Chapter 2
Why draw?
There is an undisguised air of evangelism running through
this book, for it seeks to encourage students of
architecture, craft and design to forsake their cameras
and learn the art of freehand sketching. Drawing is not
only more enjoyable and far more educational, but the
end product is more likely to remain a cherished object
than would an anonymous slide or photographic print.
Drawing an object, building or townscape forces you to
engage more directly in the subject than as a mere
photographer; the search to record shape, proportion,
detail and colour requires greater effort and more skilled
observation than that needed to press the shutter of a
camera. The discriminatory eye encouraged through
sketching has value to the potential designer and tourist
alike for it engages the observer in an important dialogue
with his or her subject.
Until fairly recently the sketchbook was the accepted
accompaniment of all students of architecture or
landscape, and of many interested tourists. In many ways
Prince Charles maintains this honourable tradition. Before
photography became more affordable and part of our
visual culture, the sketch remained the means to record
and analyse an interesting town, building or piece of
furniture. You have only to look at the sketchbooks of
famous architects – from Robert Adam to Charles Rennie
Mackintosh – to see how valued was the freehand
sketch. Its use was often beyond that of mere record or
pretty picture: invariably the sketch was the means of
noting down a particular detail or type of composition that
could be used when the right design commission came
along. For instance, Adam’s sketches of the fortifications
of the Dalmation coast were transformed in less than a
decade into the eighteenth-century Scottish castles
occupying a more northern coastline.
Many students of architecture and design today spend
a great deal of time making photographs rather than
sketches. They could, of course, buy postcards or tourist
guides, which often contain better and more accurate
pictures at only a fraction of the cost, thereby
concentrating their efforts instead on the harder but more
valuable process of drawing. What the sketchbook
provides is a means of delving deeper into the subject
than merely recording it, in order to begin to understand
why and how the scene was shaped. The main barrier to
using the sketchbook in this way appears to be the lack of
basic graphic skills, together with the hectic pace of
modern life. As with all endeavours of value, you have to
practise a great deal to cultivate the craft of freehand
drawing, in order to fulfil the potential offered by the
sketchbook.16 Understanding architecture through drawing