illuminate a decorative panel, or to channel the visitor
through rooms and corridors. Interiors, like exteriors, are
experienced as linear and progressive volumes – the
interplay of rooms, doorways and connecting corridors
have their parallels in squares, gateways and streets.
Through sketching, one may come to understand the
complexity of interior design, and the essential
relationships between the observer and the spaces he or
she occupies.
For beginners seeking to learn how to draw and
understand form, the interior as a subject offers many
advantages. Sketching inside does, of course, provide
shelter from the elements and generally there are fewer
people peering over your shoulder than in busy city
streets. In addition, interiors are normally regular spaces
and hence they abide by the rules of perspective with
greater clarity than do the complex angles of busy streets.
Moreover, interiors are well articulated in the sense that
doorways are framed by mouldings (known as
architraves), walls join ceilings with a cornice, and most
rooms have a focus of attention in the form of a fireplace
or handsome piece of furniture. You can also move
around interiors so that the sketch can become an
accumulation of views or the superimposition of points of
interest. Such collaging of material can make the interior
sketch interesting in itself, and instructive as a piece of
drawing. Hence interiors are a useful starting point for
learning not only how to draw, but also how to understand
the rules of architectural design.
The way space is depicted tells us a great deal about
how that space is used. In Le Corbusier’s sketches of the
apartment-block interior at Unité, for instance, all is open,
with the rooms mere zones of interconnected territory.
The dividing walls barely exist, and where they do they
are stripped of decoration. As a consequence, the space
has little of the sense of meaning that results from
applied decoration; instead, the quality of the apartment is172 Understanding architecture through drawing