Images of the Body in Architecture

The human body has a fundamental impact on the organization and interpretation of the world, and the built environment has accordingly been conceptualized in terms of the human body since ancient times, in theory and in practice. From Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man to Le Corbusier's "Modulor" (Corbusier's attempt to unite the imperial and metric measuring systems through a scale based on the figure of a man with his arm raised), the human body has inspired and confounded attempts to rationally construct the world. Since the 19th century, the findings of the human sciences, like physiology and psychology, have produced new understandings of the body and its relationship to the environment. The contributors to this volume aim to stimulate research in the anthropology of architecture by contributing to a critical history of the body and its cultural constructions.