Tessa Morrison

The University of Newcastle, Australia · School of Architecture and the Built Environment

Bringing together ten utopian works that mark important points in the history and an evolution in social and political philosophies, this book not only reflects on the texts and their political philosophy and implications, but also, their architecture and how that architecture informs the political philosophy or social agenda that the author intend...

The origin of architecture was a heavily debated subject in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Spanish Jesuit priest and architect Juan Bautista Villalpando kindled this debate with the publication of In Ezechielem Explanationes et Apparatus Urbis Templi Hierosolymitani in 1604. He claimed that the origin of architecture was to be found in t...

Isaac Newton’s unpublished manuscripts reveal that for over fifty years he had an interest in the Temple of Solomon. He wrote on the Temple’s meaning, the rituals associated with it, and even recreated the architectural plan. In an unpublished manuscript entitled Introduction to the Lexicon of the Prophets, Part two: About the appearance of the Jew...

From his early days at the University of Cambridge until his death, Isaac Newton had a long running interest in the Temple of Solomon, a topic which appeared in his works on prophecy, chronology and metrology. At the same time that Newton was working on the Principia, he reconstructed the Temple and commented on the reconstructions of others. An im...

Nuremberg artist Albrecht Dürer was a polymath of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century. He is generally known as a painter, engraver, printmaker, mathematician and art theorist. However, architect, social reformer and utopian writer are not in the normal list of his achievements. In 1527 Dürer published Etliche Unterricht, zur Befestigung...

In the 1580s, two Spanish Jesuit priests, Father Jerome and Juan Bautista Villalpando, began to work on a collaborative scriptural exegesis of the Book of Ezekiel. Prado instigated the project and Villalpando, an architect, was commissioned to complete the commentary on chapters 40–43, which contained the architectural description of the Temple of...

In Thomas More’s “Utopia,” published in 1516, the adventurer Hythloday claimed that sheep that are ordinarily so meek and require so little to maintain now “stop the course of agriculture, destroying houses and towns, reserving only the churches and enclosing grounds that they would lodge the sheep in them.” Nobleman, gentlemen, and even some abbot...

In Thomas More's "Utopia," published in 1516, the adventurer Hythloday claimed that sheep that are ordinarily so meek and require so little to maintain now "stop the course of agriculture, destroying houses and towns, reserving only the churches and enclosing grounds that they would lodge the sheep in them." Nobleman, gentlemen, and even some abbot...

Utopian cities from social reform literature from the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries were a serious attempt to improve living and working conditions of their time. Some of this literature included a design for a city that would be complimentary to and enhance the political philosophy of the respective authors. Four of the most famous works wh...

Isaac Newton remains one of the greatest scientists of all times, however, Newton published very little in his life but wrote many hundreds of manuscripts that amount to millions of words. The bulk of these manuscripts are on alchemy, prophecy and theology. It is often said that his work on Solomon’s Temple was written in his old age or that he had...

In 1525 there was a Peasant's Revolt in Germany. Nuremberg, the hometown of Albercht Dürer, was threatened. This resulted in Dürer publishing Etliche Unterricht, zur Befestigung der Städte, Schlösser und Flecken in 1527, which is the earliest surviving manual on fortifications. This manual is directed to a powerful ruler and describes the building...

Volume II of Juan Battista Villalpando’s Ezechielem Explanationes of 1604 contains a re-creation of the Temple of Solomon illustrated by a portfolio of exceptionally detailed architectural drawings. His designs were built on the principles of Platonic musical harmonies and his interpretation of ancient measurements. Villalpando envisaged the temple...

In the first Industrial Revolution that began in the eighteenth century in Britain, the population density pattern of the country changed dramatically. From a strong agrarian society with a low population density in the early eighteenth century by the beginning of the nineteenth century Britain had become an urbanised country with large industrial...

Michelangelo Merisi de Caravaggio was one of the most enigmatic and seemingly contradictory figures in art history. His sublime images took on religious topics towards the end of his life that appeared to be at odds with his naturalistic style, antisocial behaviour, and violent demise. This has led to many apocryphal, trivial, and rehashed studies...

