Size, dimension and scale are three related concepts, closely connected to each other in the semantic field of the extensive Cartesian network. The array of parallelisms, oppositions and reciprocal complementarities establishes a significant difference between them, indicative of the symbolic content that space and the built objects encompassed by it possess in each civilization.
Based on these premises, the collection «Cuadernos romanos» analyses a group of fundamental buildings in the history of architecture, from the Ara Pacis to the Pantheon passing through Villa Adriana, which are studied in detail and are historically contextualised in depth. Comparing the transformations that their environment has experienced throughout time, and judging the consequences of those changes in the redefinition of the triangle size-dimension-scale, these masterpieces are brought to our time in a revealing exercise of cultural crosscutting. To understand the present it is necessary to know our past, but it is also possible to give meaning to the past talking from the strictest contemporaneity.
Andrés Cánovas (Cartagena 1958) is Doctor of Architecture by the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid. Professor of Architectural Projects, he has been invited to more than thirty national and international universities. The studio he is part of has received 150 prizes in contests and built work, which has been profusely published. He is head of the Department of Architectural Projects at the ETSAM.
