In this quote, Dana is describing the parametric relationship between three parameters of the plane (4:2:1) and the respective division of lines e, ē, and ë. If the plane to be introduced were 4P2 the parametric ratio of which is 4:2:1, we should in the same manner mark off 4 parts of e, 2 of ē and 1 of ë. For instance, in step eighteen, Dana tells the reader to inscribe a parametric plane on a prism: In the paper, Dana explains the general steps for drawing a range of crystals and provisions for variations using language laced with parameters, variables, and ratios. One example is James Dana’s 1837 paper On the Drawing of Figures of Crystals (other examples from the period include: Leslie 1821 Earnshaw 1839). The earliest examples I can find of parametric being used to describe three-dimensional models comes almost one hundred years before Moretti’s writings.
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Parametric has a long history in mathematics. He wrote to his friend Roisecco that “inaccuracy is, in truth, scarier than the ignorance before ” (Moretti 1971, 206). Moretti did not fear obscurity as much as he feared the incorrect use of mathematical terms like parametric. The plans for stadium version M and N showing the “equi-desirability” curves (Bucci and Mulazzani 2000, 114).
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The Watergate Complex is now better known for the wiretapping scandal that took place there, and Moretti is “scarcely discussed” (Stiles 2006, 15) – even by the many architects who today use computers to create parametric models in the manner Moretti helped pioneer. In the five years following the exhibition, between 19, Moretti designed the Watergate Complex, which is “believed to be the first major construction job to make significant use of computers” (Livingston 2002). Versions of a parametric stadium designed by Moretti were presented as part of his Parametric Architecture exhibition at the Twelfth Milan Triennial in 1960 (Bucci and Mulazzani 2000, 114). Moretti (1971, 207) wrote extensively about “parametric architecture,” which he defines as the study of architecture systems with the goal of “defining the relationships between the dimensions dependent upon the various parameters.” Moretti uses the design of a stadium as an example, explaining how the stadium’s form can derive from nineteen parameters concerning things like viewing angles and the economic cost of concrete (Moretti 1971, 207). The stadium derives from a parametric model consisting of nineteen parameters (Bucci and Mulazzani 2000, 114). Exhibited at the 1960 Parametric Architecture exhibition at the Twelfth Milan Triennial.
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But Robert Stiles (2006) argues that the real provenance of parametric was a few decades earlier, in the 1940s’ writings of architect Luigi Moretti (Bucci and Mulazzani 2000, 21). 1988 was also the year Parametric Technology Corporation (founded by mathematician Samuel Geisberg in 1985) released the first commercially successful parametric modelling software, Pro/ENGINEER (Weisberg 2008, 16.5).
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David Gerber (2007, 73), in his doctoral thesis Parametric Practice, credits Maurice Ruiter for first using the term in a paper from 1988 entitled Parametric Design. The term parametric originates in mathematics, but there is debate as to when designers initially began using the word. And for all the Spanish speakers out there: Version en español. Hopefully others find more use for this history than I did. So I deleted this chapter. Now that I have finished my thesis, it seems appropriate to revive the beginning. But ultimately this wasn’t necessary, I could present my argument without going into two centuries of history. I assumed that I needed to cover these developments to give context to my work. The time before Grasshopper, before Samuel Geisberg’s Parametric Technology Corporation and Ivan Sutherland’s Sketchpad, before the invention of the computer, and the birth of Gaudí. The first words I wrote in my thesis were the first words I deleted: a history of parametric architecture told from the beginning.