July 1663, Royal Society MS EL. W. 3 no. 3). We have seen that Wren's scientific interests were contained largely within the traditional domain of the mathematical sciences – geometry, astronomy, navigation, surveying, etc. – and their associated instrumentation, and architecture had always been seen as part of this domain.
Wren's colleagues at the Royal Society, no less than the earlier practitioners, were concerned with architecture.
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- The Mathematical Science of Christopher Wren , pp. 87 - 117Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1983