Joachim Tantau: Sacred Geometry, Beauty, and the Universal Language of Nature

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In a lot of projects that I do, use psychodromatry as a tool for creating a harmonious, beautiful design. But that's something that lot of architects have lost. That's what I find very sad to see. If you see a building that is designed with the intention to be beautiful, someone made an effort, someone did a bit something beyond the average, but they just don't have an eye for proportion. you Welcome to the Building Culture podcast, where we explore holistic solutions to crafting a more beautiful, resilient, and thriving world through the built environment. I'm your host, Austin Tennell. If you are in the market for high quality windows or doors, whether residential or commercial, new construction or remodels, I highly recommend you check out Sierra Pacific Windows, who we use at Building Culture on a lot of our projects, as well as if you are in the state of Oklahoma, check out One Source. windows and doors and want to thank them for sponsoring this podcast. I met Joachim last year when he was interviewing me for the, Institute of classical architecture and art series. And I did not get to interview him, but we were introduced to each other and Joachim specializes in design and sacred geometry. And it's a topic that I know. almost nothing about, but I've heard about it. And even from my earliest days in building culture, I remember Clay talking about the golden ratio. And so my first house actually was the golden ratio in terms of the rectangle, the proportions of it and relating that to beauty. So I've always kind of had it in my

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periphery for over a decade where I've talked about and thought about I think I even have a book back here on sacred geometry that I haven't read yet because I've had a few people been introduced to this concept a few different times and so meeting Yoachim was a great opportunity to invite him on and Ask questions so I'm learning here along with you and I'll just say one more thing before we get to the interview you know, I think in some ways we're moving to a post enlightenment era where it's being acknowledged broadly that just pure materialism, determinism, reductionism doesn't explain all of reality and that there's really interesting things about consciousness. Meaning the kind of the fabric of reality that we don't really understand that there's more going on than meets the eye and It's kind of in pursuit of that and trying to explore more in this less materialistic sense, other realities that kind of exist out there in the world. So I hope you find this conversation really interesting. I did, I learned a lot, but frankly, I'm just kind of barely, you know, peeling back the surface. And it's certainly an area I would like to explore more. as we progress with building culture. Thanks so much for listening and let me know what you think of the interview and comments and share it with your friends. Thanks. Well, Yoakim, it's nice to have you on the podcast because this is going to be a really new and interesting conversation for me. I'm really curious to hear all about sacred geometry and the things we're going to talk about today. Thank you so much for inviting me to be part of this. I'm really excited to be here and to share some of my insights, to hear some of your thoughts and comments about it from a very practical, hands-on point of view. yeah, looking forward to our conversation.

Speaker 1

You know, it's something I've kind of known about in the periphery for a while, sacred geometry, but I've never, and it's kind of like one of those things where I'm going like, I really wanted to look in, I really want to look into this, I just have not yet. So this conversation is kind of kicking that off, and I think it'll be really kind of expanding what the audience is used to hearing on this podcast, although not completely out of the ordinary, we talk about all kinds of things. But before we kind of get into what is sacred geometry and all that, Could you give a little bit of background about yourself and what you do? Sure. Well, I'm from Germany, born in Germany, lived in Germany and moved to UK for a while, studied their work there now I'm back in Germany. I am a cabinet maker, an artist, sculptor. Once in a while I'm also an architect designing buildings, timbered houses and the like. And I've done that since very young age, since I was maybe eight years old, a passion for constructing things. sneaked into my father's workshop, got some tools and went to my sandbox and started building. And it grew from there, really evolved organically. And then I went to study at the Prince School of Traditional Arts in London, did my Master of Arts there, which gave me lot of design skills, more the background, but the actual practical, the making, especially the woodwork is, I learned it by doing really, I did. some apprenticeships, some internships here and there were some masters where I wanted to learn specific skills, but a lot of it itself to also. Yeah, today I have studio where I design furniture, sculpture, some architectural projects as well for clients all over the world, a lot in the Middle East, a lot in the UK. And I also teach traditional woodworking techniques, traditional design techniques around psychodiometry.

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to young designers in various countries. travel to China once a year to give workshops there, to Saudi Arabia. Brazil I've taught workshops and it's always like a two-week thing, two-week workshop on design principles for young designers that are studying at some university and they get an add-on module in some traditional crafts. So it's a nice mix of teaching of designing and of making. I really enjoy that. That it's a very interesting and engaging blend. You said you did a lot of, you do a lot of work in the Middle East and I just, I'm wondering, it's a question. know, sacred geometry, and which I know we've got to kind of define that here in a second, but I mean, are there some cultures that are kind of more attuned to that? Cause like I know in Islamic culture, you've got all sorts, it's, there's lots of geometry in it. Is that? Is it kind of the same thing? there a reason they're coming to you interested or is it just kind of like happenstance? You've got relationships. Or do think it's more culturally in tuned? Yeah, it's a bit of both, I would say, in the Middle East and the Islamic world. Geometry, geometric patterns, very much in your face. You see them all over. So a lot of people associate it with Islamic culture, architecture, but we have it in other cultures just as much. It's in a different way. So I wouldn't say I'm going there because they're the only ones that are looking for second geometry. It happened really. You get to know someone, you get to know someone else. It evolves and some of the projects I do, are also through the Princes Foundation, which have outreach projects all over the world. they asked me to teach here. Sometimes they asked me to design a project with a local team of craftspeople. So it's varied. then, yes, people do come to me because they know that I know how to design a geometric pattern.

Speaker 2

But I know how to proportion architectural details correctly and traditionally. And it's something that is very much valued still in the Middle East. Whereas in Europe, we have a very different approach to architecture, to building on the broad scale, apart from some niche project. We can talk about that in a minute. On the Middle East, very, it's much more, you could say mainstream to use these patterns to build. using geometry. Well, let's get into, yeah, helping me understand and everyone listening understand, you know, assuming we're coming knowing nothing. What is sacred geometry? And I'm sure that's a big topic, or, you know, like that's what we're about to talk about. But if you could start us off here, lay the foundation. Yeah. Well, I'll pick you up to what you probably know. Lots of people I talked to, they've had geometry at school. Now you've held a compass, you've drawn some circles and solved some triangular problems of some sort. Very technical, very abstract. The second part of geometry that people know of is the esoteric part. You think about books like Da Vinci Code or the Freemasons that use geometric symbolism and Knights, Templars, what have you, which then moves into the new age sort of geometry, mandala patterns that you wear as an amulet. Psychodromatry is all that, but it's so much more. You could say psychodromatry is a cosmology, it's a way of explaining how our world is built, how our world functions in a very philosophical, almost spiritual level.

