View source for Mathematics and architecture

'''[[Mathematics]] and [[architecture]]''' are related, since, as with other arts, architects use mathematics for several reasons.

== Description ==
[[File:Atomium 320 by 240 CCBY20 flickr Mike Cattell.jpg|thumb|[[Atomium]], based on the geometry of an iron crystal.]]
Apart from the mathematics needed when engineering buildings, architects use geometry: 

* To define the spatial form of a building.
* From the Pythagoreans of the sixth century BC onwards, to create forms considered harmonious, and thus to lay out buildings and their surroundings according to mathematical, aesthetic and sometimes religious principles.
* To decorate buildings with mathematical objects such as tessellations.
* To meet environmental goals, such as to minimise wind speeds around the bases of tall buildings.

In Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, India, and the Islamic world, buildings including pyramids, temples, mosques, palaces and mausoleums were laid out with specific proportions for religious reasons.

In Islamic architecture, geometric shapes and geometric tiling patterns are used to decorate buildings, both inside and outside.

Some Hindu temples have a fractal-like structure where parts resemble the whole, conveying a message about the infinite in Hindu cosmology.

In the twentyfirst century, mathematical ornamentation is again being used to cover public buildings.

In Renaissance architecture, [[symmetry]] and [[proportion]] were deliberately emphasized by architects such as [[Leon Battista Alberti]], [[Sebastiano Serlio]] and [[Andrea Palladio]], influenced by [[Vitruvius]]'s ''[[De architectura]]'' from Ancient Rome and the [[arithmetic]] of the [[Pythagoreans]] from Ancient Greece.

At the end of the nineteenth century, [[Vladimir Shukhov]] in Russia and [[Antoni Gaudí]] in Barcelona pioneered the use of [[hyperboloid structures]]; in the Sagrada Família, Gaudí also incorporated hyperbolic paraboloids, tessellations, catenary arches, catenoids, helicoids, and ruled surfaces.

In the twentieth century, styles such as modern architecture and Deconstructivism explored different geometries to achieve desired effects.

Minimal surfaces have been exploited in tent-like roof coverings as at Denver International Airport, while [[Richard Buckminster Fuller]] pioneered the use of the strong thin-shell structures known as [[geodesic domes]].

== See also ==

* [[Atomium]]
* [[Mathematical beauty]]
* [[Mathematics and art]]
* [[Patterns in nature]]

== External links ==

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics_and_architecture Mathematics and architecture] @ Wikipedia

[[Category:Architecture]]
[[Category:Mathematics]]