This collection of fourteen articles discusses ceremonial entries into early modern European cities. The main theme of the volume is the different means employed by royalty, aristocracy, the clergy, and the commercial elite to create a ‘common voice’ or iconography of ceremony among the elite of society in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and early sevent...

One of the most significant inventions of the fifteenth century was single-point perspective. It is assumed to have been invented by the architect Filippo Brunelleschi in his experiments on the sacred site between the Cathedral of Florence and its Baptistery in the mid 1420s. However, it was Leon Baptista Alberti who codified the concept in 1435, w...

The present research investigated individual differences in individualism and collectivism as predictors of people's reactions to cities. Psychology undergraduate students (N = 148) took virtual guided tours around historical cities. They then evaluated the cities' liveability and environmental quality and completed measures of individualism and co...

In 1527, Albrecht Dürer published "Etliche Unterricht, zur Befestigung der Städte, Schlösser und Flecken." In this book he outlines a plan for a fortified city in detail. His plan was functional, economical, pragmatic, and socially responsible, with the central square being reserved for a palace. Each building is shown, the market, the town hall, t...

Newcastle, Australia was established as an industrial settlement using convict labour in 1804. It remains an industrial city and is the largest coal export port in the world. Although it was originally established as a penal centre for ‘incorrigible convicts’, by the 1880s Newcastle had developed and became a modern High Victorian city. With the ra...

At last year’s EVA conference, a paper was presented entitled 'Utopian Cities from 15th to 19th Century Literature: A Philosophical Investigation through 3-D Visualisation'. This paper outlined a project that examines ten utopian cities from social reform literature. Each one of these works proposed a utopian community which was to be governed acco...

Stonehenge has always been veiled in mystery of ancient times past. It had featured in the Arthurian legend as a war monument where King Aurelius, Arthur's uncle, was buried and, this made it not only mysterious but an important political tool. To be aligned with King Arthur, was an astute political move and was one practiced by all of the Tudors a...

Albrecht Dürer published "Etliche Unterricht, zur Befestigung der Städte, Schlösser und Flecken." In this book he outlines a plan for a fortified city in detail. His plan was functional, economical, pragmatic, and socially responsible, with the central square being reserved for a palace. Each building is shown, the market, the town hall, the blacks...

Stonehenge has always been veiled in mystery of ancient times past. It had featured in the Arthurian legend as a war monument where King Aurelius, Arthur’s uncle, was buried and, this made it not only mysterious but an important political tool. To be aligned with King Arthur, was an astute political move and was one practiced by all of the Tudors a...

Celestial Wonders in Reformation Germany is a fascinating study of how the superstition surrounding, and fear of, celestial phenomena were often used by the clergy in early modern Germany to publicly validate their religious and political positions. In sixteenth-century Germany, celestial Wunderzeichen (wonder-signs) included such wondrous astrolog...

The Fruit of Liberty tells the fascinating story of the rise of the Medici and the changing political fate of Florence as it changed from a republic into a ducal principality. Nicholas Scott Baker examines the role of the elite office-holding class – that is, all those Florentines who had the possibility of accessing political power, but not necess...

Nuremberg artist Albrecht Dürer was a polymath of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. He is generally known as a painter, engraver, printmaker, mathematician, and art theorist; architect, social reformer, and utopian writer are not in the normal list of his achievements. In 1527, Dürer published Etliche Unterricht, zur Befestigung der...

The Oxford Handbook of British Philosophy in the Seventeenth Century consists of twenty-six chapters that have been written by a team of international experts on early modern British philosophy. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Britain was considered to be an intellectual backwater. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, however, B...

Utopian cities have a long history and they stem from the time of the ancients. In fact concepts of Utopia are indivisible from the city. It is inconceivable to perceive a human Commonwealth except in the concrete form of city. The ideal city remained in abstract form throughout the mediaeval period i.e. the divine realm of heaven; the earthly real...