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And if you look at it in that way, it's something that you find in, I would say, all the cultures, all traditional cultures on the planet. They have psychodometry somewhere in their philosophy, in their repertoire of artistic expression. Okay, so. Maybe we start talking about what is some of that history throughout different cultures. So the idea behind it, you could say, the fundamental idea, that's what I find beautiful. We have a very big planet, different cultures, different traditions, but this is something that all traditions share. It's the idea that our world is not a random conglomerate of facts and people and materials and forms, but that it's somehow intelligently designed and built. to eternal principles, the principles that are timeless. These principles are expressed in geometric forms. could say very simple in your face example is flowers. If you look at any flower, there is some symmetry to it, some harmony. can count the petals. They're arranged in a symmetric way, sometimes in spirals. You see there's an order to it. You see the same if you look at planetary movements. If you track how

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Venus and Earth, how they move in the sky over the time of eight years, they form a beautiful pattern. Stunning accuracy, some five-fold flower-like pattern. You see the same if you look at molecules. If you take our human DNA, we all know this double helix. If you look at it from the top, sort of along its axis, it forms a perfect 10-pointed star pattern. Again, with perfect accuracy and stunning beauty. So you find geometry in nature on all levels. And I guess this is something that people have observed for millennia. They've come to the conclusion that this is not just some random form that just happened somehow. That this is something that has been created, you could say, designed intelligently. And there's an extension to that, that our world, our life, and we ourselves, and our body, and our spiritual existence are designed to that order as well. And from there, you then take the idea of saying, okay, if this is how our world is built, to that order, to that stunning beauty that you find on all levels, all scales, if I want to create something, if I want to bring something into this world, be it through art, through music, music is very geometric, through architecture, it should fall within that language. I want to add to that beauty. I want to express that beauty that I see, that harmony that I see in nature around me. And the way to do that is to use geometry, geometric forms, geometric proportions in my design approach. And this is something that is the core of all traditional arts. Whether you look in the Middle East, whether you look in Europe, you can look in Central Asia, architecture, jewelry. dance, music, they all have some order, some pattern, some symmetry, some geometric form in the core of their repertoire, you could say.

Speaker 1

You mentioned, it might be a small tangent, but you mentioned music is very geometric. Can you explain that? Yeah. Okay, this is interesting. We have to go step back. If I say geometry is at the essence of everything, it's not actually true. What is the essence of everything is number, pure number. And again, this is something many religions refer to in their scripts. And the Bible, can read that the world was built to some number, canon, some number pattern and Geometry is the spatial expression of that number. So if I have certain numbers, like a simple example, could say the number eight, the spatial expression in space is an octagon or an eight pointed star. If I have the number five, it would be a pentagon. These are very simple, straightforward examples. So that will be number in space. And then you have number in time, which is music. We all know vibrations or frequencies. If you then overlay certain frequencies, get number ratios between the tones. you're a fifth, it's a two to three ratio. So we have pure number in there, but expressed not in visible, but in audible form. So it's number in time through frequency. And then we have astronomy, which is the movement of the planets. and lots of traditions refer to it as the harmony of the spheres, which is number and time and space. So they move through space, they draw patterns in the sky, the planets, and at the same time with those patterns, with those movements, because it's never ending, it's always continuing, they emit, you could say, sort of frequencies at very low rate, they're very, very slow frequencies. And if you again put the frequency

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the movement of Mars against the movement of Earth, you get some relationships, some interval between those and that will be number and time and space. Wow. Yeah, this is very outside of my depth, but really interesting. I think I've heard people talk about, whether in movies or books or lectures, numbers or math kind of being the foundation of the universe idea, but like don't know enough math to really totally understand what that means, but I do get the idea that the more that we, there are rules, I guess you could say, maybe about how the universe is set up and how it works. And so the better that we understand those rules, the more that we can apply them in creative and different ways. And doesn't like put us in a box. It's just because you know those rules. There's really infinite creativity within that. And I think about, you know, I mean, the more you understand and it's helpful to understand the numbers and then geometry being the spatial representation of numbers. Because I mean, the more we understand numbers and math that we can blast rockets off into space and, you know, invent cars and buildings and obviously architecture makes sense to talk about in the form of geometry because it is spatial architecture is very spatial or that is what it is. How do you think about

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geometry and sacred geometry and in all of that in relation to architecture.

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There's two approaches, I would say. And I use both in my projects. One is a more spiritual approach, which is the approach you find in the sacred architecture of many traditions. Look at Gothic cathedrals or Greek temples. They're all using some sort of sacred geometry, geometric proportions in their structure. it's clearly there. Some people are debating if they are there, if they actually use it or it's just a coincidence. But if you look at how they designed, you know, about the medieval masons, how they did it, they all had their compass and ruler and were very prominent with it. That's with their design tools. But it was very spiritual. So loaded with symbolism, loaded with abstract philosophical concepts. And it's very interesting to study that it's very interesting to look at it, but very complex and not so accessible at the same time. So if I use that, I'll do some sculpture projects where I really go deep into the number theory, deep into sacred geometry. And I see what I can do with it as a sort of visual representation of some extra concepts. But it's really a niche. What I would say is much more applicable to architecture and to design contexts on any scale is using sacred geometry because it's beautiful, because it's aesthetically pleasing. And I brought that example of a flower earlier. You look at the flower. I think there are very few people on the planet who say that a flower is ugly. Not because of colors only, but because of the symmetry, because of the proportioning. So let's say we design a facade, we design a building and we use some geometric proportion for the window openings. Be it root two or a golden proportion, a very common example. They will make this window opening beautiful. aesthetically pleasing. look at it, we don't know what number is behind it, but we look at it, we find it beautiful as opposed to random ratio, random window opening. So in a lot of projects that I do, I use psychodromatry as a tool for creating an harmonious, beautiful design. And as that it's very timeless and completely independent from cultural, philosophical.

Speaker 2

historical principles. You could use it anywhere, anytime and the outcome will look different. The outcome can be your very individual style, can be your local historic style in your town. But just using second geometry as a design tool, very practical, very hands on, can help to create something beautiful. Which then of course it links back to the whole concept that if we use it, if you use beautiful proportions, we're working within the principles that our world was built in. The world is built to number ratios, to geometric proportions. So if I design something, if I design a building and I work within that flow of designing, it will become beautiful and will become harmonious and will be something that pleases the eye but also creates a space that is nice to be in. The first houses I designed actually this is a in the bend and Carlton landing for anyone that might have seen those these white brick houses But I actually use the golden ratio like on the rectangle. So I guess technically I've I've I understood at least enough to say like hey if you're gonna build in a rectangle you might and if you can like you might as well, know building a golden ratio is it 1.618 right, so it's like Whatever the width that I set the width of the house. I think it was 20 feet or something and then whatever it was I did exactly it was like 35 foot seven or something like that whatever and then I even did the vertical the Gable on the narrow end was actually basically very close to the golden ratio and and I will say it's one of the most aesthetically pleasing houses we've done from like different Views it's really odd how pretty it is. I don't know It actually is uniquely nice.

