I once knew a brilliant architecture student who was working 24/7 on his thesis project. His family took him to see a play, just to “take his mind off the project”. On returning to the studio he said he didn’t remember much about the play, but that the design of the air handling system of the theater was so nifty that he was going to work it into his thesis project. His family had failed - his mind had remained “on” the project. Phryne before the Areopagus , 1861 A similar mindset often affects me when viewing paintings; I am attracted by the buildings and objects that frame the subject of the painting. And, I am often disappointed by the crude misrepresentation of the context in an otherwise excellent painting. In other words I ignore the nude and ogle the floor tile. In that spirit, the following is the first of an ongoing series of posts highlighting the artists who have inspired me (with their tile work). Pollice Verso , 1872 Jean-Leon...
You may have noticed that the vast majority of graphical projections in the last three posts were at least nominally realistic. They describe an object simply and clearly. They occasionally border on abstraction, but that is usually a side effect of graphical projection itself. There is, however, a vein of almost pure abstraction in modern architecture. It is almost as though elite architects were frustrated modernist painters. Or, that abstract expressionist painters had decided to have a contractor actually build their two-dimensional painted abstractions. In the early modern era there was not only a tendency to muddy perspective images, but also a move away from perspectives entirely. Projection drawings (isometric drawing, etc.), previously the domain of engineers, began to be used by architects for presentation. The tendency of these types of drawings to emulate abstract art was an added feature (if not the whole point of doing them). Most projection drawings of the 1920s were cl...
Columbus Circle, Steamboat Springs & the Queens Museum. When computers began to be used in architectural offices, they were unstable and relatively primitive. I lived through that period of frustration, elation and work-a-rounds. This is just one of a number of posts I want to write about it – partly, just to leave a record of the work, but mainly as an example of mixing the digital with the hand. In the early 1980s 3D computer modeling was not an option in architectural offices. Just buying a computer with the requisite memory and graphics was way too expensive. But in 1985 the office in which I worked bought an early CAD computer and a very early version of AutoCad, which was used for Building Department submission drawings. Simple diagramatic drawings were created, with much computer crashing and gnashing of teeth. The simplest 3D modeling was a faint glimmer in the recesses of that early software. The layout above was done for the Columbus Circle Comp...
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