ABSTRACT
In the fi rst chapter, “Creative inspirations or intellectual impasses? Refl ections on relationships between architecture and the humanities”, Nader El-Bizri examines developments in medieval optics and geometry – in particular the “geometrisation of place” in the thought of Alhazen. He highlights how early scientifi c investigations – and their correlative philosophical enquiries – provided essential terms of reference in the studia humanitatis. At the same time these investigations contributed towards a deepening understanding of architecture as an embodiment of an ordered cosmology, only later to be redefi ned as an “applied science” through the growing dominance of technology. The author takes the ideas of Alhazen as an important starting point in this shifting relationship, arguing that the advent of modern concepts of space (in Renaissance theories of pictorial space) were anticipated by Greco-Arabic studies in geometry and optics. This historical background provides a critical point of reference in El-Bizri’s assessment of the role of the humanities in architecture today. In spite of the perceived obstacle of the humanities in design creativity, arising from the “burden” of theoretical ideas on design
development, El-Bizri suggests that the dangers of “conceptual disappearance” must be brought into the context of the historically rich and creative dialogue between early science and the studia humanitatis. Only by understanding this background can we truly understand the value of the humanities in our scientifi c and technological age.
