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Drawing For Architecture Julia
Drawing For Architecture Julia
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the
copyright owners. All images in this book have been reproduced with the knowledge and prior consent of the
artists concerned, and no responsibility is accepted by producer, publisher, or printer for any infringement of
copyright or otherwise, arising from the contents of this publication. Every effort has been made to ensure that
credits accurately comply with information supplied. We apologize for any inaccuracies that may have occurred
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN: 978-1-59253-897-3
McMorrough, Julia.
Drawing for architects : how to explore concepts, dewne elements, and create effective built design through
illustration / Julia McMorrough.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-59253-897-3 (pbk.)
1. Architectural drawing. I. Title.
NA2700.M43 2014
720.28’4--dc23
2014035921
Printed in China
Julia McMorrough
How
to exp
lore
con
cep
ts,
def
ine
ele
me
nts
, an
d cr
eat
e ef
fect
ive
bui
lt d
esig
n th
rou
gh
illu
stra
tion
dedication
For my parents, Grace and Frederick Holmes.
contents
6 Foreword
The Architecture of the Drawing by R.E. Somol
8 Introduction
Drawing Attention
10 01
Projection Types
12 Drawing from History
18 Guide
20 Plan
30 Section
36 Elevation
46 Axonometric
58 Oblique
68 Perspective
94 02
Format Standards
96 The Languages of an Architect
98 Making and Reading Drawings
124 Drawing and Digital Production
130 03
Graphic Specimens
132 Drawing to Design
182 Contributors
183 Image Credits
184 Resources
186 About the Author
187 Acknowledgments
188 Index
f o rew o rd
Reyner Banham
At a moment when the architectural profession and academy As the identities of plan and section themselves began to take
appear exhaustively preoccupied by their relevance to the on the generic status of “cuts” for this generation, the radical
social, economic, and environmental “realities” of the world, implications of this reorientation for the spatial, material, and
drawing is one of the last unnatural acts an architect may rhetorical unfolding of architecture nonetheless required that
commit. Under suspicion of frivolity or nostalgia, excess or the conventions and disciplines of drawing remain intact.
convention, drawing is, at best, tolerated as a means to an Today, however, the conceptual “relativity” of plan and section
end, or, at worst, dismissed as gross irresponsibility. But while has itself become practically subsumed by the new primal
some architects may occasionally have the opportunity to entity of architecture, “the model.” Whether offered by Rhino or
build, all draw. More than nature (Laugier), the machine (Le Revit, the model has come to assume the foundational status of
Corbusier), or even the city (Rossi), architecture witnesses being the thing itself, an unauthored (whether in collaboration
its primal scene through the graphic act of drawing. Every with the software or others) form of nature. The implicit form of
drawing, every projection, constitutes a swerve, a perversion. argument that held within orthographic relationships has been
And a good thing, too, for there would be no architecture displaced within the real-time negotiation and accommodation
without such disciplined deviations. All architecture is paper of the model. What risks being lost in this new order is the
architecture. understanding of architecture as an artifice, a culturally intended
form, an ideological projection susceptible to agency (or
This graphic nature of architecture has been celebrated in signature), manipulation, and disagreement. By highlighting
the discipline as an opportunity for the production of new the tug-of-war among genres of drawing and generations of
architecture, perhaps most famously by the generation of architects, the present book imagines a potential future for such
architects who came of age in the 1960s. In John Hejduk’s unnatural acts as architecture.
Diamond House series, for example, the tipped or rotated
square emerges as the fundamental architectural primitive. To paraphrase Dave Hickey on the relationship of America to Las
For Hejduk, underlying and preceding the generic cube is Vegas, the world is not a particularly good lens through which
the two-dimensional diamond, which itself must be rotated to view (or evaluate) architecture, but architecture is a powerful
and projected before entering the world as the cube. lens through which to view (and remake) the world. Architectural
Similarly, Peter Eisenman’s axonometric model for House X drawings, along with all the artificial conventions they assume,
retains, in its oblique physical construction, the project’s first are a key accomplice in this anticipatory role. Drawing for
instantiation as an act of projective geometry. In these and Architects exposes some of the pleasures and possibilities that
other works of the period, drawing is the generator. such voluntary subjugation to these constraints entails.
i n t ro ductio n
Le Corbusier
9
Drawing Attention
We are at an interesting juncture in the history of drawing for Though it’s easy to lament the end of a handmade era, it’s also
architecture. To take on the topic to any reasonable degree, pointless to deny the power of the modern tools that enable
one must be ready to ask a delicate question: Do architects facile design investigation and an almost instantaneous ability
still draw? Architects today work differently than those of to produce the documentation necessary to broadcast all
twenty or more years ago. Few have the patience or the aspects of a design’s development. But whether handwrought
need to learn the laborious fundamentals of constructing a or digitally crafted, a design communicates its intentions by
perspective by hand or the painstaking task of practicing way of drawings. More and more often, these may be as
hand lettering that is precise, consistent, and almost crafted projections of a digital model, but they are drawings.
mechanical in appearance.