At last year’s EVA conference a paper was presented by the authors entitled “Applying Augmented Reality to Preserving Industrial Heritage”. This paper outlined an alternative and holistic method of preserving the cultural heritage of industrial sites, which would otherwise have been lost, using augmented reality and mobile technologies. Newcastle,...

Thomas More’s Utopia, published in 1516, was immensely influential and stimulated many monographs on the ideal city and society. So influential was More’s Utopia that these societies became known as “utopian.” In More’s Utopia, although he details their religion, attitudes, dress, education, diet, and all aspects of Utopian society, his plan and th...

The description of the Temple of Jerusalem in the Book of Ezekiel is dark and obscure. Not only are the details of the buildings that constitute the Temple precinct obscure so are the answers to the questions: what Temple is it? – is it Solomon’s Temple? Is it the Temple that existed in Ezekiel’s time? Or is it the Temple of the future? In 1604, ar...

For over 50 years Isaac Newton studied the Temple of Solomon. It is often intimated that his study of the Temple was the work of his old age. In fact the converse proves to be the case. His study began in the late 1670s and continued to his death in 1727. He had a clear knowledge of architecture and architectural norms as prescribed by the Roman th...

Abstract: The city authorities of Sao Paulo, Brazil have approved the construction of a temple that is claimed by church officials to be the replica of Solomon’s Temple. It is intended, by church officials, to be the most dominant religious monument of Brazil and will be twice the height of Rio’s Christ the Redeemer statue. However, it is not built...

Bernard Mandeville (1670-1733) was a Dutch philosopher, political economist, and satirist who spent his working life in England and is known for his commentary on early eighteenth-century British society. His most famous work is The Fable of the Bees, which offended not only his academic peers but also most of British society. His philosophy was co...

The city authorities of Sao Paulo, Brazil have approved the construction of a temple that is claimed by church officials to be the replica of Solomon's Temple. It is intended, by church officials, to be the most dominant religious monument of Brazil and will be twice the height of Rio's Christ the Redeemer statue. However, it is not built to the Bi...

Isaac Newton had a long running interest in Solomon's Temple. For Newton the plan of the Temple was a successor of the ancient Prytanæum, a temple where a sacred fire was kept burning. The plan of the Prytanæum was 'the frame of the world as the true Temple of the great God' and it was the antecedent to all other temples. Newton mentioned in an unp...

In 1604, Jesuit priest and architect Juan Bautista Villalpando published In Ezechielem Explanationes, a massive three-volume scriptural exegesis on the Book of Ezekiel. Volume Two was dedicated to the reconstruction of Ezekiel’s vision of the Temple of Solomon and consists of five books: on the prophecy on the Temple; its plan and reconstruction; t...

In Structuring Spaces: Oral Poetics and Architecture in Early Medieval England, Lori Ann Garner comprehensively demonstrates that the architecture and the poetry of the Anglo-Saxons drew from a single body of traditional encoded symbols and images. Furthermore, the architectural poetics developed in early medieval England endured under Norman rule....

Preserving cultural heritage of industrial sites has become a political issue in Australia and elsewhere with the closure of many manufacturing and engineering based industries, the needed modernization of existing industrial sites and the spread of housing development into areas that have traditionally been preserved for industrial use. The size o...

Apart from Reports as Master of the Mint, which were published between 1701 and 1725, Newton published only scientific manuscripts in his lifetime. Principia published in 1687, which consisted of three volumes, defined the three laws of motion and gravitation which lay down the foundation of classical mechanics, and in the formation of this theory...

Like chronology, ancient texts and alchemy, prophesy was a subject that Newton spent a great deal of time studying. In England, from the beginning of the Puritan unrest to the mid-eighteenth century, Apocalyptic and millenarian thought had became a widespread concern. The work of English Millenarian Joseph Mede, Clavis Apocalyptica published in 162...

The opening page of Babson MS 0434 is the only section that directly addresses the title of the manuscript, Introduction to the Lexicon of the Prophets, Part Two: About the Appearance of the Jewish Temple. Here, Newton claimed that the Hebrew texts, the legal constitutions and the Apocalypse are full of figures or symbols that cannot be understood...