Speaker 2

But you know what's interesting? I've worked with a lot of students and young designers and if you have an eye, a good eye for design, you naturally create this proportions. Yeah. If I asked 20 people to draw a rectangle on a canvas, yeah, I can see if they're good designers, if they have an eye for proportion for harmony, for good design, they will end up with rectangles that are very close to some geometric proportions. was actually really interesting because I had set the rectangle, the width and length of it on purpose to golden ratio. The height of it was accidental. I didn't realize it till later. And the height was set based on visually looking at it. And then I've got a couple other examples. I've had people take a facade that I've designed and once again, I'm not using sacred geometry on the windows or whatever. And they drew a bunch of geometry on the front. were like, see? I was like, well, I didn't actually do that. They made it look like I did something, I wasn't, but I agree though is cause people will ask, how did you learn how to design like me? Cause I was not formally trained. You mentioned being kind of like self-taught in a lot of ways. I guess that was right before we hopped in the podcast. I'm self-taught too. I learned how to design one through building with bricks and wood and understanding like how the materials worked. And then secondly, I just looked at stuff I found beautiful. And what did I find beautiful? Mostly not stuff built in the past 50 years, you know, I'm not saying nothing is beautiful built in the past, but a lot of it's just looking at any buildings, any, any gateways, any just whatever it is. And so that's actually, I think what I end up, I'm seeing those things without realizing I'm seeing those things is my point. The harmony. Yes, and I think it'll be my appeal to anyone designing that wants to do beautiful things that doesn't want to do. That doesn't want to... How do I say this, right? Doesn't want to annoy. It doesn't want to provoke. Yeah, that wants to just create good, beautiful design. Recover your sense for harmony.

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train your eye to see harmony, to design harmonious forms. And you can do that through, say, geometry. If we're drawing geometric patterns with compass and ruler on paper, that's one way. Another way is to study traditional buildings, traditional patterns that people in the past have created. And the third way is just connecting with nature. If I look at a pine cone, it has a very good shape. has a very perfect spiral if you look at it from the top. look at flowers, if I look at crystal structures, whatever it is, I get a sense for what is beautiful, what is always beautiful, but in every context. And then I can use these principles, these concepts, these sort of forms, the eternal forms really in my design. So it doesn't have to be the tactical approach with compass and ruler and geometric proportions. It can be a very intuitive approach as well. that's something that a lot of architects have lost. And that's what I find this very sad to see. If you see a building that is designed with intention to be beautiful, someone made an effort, someone did a bit something beyond the average, but they just don't have an eye for proportion. That's, think, education, something along the lines of second geometry of geometric proportioning systems should come in to train people to see. Yeah, that's interesting. It puts, I won't go off on too long on this tangent because some people have already heard this before, but I mean, it reminds me of, we were talking about two ways to do it. You can learn the technical or like you can look at precedent and stuff to learn and becomes more of intuitive thing. And something really easy to translate this to, in my opinion, is learning music. I'm not a musician, but I mean, I grew up learning at least of like playing the piano and guitar and stuff. can't really play it now, but if you go to architecture school,

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at least from the people I talk to, they don't learn precedent or go study beautiful cities or beautiful buildings. It's kind of like, what do you feel? just like start drawing. I'm imagining if you took a kid or college student, whatever, and who's never played music before ever. And you're just like, just start mashing the keys until you like something, you know, that is the stupidest way to learn. Like you want to listen to great music and understand what a great you know, a reference point is, and then there's still infinite creativity from there. But, you know, to build this foundation of knowledge, of understanding of these principles and harmonies. And I think it's a great disservice when you say architects have lost this is because like we don't even try it's just like mash the keys and whatever you say, you know, whatever you come out, it's going to, it's beautiful because it's shocking. It's different. It's never been done before. It's whatever. And you know, you just use the term, whoops, my phone is on. just use the term if we actually intentionally make a building beautiful. And that's actually a key word intentionally because how often it seems like we do not intentionally make something beautiful because we don't even believe in the idea of beauty anymore. Let alone do we believe that it's a real thing. Secondly, that it's actually important. And I would assume we're probably on the same page. And I'd love to hear your thoughts about this, about why beauty and harmony and of course this kind of connects the sacred geometry and just beautiful forms and harmony. But like why is beauty important in our world? And I would be curious how you answer that.

Speaker 2

give very complex philosophical explanations for this, but I would say we're simple beings. Us human beings, we're very, very simple, the way we work. one thing we should never forget is that we are part of nature. Nature is not the green outside our city. Nature is us, and nature is everything that exists. Even the plastic is made from nature. Even nuclear waste is nature. So nature is all around us, and we are part of it. function the same way that an animal function, a plant functions, that a mineral functions. So if we want to function, if we want to be in an environment where we can flourish, it needs to be beautiful. There's no question, there's no option for it. We see that all over the older big housing estates post-war here in Europe. They're problem zones here because people don't function in there. She put the people in the garden in the park. Every organism in a beautiful natural environment relaxes. For us, that's natural. If we look at our dogs and our cats and our pets, we know what they need. We know they have certain needs for survival. for ourselves as a society, I'm not talking of individuals, as a society, we neglect it or we even deny ourselves these basic needs. harmony, beauty is a basic need, I would say. We cannot work without it. We get stressed. We get frustrated. think we have to behave like machines if we're in a machine-like environment, in a machine-built environment. And worst of all, we lose our connection to nature, to the world that we live in if we create places that tell us that we're disconnected, that everything is disconnected, that we are the result of some random evolutionary process, just a little bit better than apes by chance.

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So I think we dig our own grave here. If we go down that route for another few generations, we have to go back and accept that we need beauty, that it's basic need, just like food and water, and that we need it in our everyday life, in our home, in our work environment, in our cities where we go out. Yeah, no, I completely agree with that. There's the symbolism aspect of sacred geometry, which we haven't necessarily talked about. Then there's kind of the more just connecting it to beauty and harmony and like a way to design and reflect these principles in a beautiful way. And then there's also, I would think, the connection, and there's multiple facets here, but of the true physical, almost like structural form in terms of physics even. And that's the part that I know a little about. know, for example, an egg, if you try to squeeze it from the top, you know, on the top, you put your fingers on top and the bottom of it and you try to squeeze it, it's extraordinarily strong. Versus you squeeze it from the side, you can crush it pretty easily because the, literally the geometry of the egg is, what would you call it? Like just crew or a super efficient geometry. And so there's this connection to the real structural forms and some stuff I've been getting really interested in. I've had a podcast with Philip Block on, but also recently I was on a call with them. Like I went to a workshop at a one hour presentation with Sigrid. my gosh, where is she at Stanford? And they're doing these thin masonry shells involving like guastavino type stuff, but kind of using more complex forms because they've got computational analysis and they're able to do compound curvature and things and so they're able to create these unbelievable unbelievably strong thin masonry shells that are three inches two inches thick three inches thick Massive spans, you know 30 40 50 60 feet whatever and all in compression no steel just hyper efficient because of the geometry and I find that so cool

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because it's almost like taking away everything that's not necessary and only leaving. And it makes me realize how much we're not masters of our craft in the modern world in the 21st century. I kind of compared it. I did a presentation recently. I was talking about how we kind of like brute force it. Like we've got some really brilliant engineering and a lot of knowledge in math and we can build skyscrapers and really big bridges and some really amazing infrastructure and stuff. But if you look at like the section of a concrete floor system, it's unbelievable amounts of steel. just, it's like, it's shocking amounts of steel and concrete. And there is these guys that are doing it the same exact floor system that performs the same way with 90 % less concrete or 70 % less concrete and 90 % less steel, because it's like they're taking away everything they don't need. Now you look at a gothic cathedral at the vaults, you tell me what is minimalism, if not that. Exactly what you're speaking about. Yeah, and one of the vaults, was one of it, it wasn't a Gothic cathedral. It was a King's College Chapel in Cambridge, which is 500 years old. It's the largest fan vault in the world. And if someone can imagine just this beautiful masonry ceiling in a cathedral, basically. But the proportion of it, the actual shell is the same proportion as an egg shell, like the thickness of an egg shell, which is just like in compression, no steel, built 500 years ago. And then, mean, the flying buttresses.