Drawing for Architects provides insights into a progression of
So the answer may be a qualified no. Rare is the architect drawing types, projections, and techniques by amplifying the
hunched over a drafting board, pen or pencil in hand, but conversations among plan, section, elevation, axonometric,
plenty may be found guiding a mouse or stylus through oblique, and perspective, each with a specific relation
a digitized drawing or modeling process. The question, to the kind of design information that it expresses. This
then, is more useful once restated: Do architects still make book will explain both the technical and disciplinary
drawings? The answer to that is a far more resounding, importance of these conventions of drawing and the ways
though nuanced, yes. they continue to underwrite and enable the efforts of
architectural design. Within is a catalog of drawing types
Drawings are still the currency of the architect. It’s difficult used in architecture, as well as an assessment of applications,
to convince the world of the intrinsic value of design if it techniques for production, and key terminology mostly
is not represented in a manner adequate to its worth. The explored through a unique case study that takes a purpose-
logic of drawing is, has been, and continues to be a made building design through each type and technique. To
core aspect of how architecture is both envisioned and complement this information, drawing examples from a broad
represented. Architects use drawings to tell the story of their spectrum of currently practicing architects are featured as
ideas. These drawings, whether technical or provocative, specimens of what drawing for architecture means today.
precise or fantastic, still largely conform to agreed-upon
conventions within the profession and the associated As compared to talking, drawing may “leave less room for
trades. An architect’s command of drawing enables control lies,” but no drawing is without agency, and control of what it
of a message, and failure to engage the power of the drawing omits is of equal importance to what it includes. The power
may result in loss of that control. of the drawing is its ultimate authority by what it chooses to
privilege, leaving considerable room for an expanded world
of possibilities.
01
PROJECTION
TYPES
12 Drawing for Architects
01 Projection Types 13
Architectural drawings take on many guises and perform Since the Renaissance, however, with its commitment to
many tasks, but their primary jobs involve the generation or the dissemination of ideas and knowledge, and a parallel
representation of design ideas, and, frequently, they involve dedication to the careful preservation of its drawn artifacts,
both. Significantly, as most architectural production today is the innovations, discoveries, and ideologies surrounding the
digital, the distinction between drawing and modeling is an projection of three-dimensional space onto a two-dimensional
important one: the drawing is a projection of the object, not picture plane continue to preoccupy the imaginations of
the object (model) itself. So, while we may increasingly be architects and historians alike.
able to exist within efficient digital creations of seemingly
inhabitable virtual spaces, it is the manifestation of these For artists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
spaces as multiple possible projections onto the two- depicting the origin of drawing was familiar terrain, frequently
dimensional picture plane that is of interest in consideration of explored through the classical legend of Diboutades and
the drawing and its volition. her departing love. In these paintings, the woman traces
the outline of her beloved’s shadow, which has been cast
Drawings in architectural production imply reduced-scale onto a wall by the light of a nearby candle or lamp. Robin
depictions of much larger buildings, parts of buildings, and Evans, in his essay “Translations from Drawing to Building,”
even parts of cities. The history of reduced-scale drawings in compares these portrayals to the interpretation by painter
the creation of architecture is beset by spotty evidence and and architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel, whose 1830 painting
conflicting viewpoints. Unlike many of the buildings they have The Invention of Drawing, places this same scene outdoors,
yielded, the drawings responsible for much of the ancient with the shadow cast by the Sun, and the man’s silhouette
built world, if there were drawings, have simply not survived. drawn by a shepherd, while the woman holds the head of
the subject steady. The distinctions may seem minor, but
The buildings of ancient Greece were the result not of as described by Evans, an architect and historian, they put
prepared reduced-scale plans, sections, and elevations, forward two important issues. By moving the action outdoors,
but of an arrangement of discrete and highly standardized a nonconstructed environment, Schinkel suggests that building
elements organized by way of written directions could not have existed in advance of this moment of the first
(syngraphai) and full-scale templates carved into drawing. Schinkel’s painting also establishes a case for the
stone. Such drawings were discovered on walls of the orthographic projection made possible by the effectively
Temple of Apollo at Didyma and thought to be from the parallel lines of the Sun’s radiation, as compared to the local
third century BCE. They depict not only full-scale working light source of the more typical painting, resulting, in that case,
drawings for the temple’s details, but also examples of in a perspectival rendition of the shadow.
drawings explaining, in single-axis protraction (where the
column plan was depicted at full scale, while its much longer This comparison provides a telling context for understanding
height was proportionally reduced due to lack of space), the drawing’s position relative to architecture and the cultures
methods for constructing the temple’s enormous columns. that have produced it, and though our access to the exact
Later, reduced-scale architectural drawings may have been origins of the first drawings used to create buildings may be
created on papyrus, parchment, and even wood slabs, but uneven, Schinkel makes a compelling case for the necessity of
such materials were incapable of surviving several millennia. drawings to precede buildings.
Plan Axonometric
Section
Elevation
Elevation (Side)
Elevation (Front)
Elevation (Side)
ORTHOGRAPHIC PROJECTION
01 Projection Types 15
HORIZON LINE
Two-point Perspective
Plan Oblique
HORIZON LINE
The Picture Plane Projections are well understood by their relationship to the picture
plane. The picture plane itself could be described as a yat window
through which the object is viewed, such as a sheet of paper on which
the projection is drawn, or a computer screen that frames a digital
model in a particular position.
E
AN
PL
URE
CT
PI
Plan as Over-
head View
Plan as Section
Cut (Floor Plan)
01 Projection Types 21
PLAN
Plan
A groundplan is made by
the proper successive use of
compasses and rule, through
which we get outlines for the
plane surfaces of buildings.
Vitruvius
The Ten Books on Architecture