In the Chronology, the corruption of the original religion is not expanded into any substantive conclusion. However, in his unpublished manuscripts, Newton expanded the subject of the ancient corruption of the original religion which led to the corruption of the Church in Newton’s own time. Newton redrafted his work Theologiæ Gentilis Origines Phil...

There are two main sets of surviving drawn plans for the Temple of Solomon by Newton469; the three illustrations in the Chronology and the six in Babson MS 0434. Of the six drawings in Babson MS 0434, three of them are incomplete and are not referred to in the text. Only three of the six drawings have sufficient detail to allow their annotations wi...

Architectural historians can often be confronted with want seems to be insurmountable problems when examining buildings in cityscape or the cityscape itself, and often reconstructions of the cityscape can be problematic. Generally when reconstructing an ancient or lost cityscape it is very unlikely that there will be a detailed plan, let alone elev...

It is well known that Isaac Newton had an interest in the Temple of Solomon. Most biographies of Newton mention this interest, but little attention, if any, is given to his architectural work on the Temple. Although there is no surviving book of Vitruvius’ De Architectura or even one of his commentators in Newton’s library, he had a good knowledge...

Paracelsus has always been an enigmatic figure: a physician, botanist, alchemist, astrologer, and occultist, with a reputation for both extreme drunkenness and piety. In his system of thought though, the body was the microcosm of the macrocosm. He believed that the body could suffer from chemical imbalances of mercury, sulphur, and salt and was aff...

The distinction between superstitious and religious practice is often blurry. What is perceived to be a deep religious ritual by one religion can be seen as nothing but a superstitious custom by another. What is regarded in one religion as engaging with God and the Angels can be perceived in another as communicating with Satan and the demons. The d...

In 1724 Antiquarian William Stukeley stated that Bath, England, was a “The small compass of the city has made the inhabitants crowd up the streets to an unseemly and inconvenient narrowness… a disgrace to the architects they have there.” Within forty year of this statement Bath had become a ‘Jewel in the Georgian crown’ and is now a World Heritage...

Architectural historians can often be confronted with want seems to be insurmountable problems when examining buildings in cityscape or the cityscape itself, and often reconstructions of the cityscape can be problematic. Generally when reconstructing an ancient or lost cityscape it is very unlikely that there will be a detailed plan, let alone elev...

Isaac Newton's unpublished manuscripts reveal that for over fifty years he had an interest in the Temple of Solomon. He wrote on the Temple's meaning, the rituals associated with it, and even recreated the architectural plan. In an unpublished manuscript entitled Introduction to the Lexicon of the Prophets, Part two: About the appearance of the Jew...

In 2 Chronicles 3:2, Solomon instructed that the Temple be built in cubits “after the first measure”. This implies an ancient standard and the cubit was one of the most widely used measurements in the ancient world. It was considered to be a natural measurement. Deuteronomy 3:11 describes the bedstead of Og, the King of Bashan: “nine cubits was the...

Avicenna and his Legacy: A Golden Age of Science and Philosophy represents a significant advance in our understanding of the significance of Avicenna (Abu Ali Avicenna, 980-1037). Avicenna was one of the principal philosophers in the medieval Hellenistic Islamic tradition. His philosophical theories were a rationalistic account of the nature of Bei...

In 1604, Jesuit priest and architect Juan Bautista Villalpando published In Ezechielem Explanationes. It was a massive three volume scriptural exegesis on the Book of Ezekiel. Volume Two was dedicated to the reconstruction of Ezekiel’s vision of the Temple of Solomon. This volume consists of five books: on the prophecy on the Temple; its plan and r...

In the fourth-century Symphosius wrote a book, which contained one hundred riddles. He even provided the answers to all the riddles. For the majority of the riddles the answers are relatively easy to guess. However, there is one exception, riddle number 96, which reads as follows: "If you this marvel to believe will design, Hold eight upon your han...

