Identifying and Visualizing Universal Features for Architectural Mouldings

Abstract

When observing architectural mouldings with an amateur’s eye, they do seem to have something in common – or at least comparable features. But what, precisely? Curves? Alternation of curves? Rhythms and proportions? This contribution introduces a concept that aggregates abstract features of a 3D moulded object, may the object be real (existing or having existed) or purely theoretical (from literature). Our research – at the intersection of architectural modelling and of information visualisation, investigates how new metrics, along with a cognition-amplifying visual encoding, could help uncover patterns and exceptions in the design of mouldings (across historical periods, across territories, across stylistic affiliations, across families of 3D objects, and across sources) and ultimately could help gaining insight on relations of mouldings to one another, and to the architectural theory.