Sketch Book for the Artist

ARCHITECTURE

Future Fictions

THESE THREE HIGHLY DETAILED DRAWINGS invite us to

enter the long-shadowed architecture of imaginary worlds.

Boullee's monolithic apparition was drawn as a monument

to Sir Isaac Newton. Within it, antlike mortals might have

speculated upon the universe. This is the work of an

architectural theoretician; the ominous globe exists only as

a series of drawings. Among preparations for Fritz Langs

film Metropolis, made in 1926, we find other Utopian visions

soaring above normal life. Art director Erich Kettlehut's

vertiginous design for the city of a slavelike populace

had a future influence on movies such as Blade Runner.

Paul Nobles epic drawing summons an imperfect and

disturbing township where ruin and activity are equal

and strange. We glide over exquisitely drawn wastelands

of damage and abandonment, experiencing a fascinating

conflict between curiosity and desolation.

ETIENNE-LOUIS BOULLEE

French architectural theorist,

painter; and draftsman. Boullee lived

in Paris, and taught at the Academie

d'Architecture. His celebrated imaginary

buildings are characterized by pyramids,

spheres, arched vaults, cylinders, and

dramatic lighting.

Light illusions This pen-and-wash drawing

shows a subtle application of the principles

of illumination demonstrated with an egg on

p.96.The lower-left section of the building

appears relatively pale against a darker

sky, and the reverse is true on the right.

This shift makes the cenotaph appear

three-dimensional.

Newton's Cenotaph

1784

153 / 4 x 25 in (402 x 635 mm)

ETIENNE-LOUIS BOULLEE