La Divina Commedia was written nearly 700 years ago and for much of that time it has been closely examined and scrutinised across many different levels: the sources; the meaning; the linguistic structure of the poem; the hidden subtexts; the influences; the analogies and the numerology of the poem have all been analysed in detail. However, a totall...

Saltair na Rann, or 'psalter of the verses', is considered one of the most important religious poems of early Ireland. There is only one early copy of the poem, held at Oxford Bodleian Library (MS Rawlinson B502: The Book of Glendalough) in a manuscript which was written c1130. The poem has been stylistically dated to the tenth century, the author...

William Stukeley (1687-1765), fellow of the Royal Society, founding member and first secretary of the Society of Antiquaries and fellow of the Royal College of Physicians is best known for his archaeological investigations of Avebury and Stonehenge. He also, with some antiquarian friends, formed the Society of the Roman Knights which was dedicated...

La Divina Commedia was written nearly 700 years ago and for much of that time it has been closely examined and scrutinised across many different levels: the sources; the meaning; the linguistic structure of the poem; the hidden subtexts; the influences; the analogies and the numerology of the poem have all been analysed in detail. However, a totall...

Labyrinthine symbols are one of the most enduring symbols through history. There is a sense of ?universality? about these symbols that crosses religious and cultural boundaries. One labyrinthine symbol commonly called the Cretan labyrinth has endured for over 3300 years. It has a unicursal pattern - one path to the centre and no dead ends. Through...

This is the first translation into English of Juan Bautista Villalpando's "Book Five of In Ezechielem Explanationes et Apparatus Vrbis Templi Hierosolymitani". After its publication in 1604 the work stimulated a debate - over not only the architecture of Solomon's Temple but on the very nature of the origins of architecture - that endured for more...

In the thirteenth and fourteenth century the cathedral was the height of European achievement; it embodied the whole of Christian knowledge and attempted to mimic the divine in its architecture. It was the ritual, spiritual and economic, as well as the physical, center of the city. The cathedral was intended to be an image of heaven both mystically...

In the early middle ages the cathedral was the height of human achievement; it embodied the whole of Christian knowledge and attempted to mimic the divine. It was the ritual, spiritual, economic and physical centre of the city. These vast edifices welcomed pilgrims and strangers; they arose from the ground and seemed to reach the heavens. As the ca...

In the early middle ages the cathedral was the height of human achievement; it embodied the whole of Christian knowledge and attempted to mimic the divine. It was the ritual, spiritual, economic and physical centre of the city. These vast edifices welcomed pilgrims and strangers; they arose from the ground and seemed to reach the heavens. As the ca...

The second volume of Ezechielem Explanationes by Juan Battista Villalpando, published in 1604, contains a re-creation of the Temple of Solomon illustrated by a portfolio of exceptionally detailed architectural drawings. His designs were built on the principles of Platonic musical harmonies and his interpretation of ancient measurements. Villalpando...

When architects study models, miniatures or maquettes they inevitably do so using a theoretical framework that has its origins in the process of design. Such a framework is necessary because the physical and representational qualities of a model are typically insufficent to fully interpret its purpose. For example, when examining a model a determin...

The second volume of In Ezechielem Explanationes by Juan Battista Villalpando was published in 1604; it contains a re-creation of the Temple of Solomon that is illustrated by a portfolio of exceptionally detailed architectural drawings. His designs were built on the principles of Platonic musical harmonies and his interpretation of ancient measurem...

This chapter provides an overview of the shifting patterns of use of the architectural model throughout history. It relates several important events in the history of the architectural miniature along with key changes in the design profession's understanding of the model. This chapter is also fundamentally concerned with physical models or their de...

The Temple of Solomon is the most frequently mentioned building in the Bible. The dimensions, a description of the overall plan and the artefacts of the Temple, are described in I Kings 6-8 and Ezekiel 40-42. However, the architectural plan and design of the features of the Temple are a forgotten memory that has been the subject of much speculation...

