The Interchangeable Scale of Art and Architecture: The Frame of Hans Vredeman de Vries

Abstract

Since the beginning of humanity, art and architecture have had an inseparable relationship. They have always been interrelated subjects connected through many domains. This dissertation, however, aims to explore more profound than the surface that creates this interconnectivity. It focuses on turning this surface into a frame through which art and architecture can communicate, change their scales. That is to say, it engages itself with the Interchangeable Scale of Art and Architecture. The scale between these two disciplines shifted from time to time; architecture got shrunk into paintings, and the paintings got shrunk into architecture. The tension between the two worlds offered many possibilities and opened doors to discoveries. Dutch painter, architect, engineer, town planner, draughtsman, glass painter Hans Vredeman de Vries(1526-1609) mastered one of these discoveries, perspective, and invented his imaginary worlds with his pen and paper. He was a unique figure who contained many scales of and between art and architecture. By visiting antiquity and going through the frame of artworks, this paper investigates this playful dynamism between art and architecture in the world of Hans Vredeman de Vries.