Speaker 2

couldn't do this without the knowledge of geometry. That's where it goes full circle. Talking about it can be very philosophical, very spiritual. It can be very tactical. But in the end, it's the only way to do it. If you really want to be efficient, if you want to work to the laws of nature, not against it by brute forcing your floor with several inches of concrete and steel and everything way over dimensioned. If you want to be efficient like nature is, it doesn't waste anything. That's the only way to do it. And that's what I find so beautiful looking at cutting edge research and science, but they look at what you mentioned, know, sort of material science and structures built through algorithmic systems. It's geometric. Yeah. It goes back to it. use things, they don't talk about it the way that people would in the past, linking it to philosophy, to spirituality, but they acknowledge that it's there and they acknowledge that it's essential to design, which is something that the modern architects are not doing. I'm going to share a little trick we use at Building Culture. So if you're designing a house, you have to have egress windows or egress in any bedroom, for example. And the problem with that is egress windows are very large, especially if it's a double hung window or something like that. And because of design constraints, sometimes we want a smaller window if it's in a dormer or just for the hierarchy of the elevations. Well,

Speaker 1

A really cool trick that we use with our Sierra Pacific windows is we'll take something from their urban casement line and we'll put what's called a piano hinge on it. And so rather than a kind of a normal casement that kind of slides open where only part of the window is open, this is almost like a door hinge. And so the entire window opens and you can meet egress with a two foot by four foot window, a 2040 window. It's the smallest possible egress window anyone makes. And that's a nice little design trick. If you're as nerdy as I am, you will actually think that's really cool. So check out Sierra Pacific windows and if you are in the state of Oklahoma, check out one source windows and doors. We at building culture use both of them regularly. It's really interesting. I call it like a term I've been using is cutting edge old tech because it's like these, this old tech in terms of geometry, you know, and how people used to design. Cause I've seen how they design. got the cathedrals and the flying buttresses and they're using literally proportions and geometry. They're not using math or the way we would think of math and numbers, calculus or something. And then today we're learning, like we've kind of forgotten that the past hundred years. And I don't know, like, well, we'll come back to that, but now there are some people kind of like rediscovering, I guess you could say this kind of lost art of designing with geometry and even graphic statics. is form finding. It's, you know, how are the loads distributed through the building? We're going to find and discover the form of the bridge of the building of the vault, which is discovering the geometry, like the underlying geometry, which I think is such a neat concept because it's kind of like you're uncovering the truth of it and you can like not understand the truth of it and put this big slab of a slab of a concrete floor system or whatever. Or you can really understand the nature of it and come up with this unbelievably cost-effective, efficient, beautiful, beautiful form.

Speaker 2

Here's the caveat. If we do this, and that's the way it's done nowadays, of course, if you do it with the help of computers, of algorithms, of complex calculation, we think it's very complicated, think it's very difficult, and we think it's something beyond our human comprehension. Which, to a part, it's true. Yes, if you want to create something as thin as an egg shell in a height of 100 meters, let's say concrete shell, you need complex calculation. But we shouldn't forget that you can also draw with compass and ruler very simple on a paper and it gives you a much deeper understanding of what it's actually about. If I were to use complex computer calculation to come up with a design that is geometric, that is very intelligent. I would always add the other component of drawing by hand, of drawing very basic patterns to get an understanding or to maintain that understanding, to deepen that understanding of what it's actually that I'm doing here. How simple it is, how beautiful, true and profound it is. If I draw it by hand, if I draw it with my own creativity at a very slow pace, it takes hours to draw a pattern like this. but you get to level of understanding that you can never have on a computer if it's just spitting out ready designs. Yeah. What do you see like in kind of the modern engineering profession? Is there much talk in your experience about geometry from like a structural perspective or is it mainly, is it so detached and kind of more in the just math and calculus and number crunching?

Speaker 2

If there is, it's often purely technical. Like if you look at the bridge, was, for some time I was very interested in bridges and how they're constructed and everything and bridges have a lot of the triangulation. That's the basic principle. You put three sticks together, it's a stable shape. When you put a few of those next to each other, you can form a bridge across the river. But this triangle essentially is geometry. You can draw it by hand if you want. So it is used widely in... There's no other way of building something like this without using geometry, but it seems purely technical. find that sad because it can be so much more. It's there already. You're already using it and you don't use it as a tool for yourself and for everyone else that gets to use it to connect to something bigger than that object. So if you put a bit of a pinch of symbolism into it, gives you a chance to connect to something bigger. Sometimes when I design a furniture piece, for example, I use some five-fold pentagonal layout behind it to proportion my size, the drawer heights, whatever the length of the legs. And I can deliver it to the client just like that, saying, okay, here's your furniture. I can deliver it saying, here's the furniture. This is what I used to design it. This is the pattern that is behind it. You don't actually see it. or I can deliver it and say, this is the pattern behind it. There's a pentagon in this pentagonal layout. It's the same layout we find in the flowers, the same layout we find in certain molecular structures, the same layout we find in the cosmology and the astronomical movements of Earth and Venus. And it has been used in symbolism in traditional philosophy for millennia symbolizing this, this, this, and this. So you can deliver so much context with such a simple shape. And for many people, that's eye-opening. You suddenly have a design, it works, it's functional, whatever, but you discover that there is more behind it. It's the same looking at, or we talked about the vaults, looking at the Gothic vault. Yes, it's there because that's the only way to build it. You can't use any other shape, any other cross-section art shape than that. But at the same time,

Speaker 2

pattern behind it, the geometry behind it means so much more. Whether it's the numbers, the actual number, the width they used or the proportions, the relation of the height to the width, it can deliver so much meaning, so much value with it. I think that's the real, that should be the real goal of designing to create something that functions, works, but that connects it to something bigger that's often overlooked. the engineering profession anyway, but even with architects, designers or artists that use geometry. see so many artists of copy pasting Islamic patterns. They love them. They understand how to draw them, but they just take what has been designed in the Mamluk mosque, copy it, cut it in MDF, whatever. And that's the artwork. It works, but you don't deliver. that meaning, that level of connection that you could with it. I'm getting outside of my realm of knowledge here, but it reminds me a little bit too, when we're talking about the symbolism of it and kind of being passed connecting us. There's growing bodies of research talking about how a lot of things are actually passed through in our DNA generationally beyond just, you know, these are the codes of even traumas and things like that, that we experience as child, we can pass on to our kids. within our DNA, but also people's DNA can change. And once again, I'm kind of outside of my problem of expertise here, but it just reminds me too of when you're designing, even if you can't see it, like the way you just described designing a piece of furniture. So I might look at that piece of furniture and I'm not gonna see the five petal flower connection per se, but I would imagine there's still something communicated there that we have, whatever you wanna call it, have evolved.

