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comprehensible through the > readability of their organiza-
tional plan. Before architecture can be understood, finally, the
ordering principles of architectural > composition and the un-
derlying design > concept must be clearly evident.
Order in architecture is experienced in particular when
it is comprehended intellectually. To pursue the interplay
of the parts with the whole on various scales according to
transparent rules engenders a feeling of security, a kind of
mental satisfaction, and in particularly successful instances,
even intellectual pleasure. Throughout history, this has been
a genuine task of architecture. While rational transparency
has generally played a role in the history of architecture as
a criterion of quality, it has acted as a special theme in a few
instances, for example in the planning of ideal towns, among
them Karlsruhe, praised by Heinrich von Kleist: ‘It is clear
and luminous like a rule, and when we enter it, it is as though
we are addressed by an ordered intellect.’ (1801/1978, 283)
To be sure, the significance of strict order as a symbol of ab-
solutist authority and as a disciplinary resource is difficult to
separate from its aesthetic impact.
Historically, it is geometric regularity and measure order
in particular that, alongside the classical orders of the col-
umns, formed the basis for all architectural order, for exam-
ple, in the sense of eurythmia with Vitruvius or concinnitas
with Leon Battista Alberti (> beauty). Geometry is one of the
timeless resources for organizing architectural forms accord-
ing to recognizable rules and principles, for example through
> symmetry or the repetition, and sequencing (> row) of
identical elements, through hierarchical-centric arrangements
(> centring), convergent directionality towards a (fictive)
point, or axial (> axis) organization. The rational recogni-
tion of formal orders is supported by measure, which gov-
erns the > proportion of elements and the formal consistency
of their relationships. While simple form and regularity are
the traditional preconditions of order, freely arranged forms
also allow order to be attained. For this to work, they must