Rhythm

Rhythm  in visual arts is an attribute of any object that is marked by a systematic recurrence of elements having recognizable relationships between them. In Architecture, much of the effects of a building will depend on the harmony, the simplicity, and the power of these rhythmical relationships.



There are many types of rhythm which are of special importance in buildings. First, there is the repetition of shapes: windows, doors, columns, wall areas, arches, and the like. Second, there is the repetition of dimensions, such as the dimensions between supports or those of bay spacing. A third and more complex type of rhythm is based on the repetition of differences. In this rhythmical series, the ascending and descending progressions are built up from small to large and to small again.





Rhythms  may be indefinite and open or definite and closed. A mere repetition of similar units equally spaced and without a defined beginning or a defined end is called an open rhythm. Its effect in architecture is usually disturbing.

There is another type of rhythm of great importance in architecture: the rhythm of lines. Such rhythms can be merely systematic variations of linear lengths or curvatures.



Of more importance to the architect are the larger rhythms of interior spaces. In complex buildings, the changing and progressive rhythm of shapes, with alternations of open and closed, big and little, wide and narrow, create an ordered variety of effect which contribute to the power of great and monumental structures. Forms which in plan are rhythmically related necessarily create a sense of motion and a sense of direction.

Rhythmical  relationships arise simply and naturally from constructive and functional necessities: controlled and orchestrated by the creative imagination, they become one of the chief elements in architectural beauty. Modern architecture, like modern music, varies in its rhythmical ideals from the most clear-cut and regular rhythms to those in which there is a search from such free and so-called natural rhythms that the rhythmical basis is almost entirely lost and the result appears, to many people, amorphous and without meaning.