Speaker 1

how we've been created, designed, or even in our DNA to recognize even if it's subconsciously and probably feel connected to in some way that's kind of indescribable outside of, you know, that's probably words are difficult to describe it or science. That's the thing. I'm glad you mentioned that because we're so not used to that. At least here in Europe, can say we're so trained to think in terms of styles and fashions. First it was Gothic, then Renaissance, then Baroque, then Rococo, then whatever, modernism and postmodernism. We think that's the way it works. We think that's an option. As an artist, I can come up with my style. the new style, the new fashion, latest thing. this way of looking at design, of looking at harmony and beauty, it's not an option. It's timeless. It's always there. And everyone will acknowledge that it's beautiful. Everyone will acknowledge that there is some aesthetic quality to it. So it goes completely beyond style, historical epoch, beyond culture, beyond the geographical region. You might be right, it might be in our DNA. It's just, think that's how we're built. So we recognize that how the world is built and recognize that we are part of the world as a whole, as a big, design if we look at it in that way. You've mentioned like intelligent design a few times in connection with sacred geometry. And it kind of seems like you're just like, this is so the way this is put together. Could not be random is kind of what I'm hearing from you. I don't know if you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm kind of, I'm, curious, like what, what do, atheists believe in terms of sacred geometry or in Germany, which I believe I could be wrong, but I think it's, it's becoming less and less religious. I think.

Speaker 1

What does the modern person think about what you're talking about or like in universities in Germany or in Berlin somewhere, like what people think you're full of crap or they acknowledge it's true but just come to different conclusions about intelligent design? I must say the hardcore atheists, they're the most firm believers in geometry. Really? In geometry, yes. I don't want to offend anybody now, but what I've observed is what they're actually rejecting is the notion of religion, of dogma, of ritual, all that. But if you present them with this concept that there is some... beauty, some clever design behind it. we don't know, can call it God, whatever. But that's undeniable. I find it most stunning if you look at planetary movements, planetary proportions. There's some cool box about it. It really goes into detail. The proportion accuracy is so amazing. It's like 99.9 % accuracy. It comes to number ratios, to patterns. So you cannot deny it. You cannot say, you're just interpreting things. Looking at that, it's really humbling because I know so little. I know that maybe for me Christianity is not the way or Islam is not the way or the way I was brought up in terms of religion is not the way. But there is something that is much bigger than me and that is mysterious and that is stunning and that is up there in the night sky and it's down there in my DNA. I don't know what it is. can't give name, but suddenly they realize it gives meaning to them. It gives meaning to life beyond having to affirm anything, beyond having to proclaim any belief. at the same time, a lot of atheists are rejecting this notion of separating humanity into religions, into cultures. They say, why do you have to go into war over culture, over religion and geometry? This sort of

Speaker 2

approach, this sort of way of seeing the world is connecting, they're reuniting that. We are all one, we are all part of this one planet, we are all part of this one design. It does seem like in the modern world and I don't know, however you would define that, is that the past hundred years or something, but it does seem like we've lost a sense of mysticism in our world. And I cannot remember the quote, I wish I did, but this person was critiquing the modern world and said something about we don't look up anymore. And some people immediately take that in a religious direction. And while I have my faith that I do believe is true, he means it in a broader sense. And I frankly mean it in a broader sense of I grew up being kind of taught and I think we're taught in the 21st century. we've, we're masters of the universe. We figured out the world, cures how it works. And yeah, there's a few things we don't know and we're still discovering like how to cure cancer, a couple other things. But we're very, there is kind of a hubris and an arrogance to it in my mind because it was, I'm trying to think what it, honestly, this is kind of funny, but it was learning about the vaulting. And I'm not going to talk about it too much longer, but like kind of this, what they knew 500 years ago, a thousand years ago, and recognizing that we have no concept of that today, like virtually no concept of it today. And it feels like magic to. modern engineers. Like they're like, well, that just doesn't work. That doesn't stand up. Gaudi designed like La Sagrada Familia, the famous cathedral by hanging chains. Like that's literally how he designed it. Hanging chains upside down and flipping them, you know, the other way. and it reminded me, I'm 36 and it's like every year, especially over the past probably six years, the world is becoming bigger and more interesting and more unknown. And I think that's really important. There's something about the world being

Speaker 1

unknown and something bigger out there that's actually life giving for people. think I don't think it's kind of this intimidating. my gosh, the world's so big. We're out of control. Maybe you can feel that way, but there's something I think were designed or intended to look up, to explore, to, to search. And there are no like specific answers. And I feel like we're not, I don't know as a culture and I'm getting really kind of esoteric here, but I mean, We're not searching anymore. You where's the wonder? Where's the magic? And I think there is, you just have to look. It's hard to see when you're driving through endless, you know, strip mall and highway centers in the U.S. and Oklahoma or Texas or something. But like the world is a magical place and we've lost that sense of wonder. And I would love to rediscover it. tell you what, it sounds stupid, but take a piece of paper, take a compass and a ruler and start drawing some geometric pattern. There's basic, oh, you get a good book, some basic ideas in the internet as well. You'll discover that sense for wonder, that sense for mystery very quickly. yes. That is the biggest compass I've ever seen, by the way. That's what I use for drawing. Geometry.

Speaker 1

For anyone that's not watching, it's like the size of his arm. So, yeah. But it really works. mean, it's you drop simple lines and circles and that's all you draw, but you connect them and you sit there, you it at such a pace. You start wondering, you start seeing the shapes in very different way and you start seeing the shape when you go out into the world, you see the shapes and suddenly they have meaning to you. And suddenly you start questioning things again. It's like feeling in a web. your starting point is your own practice. It can be a drawing practice or you're design practice, let's say. And you fill it with context. You discover some of the old symbolisms that people have used, that people talk about. You discover shapes, proportions, everything being used in ancient buildings, in painting, in ceramics, whatever it is. And then you discover sacred scriptures or books about philosophy talking about these shapes, about these numbers. And suddenly, You start filling in that web with building blocks of information and when you connect them, the little bits of information becomes so much more profound, so much deeper. And then what I find most fascinating, you add modern research to it. Like for example, the example I gave of the DNA being a perfect 10-pointed star. People back in the days didn't know about it, but modern science is discovering those things on a molecular level, geometric shapes. same same number ratios appearing there that people have been talking about for millennia. It just confirms that there is so much connection between all the scales, between us and the world, between the past and the present and all that adds so much mystery to our world because we realize that everything we've been doing the past decades is only up here and the intellect. It's purely intellectual, purely

