Finding San Carlino : The Role of Geometry in Architecture

Francesco Borromini’s San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane (San Carlino) is a curious artifact that continues to inspire hypotheses and geometric analyses attempting to explain its form, meaning, and symbolism. These analyses intend to reconstruct an ideality of the church through tracing its design evolution. However, several parts and aspects of the church correspond neither with these reconstructions nor with Borromini’s drawings. These incongruities bring into question the very role of geometry in architecture. What, then, is San Carlino’s exemplary value, and why does it continue to evoke a desire for interpretation today? Is its perceived lack in geometrical construction due to the approach of interpretations that focus on San Carlino’s geometry, or is this lack inherent in the building? This book offers nuanced analytical frameworks cognizant of our post-mechanical age of (re)production and roots the church’s origin in Borromini’s baroque.

Adil Mansure, architect, educator, and researcher, attended Yale University's School of Architecture and earned a post-professional master's degree in architecture. He has taught at the University of Buffalo and at the University of Toronto, where he continues to teach studios and seminars. He has recently conducted research into topics such as proto-histories of the architectural parametric, surface, and the architecture of cliches.

Skender Luarasi is an architect and PhD candidate at the Yale School of Architecture. His research investigates the relationship of geometry and architecture and focuses particularly on the mid-twentieth-century debate on proportion and Le Corbusier's Modulor. He has presented his research in numerous conferences and symposiums of the American Collegiate Schools of Architecture, and has published in Haecceity and other journals.