The Nine-Square Grid

Directly influenced by Colin Rowe’s essay “Mathematics of the Ideal Villa” (1947) and Warburgian art historical tradition, John Hejduk’s nine-square grid studio exercise had an ambiguous relation to instrumentality architectural history. When was copied in many architecture schools around world as a first-year project, initiating novice student realm composition, pedagogical interpretation its history varied. This paper questions relational model practice exercise, subsequently investigates reuse reinterpretation at Versailles school Ghent University 1980s. It proposes reading survival return this diagrammatic figure pedagogy villa late twentieth century reckoning with self-referentiality temporality lateness.