Department of Geomatics

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Historical methods of designing and rendering the shapes of architectural elements - their reconstruction and application

The invention of shapes by means of geometric constructions and the proportional grids constructed from them was one of the basic principles of creating building parts and elements of medieval architecture in the period before the introduction of descriptive geometry. In the foreign professional environment, this field of study has recently developed very dynamically. Therefore, a project related to the heritage fund of the Czech Republic has been proposed, which will also investigate this phenomenon of the High and Late Middle Ages and will lead to the accessibility and practical use of knowledge. The project team is convinced that this is an opportunity to use the knowledge of why historical artefacts looked the way they did in their original proportions and to broaden the insight into the possibilities of interpreting the use of geometry in the practice of designing medieval architecture.

RESEARCHER

Ing. Zdeněk Poloprutský

TIME PERIOD

01.03.2023 – 31.12.2027

Project characteristics

The mission of the project is therefore to use modern documentation methods to create the basis for geometric analysis of architectural elements of monuments in the Czech Republic and then to experimentally verify the possibility of replicating authentic design procedures of their shapes on a sufficient number of analyzed specimens. The research team will primarily aim to gain new insights into the possibilities of analysing and reconstructing historical architectural design procedures in terms of contemporary practice. A particular focus will naturally be on the relationship between technology and the resulting shape of the work. The aim of the project is to make accessible the values of this important part of cultural heritage (the artisanal technology of obtaining proportions), to open new ways of insight into its interpretation and to use the knowledge effectively for the needs of preservation of cultural heritage objects in the form of applied research results.