In 1687 one the most important scientific book every written, The Principia, by Isaac Newton, was published. It was a dramatic development in science and moved scientific thought from the medieval era into the modern era. Newton was haled as a genius and the greatest scientist in history and his reputation was jealously guarded. However, at an auct...

Gestures and acclamations are an important aspect of a visual communication. There is a university of visual languages, which crosses cultural boundaries and they have a long and rich history. Many gestures and acclamations are seemingly natural expressions; for example, the head nodding to express 'yes', an index finger pointing to indicate a part...

The Temple of Solomon is the most frequently mentioned building in the Bible. The dimensions, a description of the overall plan and the artefacts of the Temple, are described in I Kings 6-8 and Ezekiel 40-42. However, the architectural plan and design of the features of the Temple are a forgotten memory that has been the subject of much speculation...

The Biblical earthly paradise is a garden, the Garden of Eden. The Garden of Eden was watered by four rivers; the Pison, the Gihon, the Hiddekel and the Euphrates. The rivers meander though Eden in no fixed pattern; Eden appears to be an asymmetric, bountiful wildness where nature prevails. This is in contrast to the celestial Jerusalem, described...

The idealisation of the city as a symmetrical motif, both in art and literature, has endured through the millennia. In Plato’s Critas the city is depicted as five concentric rings of land and water surrounding the citadel. Roman mosaics portray the labyrinth as a city and these labyrinths have a relatively perfect, four-fold symmetry. Town planning...

Christian number symbolism built upon the strong tradition of Platonic philosophy, Pythagorean lore and Babylonian astronomy. Numbers such as 1, 7, 8, 12 and 40 had magical and talismanic properties and were strongly represented in the Hebrew Scriptures and apocrypha. God was praised: 'you have ordered all things in measure, number and weight' (Wis...

Christian number symbolism built upon the strong tradition of Platonic philosophy, Pythagorean lore and Babylonian astronomy. Numbers such as 1, 7, 8, 12, and 40 had magical and talismanic properties and were strongly represented in the Hebrew Scriptures and apocrypha. God was praised: 'you have ordered all things in measure, number and weight' (Wi...

In examining the history of migrating ideas through the decoration of artefacts it is often the style of the drawing that is examined. For example, in Carolingian Europe the distribution and usage of objects that have been characterized by labyrinthine patterns and zoomorphic features have been classified as Insular style. The classification infers...

Bede's The Reckoning of Time is about computus, the science of measuring time and constructing a Christian calendar. The Reckoning of Time is the earliest comprehensive treatment of computus that has survived. All earlier calendar literature was both fragmented and partisan in character. The Reckoning of Time begins with the representation of numbe...

The bliss of heaven has been characterised by the dance of the angels and the illumination of light. The dance of the angels was commonly depicted on church ceilings and in Medieval and Renaissance paintings. An example of this is the dance of the angels and the blessed from Angleo da Fiesle's 'Last Judgement' painted in 1425 in the collection of t...

The bliss of heaven has been characterised by the dance of the angels and the illumination of light. The dance of the angels was commonly depicted on church ceilings and in Medieval and Renaissance paintings. An example of this is the dance of the angels and the blessed from Angleo da Fiesle’s ‘Last Judgement’ painted in 1425 in the collection of t...

The meandering or labyrinthine symbol has had a universal appeal throughout history. The conceptual depiction of this figure can variously represent a journey with visible or invisible elements, entrapment or enlightenment, and sometimes both. It is instantly recognizable as embodying one or both of these aspects. As a symbol it has a quasi-univers...

The meandering symbol has had a universal appeal throughout history. It is an integral part of many myths, religions and rituals. As a symbol it has a quasi-universality that is flexible both in representation and meaning. Despite this flexibility the meandering symbol can be classified into precise mathematical structures. The turns and forks of t...

Symbols are not only one of the most ancient expressions of art, they are an integral part of modern life. They can be exceptionally diverse in their meaning. A simple cross can represent an entire theology, a way of life and the complex iconography that is involved within the bounds of the meaning of this symbol. Also logos of companies, political...