Ideation of form in space. Strategies of spatial configuration in sculpture and architecture

Abstract

Since the foundation of the Accademia del Disegno, drawing has been a sibling of the so-called fine arts. It was the instrument of intellectual control of the creative work shared by the three disciplines: painting, sculpture and architecture. Painting can only recreate the illusion of depth, but sculpture and architecture directly unfold in space. This research analyses the similarities and divergences in the strategies to shape geometry in space in both disciplines within a historical perspective. The analysis is limited to non-figurative sculpture in order to provide an adequate comparative analysis with architecture, being as it is, a non-representational discipline. This study yields evidence to affirm that there are three primary strategies of spatial configuration from the point of view of the genesis of form: addition, subtraction and limitation or confinement. The aim is to contribute to establish a taxonomy common to architecture and sculpture in relation to the configuration of form in space and the conceptual actions that engender it, on the one hand, and the dialectic nature of the relation established between matter, limit and space, on the other, paying special attention to the topological relations of compactness and connectivity.