The influence of understanding gravity as a physical fact in the configuration of the architectonic space

Abstract

The explanation about the evolution of architecture is often based on the technical development of the structural types which have resulted, in every historical moment, in a specific spatial approach. However, this approach seems to forget that any practical achievement is always based on intuition or in a prior conceptualization emerged from the observation of reality. This article delves in deeper in the hypothesis that the evolution of the scientific representation of gravity as a physical reality has influenced the configuration of structural systems that have defined architectural space throughout time. For such purpose, a simultaneous presentation is made of the evolution of spatial structure in architecture since prehistory to modernity, and of the advance of scientific knowledge about gravity from Aristotle to Einstein.