The Matrix Regained: Reflections on the Use of the Grid in the Architectural Theories of Nicolaus Goldmann and Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand

Abstract

In addition to the superficial visual similarities between the architectural theories of the Silesian-born, seventeenth-century Dutch mathematician Nicolaus Goldmann and the early nineteenth-century French architect Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand, there is a more profound interconnection: their use of the grid. This article evaluates the relation between the two theories and argues how Durand could have been influenced by Goldmann’s writings. It turns out to be more than likely that the two were linked by Durand´s German pupils who brought the tradition of German eighteenth-century architectural theory with them. This corpus was nourished by Leonhard Christoph Sturm´s ‘Goldmannic’ architecture.