Portal:Architecture/Intro

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Gyeonghoeru Pavilion at Gyeongbokgung
Gyeonghoeru Pavilion
at Gyeongbokgung

Architecture in Greek ἀρχι-, "archi-", meaning first, prime, or chief and τέκτων, "tekton", meaning builder. It is a multi-disciplinary field, including within its fold mathematics and geometry, science, art, technology, social sciences, politics, history, philosophy, and so on. The first architect known by name was Imhotep from ancient Egypt. The Roman architectural writer, Vitruvius summarized that "Architecture is a science, arising out of many other sciences, and adorned with much and varied learning: by the help of which a judgement is formed of those works which are the result of other arts". He added that an architect should be well versed in fields such as music, astronomy and philosophy. This holds true to this day – as music is a play of pitches/tones with silences (modulation in sound), architecture is a play of solids with voids, geometry with proportion.

The study of philosophy ("lover of wisdom") would be an appropriate attribute for an architect in the days of Vitruvius given the diverse fields of knowledge an architect needs to embody. "Architectural philosophy" is frequently used to describe the approach of an architect; for example, Modernism, Rationalism, empiricism, structuralism, poststructuralism, and phenomenology are some directions from philosophy influencing architecture.