Vitruvian man

"Man as the measure of all things"—Bauhaus architecture was also duty-bound to this humanist principle. The famous drawing by Leonardo da Vinci illustrates the human proportions into which the basic geometric shapes of a circle and a square are inserted. Leonardo, like Walter Gropius, was referring to the Roman architect, Vitruv. He was the first to examine the measurements of the body, and he discovered constant, harmonious size ratios. Gropius and Meyer then set themselves the goal of carrying human proportions through to their buildings. And as a sign of this programmatic orientation around human scale, their vision of the Vitruvian man was to decorate the vestibule of the main entrance.