Summary: Prior to the advent of modern structural engineering, architects and builders used proportional systems to imbue their works with a general condition of order that was integral to notions of beauty and structural stability. These mostly invisible intellectual frameworks ranged from simple grids and symbolic numbers, to sly manipulations of geometry and numbers that required privileged knowledge and arithmetical calculations to access. Since the origins of architectural history, proportional systems have served as objects of belief and modes of iconographical communication. Whether they are capable of fulfilling more tangible functions remains a matter of debate today, but as the contributors to this volume show, these ancient and diverse belief systems continue to infiltrate architectural thinking in subtle and sometimes surprising ways today.

Contents: Chapter 1: Two Kinds of Proportion (Revised), Matthew A. Cohen || Chapter 2: Canons of Proportion and the Laws of Nature: Observations on a Permanent and Unresolved Conflict, Mario Curti || Chapter 3: The Composto Ordinato of Michelangelo's Biblioteca Laurenziana: Proportion or Anthropomorphy?, Caroline van Eck || Appendix: The Problem of Movement in Mannerist Architecture (1933), by Rudolf Wittkower. Translated by Caroline van Eck || Chapter 4: Subjective Proportions: 18th-Century Interpretations of Paestum's "Disproportion", Sigrid de Jong || Chapter 5: Were Early Modern Architects Neoplatonists? The Case of François Blondel, Anthony Gerbino || Chapter 6: Plotting Gothic: A Paradox, Stephen Murray || Chapter 7: To Build Proportions in Time, or Tie Knots in Space? A Reassessment of the Renaissance Turn in Architectural Proportions, Marvin Trachtenberg || Chapter 8: 1, 2, 3, 6: Early Gothic Architecture and Perfect Numbers, Elizabeth den Hartog || Chapter 9: Proportion and Building Material, or Theory versus Practice in the Determination of the Module, Lex Bosman || Chapter 10: Approaches to Architectural Proportion and the "Poor old Parthenon", Mark Wilson Jones || Chapter 11: Scamozzi's Orders and Proportions: An End to Illusions or a Visionary Harbinger?, Franco Barbieri || || Chapter 12: Early Modern Netherlandish Artists on Proportion in Architecture, or "de questien der Simmetrien met redene der Geometrien", Krista De Jonge || || Chapter 13: Proportional Design Systems in 17th-Century Holland, Konrad Ottenheym || || Chapter 14: The Matrix Regained: Reflections on the Use of the Grid in the Architectural Theories of Nicolaus Goldmann and Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand, Jeroen Goudeau || || Chapter 15: Dynamic Unfolding and the Conventions of Procedure: Geometric Proportioning Strategies in Gothic Architectural Design, Robert Bork || || Appendix: The Geometry of Bourges Cathedral || || Chapter 16: Divining Proportions in the Information Age, Andrew Tallon || Chapter 17: Decoding the Pantheon Columns, Gerd Graßhoff and Christian Berndt || Chapter 18: Leonardo da Vinci: The Proportions of the Drawings of Sacred Buildings in Ms. B, Institut de France, Francesco P. Di Teodoro || Chapter 19: Philibert de L'Orme's Divine Proportions and the Composition of the Premier tome de l'architecture, Sara Galletti || Chapter 20: An Old Problem? Claude Perrault's Views on Beauty and Proportion in Architecture and French Aesthetic Theory, Maarten Delbeke || || Chapter 21: Le Corbusier's Modulor and the Debate on Proportion in France, Jean-Louis Cohen || Appendix 1: A Timely Book (1927), by Le Corbusier, Translated by Genevieve Hendricks || Appendix 2: Regulating Lines (1934), by Le Corbusier, Translated by Matthew A. Cohen and Maarten Delbeke. || Chapter 22: Between Looking and Making: Unravelling Dom Hans van der Laan's Plastic Number, Caroline Voet || Chapter 23: Rudolf Wittkower versus Le Corbusier: A Matter of Proportion, Francesco Benelli || Chapter 24: Proportional Systems in the History of Architecture: A Conversation with James S. Ackerman, James S. Ackerman and Matthew A. Cohen || Chapter 25: Ten Principles for the Study of Proportional Systems in the History of Architecture (Revised), Matthew A. Cohen. (^Forthcoming^)

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