Speaker 2

through the thinking, through the rationalizing. if you work with shapes, with symbols, they talk to your intellect, yes, they talk to your heart, but at end they talk to your soul. Especially if you design spaces, think. Architecture designed using geometric proportions, using number ratios. It talks to your soul very subconsciously by being there. You can't pinpoint it. You can't... explain it. But if you walk into an ancient building, let's say church, temple, whatever it is, you have a sense of awe, you can't explain it, but it's stunning. Somehow it's uplifting. You want to be there, you want to stay there longer. And that's exactly when it's opening the door to something that you can't explain with intellect, some mystery. And I think that will be the way to also rediscover it within yourself. I'm getting kind of, this is, is a, might be getting way off on a limb here, but I was listening to something yesterday or two days ago. Um, Arthur Brooks is a professor at, think Harvard or something, kind of a professor of studies, happiness. Like what, what is happiness and how do people actually achieve happiness? And, know, it turns out it's not endless pleasure sinking and comfort and all these other things like that's, know what makes people, makes people happy. Um, but he was talking about, And maybe I'm stretching to be here, but it just made me think of it. He was talking about how pleasure, you know, and there's a lot of things that can be pleasurable, both good and bad. I mean, pleasure is kind of this experience. he talks about pleasure is very different than enjoyment. And enjoyment is a much more durable thing because, you know, pleasure is basically this giant dopamine spike that's going to crash. So alcohol, sex, pornography, drugs, whatever things. They're very pleasurable. but then actually leave you feeling empty. And you more and more and often, but I never knew this. I've kind of, you know, been talking about and thinking about these kinds of things for a while, but he's talking about how pleasure and it's something about where it happens in the brain. I'm to get this mixed up. I think it's like, he said something about it's something only on the right side of the brain and it's detached from memory. like pleasure, it's not like the, it's not triggering the memory senses in the brain. It's just kind of releasing.

Speaker 2

It bore more and off it.

Speaker 1

feel good chemicals versus enjoyment, there's a connection to memory. And so he was using relationships like social interactions and the way he described enjoyment was really nice. But it reminds me when you said something about like going out and recognizing things and there's a sense of memory there, whether it's, you know, kind of like conscious memory or subconscious memory and that it actually can bring more enjoyment. to your daily life and to people's daily life and sense of wellbeing. And one way I would describe that is a little bit of knowledge goes a really long ways. And I'll give a few really small examples. I, this is kind of funny, when I was, right after college, I was like miserable my job and started swing dancing, like literally like 20s, Lindy hop, West coast swing, swing dancing. And I did it for like a year and a half and I was kind of obsessed with it. I wouldn't say I got. good at it, right? You can't get great at anything in a year and a half, you know, a couple of times a week, but I got, you know, probably better than 90 % of people just because when you do something that no one ever does, you know, it's pretty easy to get some, you know, some level of skill. Well, then watching swing dancing after just a year, even less, it was so much more fascinating and interesting to watch swing dancing and frankly any other kind of dance because I just understood dance to it differently. I understood the music. differently, I understood how difficult certain things were. And so like if you apply that to wine, if you know nothing about wine and someone drops a 200 bottle in front of you, are you going to enjoy that bottle of wine? Not really. But if you know even a little bit how much richer the experience can be, if you know a little bit about classical music or poetry, how much richer the experience. And so like part of my goal, the reason I'm talking about this is I really want to enrich my life, you know, and like our family and things like that, my kids. and how do you enrich your own life? It's in many ways through becoming more knowledgeable so you can appreciate all these moments and little things and enjoyment of being and not simply pleasure seeking or escapism. I'm kind going off on a tangent here, but it just, I don't know, it made me think of it, what you're talking about.

Speaker 2

I totally agree with you. It's lasting knowledge. No one can take it away from you. Pleasure the moment the source is gone. They're worse than they were before. If we link it back to architecture, to building spaces, In a way, guess it has always been like this, people are illiterate too, in terms of design, in terms of what makes a good space. They don't really know. They have a feeling, they have a basic feeling. But they can't really say, if I improve this, it will be better the space. If I would change the materials, whatever. They can't pin it down, why they find one space nicer than another. So if you had some basic education, some basic knowledge, in architecture for everyone, I think we will be much more critical with the spaces we live in. We wouldn't accept so much, we wouldn't take so much what is being thrown at us on all sides. we just accept, it's just the way it is that all cities are getting more ugly by the day. It's just how it is that modern construction is not really like the old one. It's just how it is. No, doesn't have to be like this. If we don't accept it, Yeah.

