From: tristan <trissss-AT-gmail.com>
Date: 11 Apr 2009 11:19:29 UTC   (01:19:29 PM in author's locale)
To: graphics-AT-lists.graphicslist.org

Hello all,

I've been spectator of that mailing list years ago (from 2002 to 2005,
as far as I remember), disconnected from it for a while, and I now
come with a question :

In the context of an end-of-study thesis in Architecture, I'm trying
to document the different occurrences of the 'rounded corner' in the
creative fields , it being the strict transition from a straight
direction to another, following an arc with a certain radius (the
geometric rounded corner).

My interest in that subject started with the study of Kisho Kurokawa's
Nagakin capsule tower - then spread to the sixties/seventies utopias
(japanese metabolists, archigram, megastructures, ..) ... and then
extended from the hand-made Dogon houses to the Bauhaus cantilevered
chairs

I've also collected countless occurrences in graphism, typography,
aeronautics, engineering, transit infrastructures (speed-dependent
radius angles of highways and railways), or even in music (rounding
the attack of a sound, or even preferring a legato to a note
change,..)... And it also goes about the simple erosion of the sharp
angle, or the proverbial meanings of 'rounding the corners'.
Political meaning is giving me the

Currently, my main guide is to explore the round corner in opposition
to the sharp angle - but it doesn't help me much in analyzing the
esthetics of the rounded corner.

I'me looking for found some analytical works on similar essential
geometric acts. I found Gilles Deleuze's book "Le Pli" (that seems
to use Leibniz and Baroque art as references) , and I also remembered
a conference of Claude Parent where he talked about the tragic aspects
of the sharp angle.

Given its geometric simplicity and obviousness, I wondered if general
studies had been made over the 'rounded corner', or over that
particular action of drawing a round corner instead of a straight angle.

Any thoughts ?

Regards,
Tristan

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