Trait
This signifier includes the two dimensional drafting of designs whose methods predate Descriptive Geometry. These methods have several variants and encompass a deep development of the science that supports the technical drawings of three dimensional elements. The writings and drawings of Honnecourt, Roriczer, de l’Orme, Desargues and Frézier give us insights into these variants (Calvo López, 2011).
The trait is originally the auxiliary accurate drawing that carpenters used before cutting the wood (Toussaint, 1902). The art du trait is the expertise of using geometry to find out certain lines or measures, and a certain trait became a kind of recipe for a specific task. Eventually stone masons adopted the same techniques to find the right measures of stone voussoirs. New treatises would offer new traits, which means new schemes to design innovative or existing stereotomic constructions. Rather interestingly, the word trait (trace, line, stroke) and traité (treatise) have the same etymology in latin tracto (tug, handle, debate).
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