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mainly at close range. Measured by this standard, buildings
and structures cannot be arbitrarily enlarged or reduced in
scale in all of their parts, since a resident cannot be scaled
down accordingly; the widths of shoulders, the height of
heads and eyes, the length of the stride form reference values.
When the dimensions of a building far exceed those of the hu-
man being, when rooms or doors, for example, are far higher
than a human head, the results are often associated hastily
and in a clichéd manner with overwhelming or humiliating
effects. The question of who confronts such scales, and under
which conditions, should however be considered. Depending
upon the situation, elements of excessive scale may also cause
the effects of generosity or uplift. The yardstick for a kennel
is the dog’s body, but a human being expands into space be-
yond bodily dimensions to fill it by his or her > personal space
(> body, human), and a larger scale may give rise to feelings
of largeness and freedom. In Verona, Goethe remarked that
only the presence of the public gives the arena its scale, which
it still lacks in an empty state. Since the measure of each indi-
vidual head serves to make the whole sensible to each, ‘such
an amphitheatre is constructed in order to allow the people to
impress themselves’ (1786/1988, 40).
The apparent (as opposed to the real) > size of a building
is often dependent upon its relationship to reference elements
whose normal sizes seem readily recognizable, for example
the customary heights of storeys, the sizes of doors and win-
dows, whose measures render distances and sizes intelligible.
Where such elements depart from customary dimensions,
they alter the scale of the building. While the scale and size of
unarticulated built forms is difficult to evaluate, their assem-
bly from parts renders them intelligible; articulations without
connection to the interior spatial structure, however, seem ar-
bitrarily imposed. Various proportions and articulations of a
building through orders of columns, mouldings, and facade
articulations allow a building to seem stocky, compressed
or elongated, and hence to appear in various scales. ‘On the