I C A R C H

International Competitions in Architecture

A HOUSE FOR MATILA GHYKA

What does it mean a Star-Dodechadron with Twenty Vertices…?

Do these words make any sense…?

Who still believes in geometry…? Who still believes in the Golden Ratio…? Who still believes in the Gothic Master Diagram…?!

Pythagoras… the mystics… the Pythagorean School… the Neo-Platonic academy…

Idealities, no doubt… Leonardo and Durer… “old fashion” idealists…

But can we deny their reality…???????

Of course, from Leonardo and Durer (with their dynamic symmetries) to Wolf Prix is a long distance… who would have the nerve, these days, to imagine Ideal Cities…?

Who would have the nerve to build, today, like Iktinos and Kalikrates, those architects philosophers…?!?

To curve the slab of our buildings, in order to compensate for certain deforming actions in space, seems impossible to accept, these days.

WE ELIMINATED CONTEMPLATION.

We live only “active lives,” following Giuliano de Medici… the warrior.

But what about Lorenzo… the thinker and the scholar and the poet…?!

Michelangelo needed both brothers, but not us, not us.

Yet, it was last century, less than 100 years ago, that a Romanian mathematician and diplomat and poet, friends with Marcel Proust (A la Recherche du Temps Perdu) wrote books on Geometry and Art and Life.

In our time Geometry became estranged from both Art and Life, since in its quest for deeper and deeper “perfection” and rigor, it rejected, it banished blood and feeling, that is, Life and Art.

But Matila Ghyka attempted to bring them back together.

In the attachment you will find in a PDF format his book called "The Geometry of Art and Life." An inspiring book, trying to bring back CONTEMPLATION and BEAUTY in the field of MATHEMATICS.

We ask you to bring ALL THREE OF THEM back to ARCHITECTURE.

Forget the boring Contract Documents. Forget the prose of practicing architecture today. Remember though that even Le Corbusier, in his quest for “la machine a habiter” didn’t neglect proportions and harmonic relationships. His Modulor testifies about it.

BRING BACK THE SPIRAL, BRING BACK THE WARMTH THAT EXCESSIVE CALCULATION BANISHED, BRING BACK BLOOD ITSELF.

That is, UNITE GEOMETRY WITH ART, WITH ARCHITECTURE, WITH LIFE.

And imagine A HOUSE FOR MATILA GHYIKA.

THE HOUSE OF MATHEMATICAL SPECULATION.

THE HOUSE OF PHILOSOPHICAL AND AESTHETICAL MATHEMATICS.

THE HOUSE OF BEAUTY AND RIGOR.

THAT IS, THE HOUSE OF WARM RIGOR.

We plan to have an exhibition with all the works received in the windows of UAUIM (The University of Architecture and Urbanism "Ion Mincu") in Bucharest, as an homage to Matila Ghyka, who died exactly fifty years ago, on July 14th, 1965. The deadline to receive your work is October 1st, 2015. As always, we accept ANY work, ANY size and ANY format that responds to the theme.

Thank you,

ICARCH GALLERY