The Relationship among Proportions, Ottoman-Turkish Music and Architecture
Year: 2003 Authors: Guney Kurdak
Core claim
Ottoman-Turkish musical proportions form a distinct, previously overlooked system relating music and architecture.
Topics
proportions, music-architecture relations, Ottoman-Turkish wooden houses, harmony and rhythm
Domains
proportion, mathematical order, Fibonacci series, architecture, music, Ottoman-Turkish design
Methods
comparative analysis, historical comparison, proportional interpretation
Media
Ottoman-Turkish wooden houses, musical proportions
Paper text
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ISAMA The International Society of the Arts, Mathematics, and Architecture BRIDGES Mathematical Connections in Art, Music, and Science
The Relationship among Proportions, Ottoman-Turkish Music and Architecture
Guney Kurdak Cinarli sok Turel apt 9/5 Suadive Istanbul, Turkey Email: guneykur@yahoo.com
It is a very common fact that, the beauty of the nature belongs to mathematical orders. There is always a holy harmony in the nature and a mystical rhythm among its forms. To solve these holly system, or in other words, to solve rules of nature, we have to do what Galileo said, “the big book of nature only can be read by the one who knows the language of it; the language of mathematics”. Thus, the human being tries to understand the nature while is working on different concrete facts. Mathematicians found some mathematical series, such as Fibonacci, to define the mystical rhythm of the nature. The usage of holly mathematical orders rhythm and harmony was seen, not only on sacred architectural examples, but also on musical proportions. There are three known systems of which architectural proportions meet musical ones: a system used during Roman times, the system of musical proportions used during the Renaissance developed by Leon Battista Alberti, and the Modulor of the 20th century architect Le Corbusier. However, there is a fourth system that has remained untouched until today: the system of Ottoman-Turkish musical proportions used during the Ottoman period on Ottoman-Turkish wooden houses.
Thus, the paper will show the relationship among proportions, Ottoman-Turkish music and architecture.
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