Notes on Architectural Abstraction in Poor Geometry

In recent years, more and more architects have been interested in geometrical simplicity, such as circles, triangles, and squares kept in their formal singularity without compositional sense. In this essay, we examine a guideline that can be applied to architectural design to elucidate how we recognize architectural geometry. First, we make a matrix that offers analogical meaning in the scaling architecture. We can reckon the combination (schéma) of “Poor Geometries” such as a square, triangle, circle, cruciform, and reticle. Second, some of the schéma of “Poor Geometry” is related to former architectural projects. Through the geometrical project in the 1960s–70s Italian architects Gianugo Polesello, Luca Meda and Giorgio Grassi, Aldo Rossi and Gianni Braghieri, and the project of Atelier Nd we proposed as our projects, we reconsider how each schéma is connected with or translated into the architectural materiality.