The Human Body in Architectural Theory and Practice

This article deals with representation of the human body in architecture. The human body as a statically balanced symmetrical figure is an antique, time-bound representation of the body and it is important to challenge that image in a modern and more nuanced understanding of being human. To identify some of architecture's reproductions of the human body, we make some historical cuts and exemplify representations of the body in architectural theory. First, we briefly describe the origin of Homo Bene Figuratus (Vitruvius introducing the doctrine of the well-formed body) and the image of the body characterised by geometric proportioning. We then exemplify similar renderings of Reference Man which followed the Vitruvian Man right up to the present. Le Corbusier's "Le Modulor" follows the same path, in a modernist worldview, helped along by Ernst Neufertt's ideas on theory of proportion, first stated in 1936, which standardisation have remained unchanged as essential reference. As a critical response to bodily reductive perceptions in architectural theory, we go beyond Reference Man and seek a broader in-sight into the understanding of human diversity and varieties of bodily abilities. Seen through a Universal Design perspective, a view of the human body as absolute geometric figure inscribed in fixed coordinates has difficulty representing ideas of human beings as a diverse group of bodies. This view also has difficulty representing the idea of the human body as changing through a lifetime. A fixed standard can overlook the human being as diverse in bodies and abilities and even come to leave out significant aspects of design such as health, social wellbeing, and sensory qualities of architecture. In our discussion, we go into more detail about the significance of representations of the ideal human body for the design of architecture and suggest what consequences it may have for architectural practice.