Opinion

Architecture and the Lost Art of Drawing

Michael Graves & Associates
A freehand sketch of the south facade of the Denver Central Library, which the writer designed. More
Photos
By MICHAEL GRAVE
!u"#ished$ epte%"er &' ()&(
!acebook
"witter
Google#
$%&ail
'hare
Print
(e)rints

Princeton, *.+.
Mu#ti%edia
'lide 'how
Drawing *ith a !urpose' By Michae# Gra+es
$nlarge "his ,&age

Michae# Gra+es , Associates
A drafted drawing of the south facade of the Denver Central Library. More Photos
," has beco&e fashionable in &any architectural circles to declare the death of drawing. -hat has
ha))ened to our )rofession, and our art, to cause the su))osed end of our &ost )owerful &eans of
conce)tuali.ing and re)resenting architecture/
"he co&)uter, of course. -ith its tre&endous ability to organi.e and )resent data, the co&)uter is
transfor&ing every as)ect of how architects work, fro& sketching their first i&)ressions of an idea to
creating co&)le0 construction docu&ents for contractors. !or centuries, the noun 1digit2 3fro& the
Latin 1digitus24 has been defined as 1finger,2 but now its ad5ectival for&, 1digital,2 relates to data. Are
our hands beco&ing obsolete as creative tools/ Are they being re)laced by &achines/ And where does
that leave the architectural creative )rocess/
"oday architects ty)ically use co&)uter%aided design software with na&es like AutoCAD and (evit, a
tool for 1building infor&ation &odeling.2 6uildings are no longer 5ust designed visually and s)atially7
they are 1co&)uted2 via interconnected databases.
,8ve been )racticing architecture since 9:;<, and &y office is not i&&une. Like &ost architects, we
routinely use these and other software )rogra&s, es)ecially for construction docu&ents, but also for
develo)ing designs and &aking )resentations. "here8s nothing inherently )roble&atic about that, as
long as it8s not 5ust that.
Architecture cannot divorce itself fro& drawing, no &atter how i&)ressive the technology gets.
Drawings are not 5ust end )roducts= they are )art of the thought )rocess of architectural design.
Drawings e0)ress the interaction of our &inds, eyes and hands. "his last state&ent is absolutely crucial
to the difference between those who draw to conce)tuali.e architecture and those who use the
co&)uter.
>f course, in so&e sense drawing can8t be dead= there is a vast &arket for the original work of
res)ected architects. , have had several one%&an shows in galleries and &useu&s in *ew ?ork and
elsewhere, and &y drawings can be found in the collections of the Metro)olitan Museu& of Art, the
Museu& of Modern Art and the Coo)er%@ewitt.
6ut can the value of drawings be si&)ly that of a collector8s artifact or a )retty )icture/ *o. , have a
real )ur)ose in &aking each drawing, either to re&e&ber so&ething or to study so&ething. $ach one is
)art of a )rocess and not an end in itself. ,8& )ersonally fascinated not 5ust by what architects choose to
draw but also by what they choose not to draw.
!or decades , have argued that architectural drawing can be divided into three ty)es, which , call the
1referential sketch,2 the 1)re)aratory study2 and the 1definitive drawing.2 "he definitive drawing, the
final and &ost develo)ed of the three, is al&ost universally )roduced on the co&)uter nowadays, and
that is a))ro)riate. 6ut what about the other two/ -hat is their value in the creative )rocess/ -hat can
they teach us/
"he referential sketch serves as a visual diary, a record of an architect8s discovery. ,t can be as si&)le
as a shorthand notation of a design conce)t or can describe details of a larger co&)osition. ,t &ight not
even be a drawing that relates to a building or any ti&e in history. ,t8s not likely to re)resent 1reality,2
but rather to ca)ture an idea.
"hese sketches are thus inherently frag&entary and selective. -hen , draw so&ething, , re&e&ber it.
"he drawing is a re&inder of the idea that caused &e to record it in the first )lace. "hat visceral
connection, that thought )rocess, cannot be re)licated by a co&)uter.
"he second ty)e of drawing, the )re)aratory study, is ty)ically )art of a )rogression of drawings that
elaborate a design. Like the referential sketch, it &ay not reflect a linear )rocess. 3, find co&)uter%aided
design &uch &ore linear.4 , )ersonally like to draw on translucent yellow tracing )a)er, which allows
&e to layer one drawing on to) of another, building on what ,8ve drawn before and, again, creating a
)ersonal, e&otional connection with the work.
-ith both of these ty)es of drawings, there is a certain 5oy in their creation, which co&es fro& the
interaction between the &ind and the hand. >ur )hysical and &ental interactions with drawings are
for&ative acts. ,n a hand&ade drawing, whether on an electronic tablet or on )a)er, there are
intonations, traces of intentions and s)eculation. "his is not unlike the way a &usician &ight intone a
note or how a riff in 5a.. would be understood subli&inally and )ut a s&ile on your face.
, find this Auite different fro& today8s 1)ara&etric design,2 which allows the co&)uter to generate
for& fro& a set of instructions, so&eti&es resulting in so%called blob architecture. "he designs are
co&)le0 and interesting in their own way, but they lack the e&otional content of a design derived fro&
hand.
?ears ago , was sitting in a rather boring faculty &eeting at Princeton. "o )ass the ti&e, , )ulled out &y
)ad to start drawing a )lan, )robably of so&e building , was designing. An eAually bored colleague was
watching &e, a&used. , ca&e to a )oint of indecision and )assed the )ad to hi&. @e added a few lines
and )assed it back.
"he ga&e was on. 6ack and forth we went, drawing five lines each, then four and so on.
-hile we didn8t s)eak, we were engaged in a dialogue over this )lan and we understood each other
)erfectly. , su))ose that you could have a debate like that with words, but it would have been entirely
different. >ur ga&e was not about winners or losers, but about a shared language. -e had a genuine
love for &aking this drawing. "here was an insistence, by the act of drawing, that the co&)osition
would stay o)en, that the s)eculation would stay 1wet2 in the sense of a )ainting. >ur )lan was without
scale and we could as easily have been drawing a do&estic building as a )ortion of a city. ,t was the act
of drawing that allowed us to s)eculate.
As , work with &y co&)uter%savvy students and staff today, , notice that so&ething is lost when they
draw only on the co&)uter. ,t is analogous to hearing the words of a novel read aloud, when reading
the& on )a)er allows us to daydrea& a little, to &ake associations beyond the literal sentences on the
)age. 'i&ilarly, drawing by hand sti&ulates the i&agination and allows us to s)eculate about ideas, a
good sign that we8re truly alive.
Michael Graves is an architect and an e&eritus )rofessor at Princeton.