Dom Hans van der Laan and the Plastic Number

Richard Padovan ()

Chapter Chapter 74 in Architecture and Mathematics from Antiquity to the Future, 2015, pp 407-419 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract The plastic number discovered by Dom Hans van der Laan differs from all previous systems of architectural proportions in several fundamental ways. Its derivation from a cubic equation (rather than a quadratic one such as that which defines the golden section) is a response to the three-dimensionality of our world. Its basic ratios, approximately 3:4 and 1:7, are determined by the lower and upper limits of our normal ability to perceive differences of size among three-dimensional objects. Proportion plays a crucial role in generating architectonic space, which comes into being through the proportional relations of the solid forms that delimit it. Architectonic space might therefore be described as a proportion between proportions.

Keywords: Golden Section; Discrete Quantity; Cosmological Argument; Consecutive Term; Individual Thing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-319-00143-2_27

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-00143-2_27

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