University of Virginia Library

EARLY EXPRESSION OF THE VIEW THAT
THE PLAN WAS DRAWN TO A CONSISTENT SCALE

In contrast to those who held that the Plan of St. Gall
was purely a schematic rendering, Boeckelmann believed
that the Plan was drawn to a definite scale and that the key
to this scale was to be found in the 40 feet that the draftsman
ascribed to the width of the nave of the Church. He
observed that values consistent with this scale can be recognized
in the dimensions of many other areas of the Plan.
The Cloister Yard, for example, if measured in the light of
the 40-foot width of the nave, forms a square of 100 feet;
the rectangular area in its center, a square of 20 feet.[356]

Boeckelmann was not the first to make this observation.
As early as 1938, Fritz Viktor Arens had drawn attention
to the fact that many of the dimensions of the Plan of St.
Gall were based upon a decimal system consistent with the
40-foot width of the nave of the Church.[357] He also observed
another important fact, that if one attempted to
redraw the Plan of St. Gall in the light of the measurements
given for the length of the Church (200 feet), the Cloister
and all service structures of the Plan would be reduced to a
size in which they could no longer perform their designated
functions.[358] It was the most stringent argument in favor of
the assumption that if any of the measurements given in
the explanatory titles of the Plan reflect the original scale,
it is the 40-foot figure listed for the width of the nave, and
not the 200-foot figure listed for the length of the Church.

Arens' and Boeckelmann's observations were fundamental.
Yet neither Arens nor Boeckelmann realized their
full significance. Their failure to do so was probably caused
by their awareness that, whereas the dimensions of many of
the larger installations of the Plan can clearly be interpreted
as multiples of ten, many others—and in particular the
majority of all the smaller dimensional values of the Plan—
are inexplicable in the context of a decimal scale.