Understanding Architecture Through Drawing

can make a nonsense of a building in the longer term. But
the main reason is that modern technology has made
twentieth-century buildings more exciting structurally
than in any other way. Hence designers such as Renzo
Piano, Sir Nicholas Grimshaw and Sir Michael Hopkins
concentrate on structural and material daring in
preference to proportional harmony or the expression of a
building’s programme. It is often a case of constructional
invention being linked to new ways of servicing buildings,
with the result that our current ‘green’ awareness finds
expression in buildings with solar panels, stepped
sections and ventilating chimneys.
There are three broad ways of constructing a building:
by frame, by load-bearing wall, and by self-supporting
panel. Framed structures probably pre-date the others

simply because of the wide availability of building timber

in the ancient forests of the temperate world. Load-

bearing brickwork was introduced into Britain by the

Romans and began to become commonplace as timber

became scarce in the late Middle Ages. Large panel

construction is chiefly a twentieth-century invention and

has the benefit that it can be prefabricated and speedily

erected. As the panels are load bearing, the walls provide

both enclosure and structure within the same unit and

this leads to obvious economies, though often at the cost

of aesthetics.

This simple classification of constructional systems

can be enlarged to include suspended structures where

the tensile rather than compressive strength of materials

is exploited. A mixture of structural systems is frequently

15.6a, b, c, and d

These studies of the façades of

1930s buildings on Faro Island in

southern Portugal show the

influence of international

modernism on seaside

architecture.

126 Understanding architecture through drawing