Speaker 2

people have, the designers have to come up with something better. I don't know if that's feasible. don't know if that will happen. But as you say, you want real enjoyment, true enjoyment out of the spaces you live in, out of your built environment, something has to change. Because an ugly building, it's best, it can give you pleasure. Every walk into a mall can give you pleasure. Yeah, you're gonna have fun there for an afternoon, but enjoyment, true enjoyment? No. haven't seen a mall yet that gives you true. Last day good job I agree with that. What's the connection between, I guess, what people call biophilic design and sacred geometry? do you connect those at all? Because obviously you're talking about, know, a flower. I've seen people designing with geometry where they're drawing triangles and stuff off their facades, particularly in classical architecture. think Notre Dame and stuff, they learn this. And then there's people that talk about biophilic design, which are more kind of like organic shapes or looking at a Venus flytrap and how that functions. mean, do you explore that at all and how would you connect that to sacred geometry? Speaker 2 (01:00:27.918) I don't explore it, but I quite enjoy seeing it. Because I think the intention behind it is a beautiful one. It's exactly that intention of reconnecting of saying, okay, we are part of nature, we are nature, and what we build, we design, what we create should be part of nature as well. So let's look at nature. Let's look at nature, how it actually works, how nature does things, how nature solves certain problems. we take inspiration from them. We don't have to reinvent the wheel. If it has been out there for millennia, it's out there all around us every day. So I think it's quite a literal sort of approach to let's reconnect to nature. Let's learn from nature. step in the right direction, maybe. And if you connect that with some number, some geometry, some of the more abstract things that you can't immediately see and analyze. I think this could be very healthy approach to bringing some context into our design world. We talked about the golden ratio earlier. I talk about that as if I know what that is. I don't like, what is the golden ratio? And I don't know if you could actually like, I know I can just Google things. I probably, I'm sure I have before, but like it doesn't, I'm still like, but what is it? Do know that funny image of Trump's Speaker 1 (01:02:00.462) Yes, yes, I've seen that. Yeah, hilarious. Yeah, people stick it on top of Greek temple façade. So the golden ratio is really everywhere. And if you mentioned the golden ratio, you're the top echelon already. You've made it in the design world. It's a very popular term, at the same time, it's very beautiful, very efficient, very pure when you look at the actual ratio behind it. If you take a length, like my ruler, and I divide it anywhere along the way, the proportion between the longer to the shorter part is the same as the proportion between the longer to the whole. That's all. And there's only one ratio that does that, 1.618. Wow. So it's very simple in its essence what it actually is. Say it one more time if you take take a length of ruler. I take it Speaker 2 (01:02:59.916) I take a ruler that you can actually see. Speaker 1 (01:03:05.134) The proportion of the short to the long is. Yeah, so I have a ruler. I can divide it anywhere along its length. If I divide it in the golden ratio, the proportion of the longer to the shorter is the same as the proportion of the longer to the whole. got it. And that's 1.618, which is the only ratio. Any other way, they are different proportions. Got it. That's the most basic thing that there's so many other beautiful, stunning facets to it. if you look at a number, you can do cool maths with it that you can only do with the golden ratio. If you look at terms of drawing, can do amazing things with it. can only do with the golden ratio. If you look in terms of arranging, let's say leaves around a stem or petals around a flower, There's things you can only do with the golden ratio if it comes to Fibonacci sequence and all that. it's really, it's, think that that's why it's so popular because it's so stunning and it's so omnipresent. We see it everywhere in nature, in design and in math. And we can connect to it instantly. Other ratios, other geometric principles, they're more difficult to connect to. They're more abstract. It takes more time to understand, to comprehend. Speaker 1 (01:04:23.626) What's the, I believe it's the Nautilus shell that you often see like with the, relation to the golden ratio, cause that's just, right. That's, that's the symbol for. There's one of the nodules shell, get the sunflower. So if you look at the sunflower, arrangement of the seeds and the spirals, follow the golden ratio of the Fibonacci sequence. Can you explain the difference between golden ratio of Fibonacci sequence? So the Fibonacci sequence, it's like if one you have two, you add the previous one to the current one that gives you the next number. So one plus two makes three, two plus three makes five, five plus three makes eight. Now, these numbers, they also have a ratio here. Eight to five is one ratio. Three to two is one ratio. And the bigger the numbers get, guess which ratio they're approaching? 1.618. So 2 to 3 is not 1.618, it's something like 1.5. Then 8 to 5 is, I don't know, calculate it now. So they move around it like a sort of But it's pretty close. In the long run, if you go to infinity, they approach that ratio. Speaker 1 (01:05:38.25) It does kind of like break your mind a little bit about like why I don't know that. Yeah, that's the cool thing. If you get into all this, details of it, the juice of it, it's so fascinating. What are some of the most like interesting examples that you might give people or just things that make you go, just get you excited that something's real? Speaker 2 (01:06:04.846) the top of my head. I can get very tactical now, but the relationships between some examples of traditional architecture, the very old ancient architecture, and cosmology, astronomy, the proportions of the planets, the distances of the planets, the shape of our Earth measured in certain measuring units perfectly reflects in certain ancient monuments. That's insane. to an insane incredible accuracy. cannot deny it. cannot say it's coincidence. It's there. And if you go deeper and deeper, you can see that they not only knew that our earth was round, they not only knew that it had a certain diameter, they also knew that it wasn't a perfect sphere, that it wasn't flattened due to the spin. So you have different measures for the polar radius and for the equatorial radius that reflected in a building. Try to do that nowadays. you say ancient architecture, how old are we talking? Speaker 2 (01:07:10.446) Well, really, you can find it in Stonehenge, in megalithic architecture a lot. You find it in Egyptian architecture, you find it in Gothic architecture. then it gets more we're talking BC. You'll find it, yeah. But afterwards as well. It gets more and more diluted, becomes more and more shallow, you could say, because this losing connection to nature is a bigger thing, is an ongoing process, it's been happening for millennia. It's not just something that happened in last 50 years. So we've been losing that connection, but we had it in the past, like 10,000 years ago. Very connected. And that's just utterly baffling. That's question. How did they move building blocks like this size is one question. How did they shape them so accurately? Yeah. did they position place them so accurately that they're there to an inch in the right position to give that measure. And then how did they measure our celestial bodies? Yeah. But you get more recent examples of our sacred architecture, but this connection gets more more shallow. Then it's really just geometric proportions. Yeah. Let's make it beautiful. Let's make it harmonious. there is not so much more information in it anymore as it used to be. The Gothic still has it. Gothic cathedrals, if you study the layout, the geometry, the symbolism of them, they're very cosmological. They're talking about our world how it's Any great ancient monument would do. It's say, okay, here's our universe. It's incomprehensible. But let's build an image of this universe in stone. Speaker 1 (01:08:37.569) Sway. Speaker 2 (01:08:47.768) brings us close to comprehending the complexity, the stunning beauty of what is around us. So it wasn't just a fashion, let's do something fancy, something complicated was just, let's build something that helps us comprehend the world we live in because it's so vast. It's so amazing. It's so clever. And we cannot see, we cannot feel it, we cannot touch it. So let's bring it down to human scale, that we can actually look at it actually comprehended. Wow. The intention in doing architecture, in building something amazing, that intention we have completely lost. Yeah, the intention starts and ends in Excel spreadsheets, generally speaking, and a bunch of code books that went to die and a bunch of code books and regulations and Excel spreadsheets. Exactly, it has become complex on a very different level, let's put it like that. Yeah, it's really. Speaker 2 (01:09:42.734) Um, so it's really an artist for architect nowadays. I mean, you're in the business, you know exactly how the planning process is. It's really, really difficult to bring in that extra layer of meaning. Yeah. Why would you in the first place? Nope. If I'm building a house, why would I add anything that is has to do with the size of the celestial bodies? It doesn't make sense. So we have to find new meaning to it that is actually valuable to us nowadays. And we can't just copy paste. doesn't make sense. And then to integrate into design flow, to integrate into all the regulations and rules that we need to adhere to. That is challenge. But I think that's challenge that's worth taking, because it would add so much to the discussion around architecture and to the discussion around how do we want to build what is actually beautiful, what is actually timeless if you talk in terms of style. What style do we build? If I use eternal principles, timeless principles, this discussion about style becomes secondary because I have something that is there, that has always been there, and that's the core of my design. And then everything around I build using local materials, using time-tested ways of doing things. So it becomes more relaxed in a