241Customarily, however, proportion in architecture has
been understood in the narrower sense as scalar relations be-
tween the parts, and in relation to the whole, which assumes
that the whole is regarded as being fitted or pieced together.
The term proportion must be distinguished from > scale,
which concerns the dimensions of a building in relation to
something else, for example, to a neighbouring building, to
the human figure, or to certain norms. Proportions convey
expressive values, and can be optimized so that they offer the
intellect a satisfying clarity and endow a building with a har-
monious order.
Given their dependence upon precision of tonal relation-
ships, the notions of harmony current since antiquity, with
their basis in musical intervals and their anchoring in the cos-
mic order, however, do not seem transferable to the visual
realm of architecture. Also controversial is the translation of
the dimensions of the human body to those of architecture, as
found Le Corbusier’s Modulor system.
Simple whole-number relationships between the sides
of a rectangle, however, are generally easily recognizable by
the eye, and are graspable mentally. Proportion, ‘is thought
and feeling undivided (...) 1 to 2 is just as particular, is – not
‘has’ – as much its own quality, as red, or red and black’, says
Donald Judd (1989, 177). An oblique perspective does not
alter the impact of proportion; we identify a rectangle as such
even from a distorted perspective.
Surface areas, the lengths and breadths of structural
parts, wall areas, and the contours of buildings, were for the
most part referred to traditionally as dimensions, from whose
relationships proportion is known. Indirectly, to be sure, these
endow the proportions of entire rooms with a dimensional
order; to experience the space, however, the dimensional
relationships of the third spatial axis are decisive. Our feel-
ing for space is taken into consideration only when length
and breadth enter into a relationship with height – for which
Andrea Palladio chose the mean value between length and