Anatomical Architecture: Building is Body

This thesis begins with a proposition that the human body is absent from contemporary architecture. This has impoverished our buildings and our cities. Unparalleled in its design and function, the human body has served as a microcosm for the architecture of antiquity (body in building ) and as an analogy for the architect of the Renaissance ( body in building). What role can the body play today?;The disappearance of the body in architecture is difficult to pinpoint in terms of chronology. Rather than attempting to construct a linear history of this phenomenon, in this study I revisit a period of radical transition in both the understanding of architecture and of the body. Specifically, this thesis looks to the early career of Vesalius, the master anatomist of 16th century Padua, and the impact of his work on the understanding of the human body and the subsequent development of the anatomy theatre.;Using Vesalius and the case of the anatomy theatre as a model, I propose a synthesis of the body/microcosm and body/analogy paradigms to propose a hybrid system of proportion. The project of architecture considers an automobile service centre and dealership in order to engage the body in a tragic dance with its archon --- the automobile.;In concluding, I argue that it is possible to address the absence of the human body in contemporary architecture by asserting that the body is building.