way, at the same time, it's becoming more complex. When you teach like an introductory class to sacred geometry to say building designers and architects, what's one of the first things you teach them to do? You have a good example. How to draw a circle with a compass. to draw a circle. Speaker 2 (01:11:28.172) the comments. What I do a walk along the numbers. So I try to transmit the notion that numbers is not pure quantity, that numbers have a quality. So we go, we draw the one which is the circle, we draw the two, which is not only double one. Wait, wait, wait. Say that again. Sorry, I think I might have lost you. So numbers are not only. They're not only quantities that we calculate with, they have qualities. So a five is completely different from a four. It's completely different from a seven in terms of its quality, its symbolism, its associations. Let's give an example. We think of a four with the four directions. We have the four seasons. We have the square. So it's very much connected to our earth. We can draw a fold shape easily. It's very much used in building and construction. It's very practical. It's the earth. If you take number seven, have you seen the heptagonal sevenfold building anywhere? doesn't exist. yeah, not all three in the planet. Yeah. So it has a it's not just three more than four, but seven has a whole different quality to it. You cannot draw it with compass and ruler even you cannot draw it on paper accurately. There's only approximations to drawing it. So the same with five again, it's completely different. The way you draw it. The associations we have with it. Speaker 2 (01:12:59.668) in terms of traditional symbolism, the way we use it in design, the way we find it in nature. you realize, and I take the participants through all these numbers from one to 12, we draw them out on paper sort of as geometric shapes, we talk about this association. So what can you think of? We talked about the number six, what comes to your mind? What is sixfold? So we approach it that way from a very sort of taken from everyday life, then adding some historical symbolism to it, some cultural symbolism. And then we develop a notion of, okay, numbers have a quality. And this quality is very profound, very meaningful. So you can then take that into design context and say, okay, I want to build, let's say building or piece of furniture. I want to use some geometric layout to make it beautiful. Which number do you use? Four-fold layout, five-fold. sevenfold, elevenfold. Suddenly this has a meaning. Suddenly this is a conscious informed decision that adds to the artistic concept of whatever you're designing. That's very interesting. And from there could branch out in a million directions. can go into pattern making, can go into philosophy, into spirituality. It's so broad. And I enjoy very much teaching because people respond very differently. People bring very different connotations. People bring very different insights. Suddenly you get very profound insights on the spot into a subject that they might be cultural, they might just have sprung up in the moment and Speaker 2 (01:14:45.75) And as the discussion is always great talking with a group of students about the subject. For people that are interested in exploring this a little bit more on their own, like myself, what would you recommend kind of looking into their books or lectures or something that you think are pretty good that offer an introductory to what it is and also maybe two questions like what it is and also like how to apply this architecturally for people that are... One book I really like, it gives a very nice introduction to the whole concept in an artistic way is called The Harmony of Flowers. I think that's the name by Keith Critchlow. Speaker 2 (01:15:37.108) was a great geometry artist and architect and talks about geometry in flowers, but then in a broader context, see how it's being used in architecture and art and a lot of different aspects. This is sort of a very general introduction. If you want to get more into the mathematical, numbers, really geeky about the numbers, can look at a person called John Michel. He has written a series of really good books about ancient monuments ancient architecture in relation to geometry and to number ratios and to measuring units. Some are broader, some are very technical. One is nice for them. You might enjoy its dimensions of paradise. It's called That's really eye-opening if you read that. Speaker 1 (01:16:28.558) I think I'm to pick up some of these. I've already got a couple books that I need to read. yeah, you've got me. There's a third book which I would highly recommend. It's more the philosophical aspect of it. It's by Titus Burkhardt. It's called Sacred Art in East and West. It's a bit older book. Say it one more time, Titus Burkhardt. Titus Burkhardt's sacred art in East and West. talks about the whole idea of perennial philosophy, like the same concepts appearing in different cultures and different historical epochs. So those three will get you well on the way. And then a lot of it is your own exploration, drawing, exploring, trying out. And using by doing, especially if you're designer, if you start wanting to use it, it will come to you. You'll find the solutions, you'll find the resources. Speaker 1 (01:17:04.543) interesting. Speaker 2 (01:17:26.35) and you will discover the why. Why do you do it? Do you even proportion things like room sizes and all that using sacred geometry when you're designing? Opening. I had a very interesting project, just completed it last year. was house built in 1952 post-war. Very simple, modest house like you have millions of them in Germany. there was nothing, no such thing as sake geometry. But I was hired to redesign it. They wanted extensions, they wanted some woodwork done. So I went and I redesigned the facades. proportion the windows to golden proportion to route to proportion to make the whole facade based on a geometric layout. But at the same time, the house the fabric was there, we didn't lock it down. So had to use what was there. See, I could integrate the rafters, the distancing of the rafters to the width of my door or windows that I wanted that were based on the geometric proportion. I guess especially if you're working with existing buildings, it's always a compromise, always a way of connecting both of playing. It's a dance. It's not a rigid, here's my design, boom, fall from the sky. That's the easy way anyone can do that. But if work with a neighborhood, with a context, with an environment, it becomes more organic. You have to become more creative in using it. And that's where it gets really interesting, really fun to do because you realize it's not just straight lines and circles, it's alive. And what you're creating there becomes a living Speaker 2 (01:19:05.932) almost living organism that is corresponding with existing fabric, with a neighborhood, with the surroundings and geometry is part of it. But the history of the building, the inhabitants, the surroundings, the environment is just as much part of it. And then sometimes you have to go, you have to proportion the rooms to the size of the furniture that goes in there, whatever it is. So it's never so rigid that you just that it's all golden proportion and all drawn with compass and ruler. It's a dance. That's, I think that's a helpful point. you know, come, how can people follow? there a follow you or your work anywhere? Do you have websites, social media, blog? yes, I do. You find me under my name on Instagram Joachim Tantau. And that's also my website. you add a dot com Instagram, it's more like what I'm doing right now on the website. I really just put the best of some, sort of a portfolio website. It's updated regularly, but not all projects are there. And I'll do much more than what, what you see there, but Instagram shows a bit more. behind the scenes a bit more of my thinking process that goes into a design. And I do give in person workshops as well here in Hamburg. Sometimes, sometimes the geometry, sometimes like I do traditional woodworking, marketry, I give market workshop sometimes in a weekend of using veneers to create geometric patterns and things like Speaker 1 (01:20:36.845) like to. Speaker 1 (01:20:47.822) That'd be very cool. I'd love to do that. Yeah, and a few years back we used to do workshops in Brazil as well. It always changes. And I like to travel for workshops. If you check my Instagram, if anything pops up, it will be there. There's a workshop happening. You'll find it there. Yeah, no, that's fun. Speaker 1 (01:21:08.622) Well, Joachim, thanks so much for coming on and talking about this. It's something I really would like to explore more and learn more about, not just from beauty and design, also the sense of wonder and mystery, but also from the structural stuff that we've already talked about too that I find so fascinating and interesting. It's so much to explore and learn. It is, I guess the message I want to give you and I want to give everyone is just do it. It's like playing piano, like trying to ride a bike. You have to make a first step. Just try out, grab a compass and a ruler and just play. Yeah. And then things will come and you will understand things at a deeper level. You will find resources. You will get better at using it. start suddenly having ideas for designs based on it, evolve naturally. Don't see it as something big and esoteric and complex and that we need a computer to calculate or anything like this. It's really, really simple in its essence. Yeah, a very human thing. Totally. Thank you Austin for having me. It was real pleasure talking to you and very inspiring. Speaker 1 (01:22:25.998) We'll have to you on again and give it fast forward some time. We're doing, we do, I've learned some more and we're implementing some stuff and we'll have to do this again. You know what would be fun to do? To walk through a design process, of design something using, I think that... To see how you can actually, how you actually use this in a day-to-day setting. What? That'd be very cool. Speaker 1 (01:22:49.262) Let's talk about that. Let's talk about that. We should set something up because we move. Yeah, that would be fun. And we could always try. Yeah. to YouTube. Cool. Thanks, Austin. Thanks, Joakim. If you've been enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe and share with your friends. And if you're listening on Apple or Spotify, please leave us a five star review. Thanks so much for listening and catch you on the next episode.