LINCOLN CATHEDRAL Maths and Technology Day 

In 1998 I gave two lectures on Geometrical Building Design at Lincoln Cathedral on the annual Maths and Technology Day for children from Lincoln schools. After the 75 strong morning and afternoon groups I asked the pupils if any of them had experienced geometry of this kind before. A single hand was raised. When asked where and when, the boy replied that his mother was Italian and he had been taught geometry as a design system when he attended school in Italy. 

By contrast, when my ten year old grand-daughter read one of my papers and asked if she could show it to her geometry teacher, the teacher said she was unaware of and couldn’t teach that type of geometry. Sadly, this is quite common and, though Euclidian angles and Pythagoras’ theorem are taught, geometry as a practical spatial design language is generally absent from the UK curriculum. 

The effect of this gap in the education of young people is spatial illiteracy. All over the UK there are examples of modern buildings that are devoid of proportional resonance and lack aesthetic resolution because their designers were never taught any basic geometrical principles. 

To help fill this gap and to encourage geometrical literacy, every article on this site is available as a FREE download. Pass your downloads on and spread the word. 

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