sandr037

The Louvre in Paris has been around for hundreds of years, beginning as a businesslike medieval castle, and developing into a royal palace. It acquired its present style in the Renaissance under Francis I, who tore down the old castle and began to develop the dignified, sculpted facades we see today.  The Louvre has long housed a private museum for the French kings, and under Louis XIV, the Sun King, the state academies were established there.  With the revolution the museum became a public institution and the royal academies became the Ecole des Beaux Arts (and were moved to their own digs).  The photo above shows the courtyard at the turn of the century.  The monument in the foreground to Leon Gambetta was removed during World War II, but otherwise the configuration of the Louvre was unchanged until the arrival of Pei's pyramid in 1989. The following images are the scanned slides I took while producing a comprehensive image of the new construction.  For anyone...

A review of the truth, or lack of truth in architectural renderings. Truth in Advertising...  We are always “spinning.”  Humans tend to exaggerate, massage and forget the past, and the same applies to the way we present ourselves and our work to others.  I once knew a couple who always acted insanely happy with their marriage, children, house, careers… everything.  I later learned that they had all the same trouble and disappointments as the rest of us; they simply “sold” it all as wonderful.  There have been few projects I have worked on that were strictly honest.  The preliminary sketch below was part of a legal presentation to prospective owners, and was truthful in all aspects from the brick color to the placement of streetlights to the typical angle of the afternoon sun.  It is hardly my favorite rendering, but accurate it is. A typical honest lie is the use of axonometric drawings.  There are times, such as the long street shown below, when ...