Understanding Architecture Through Drawing

materials give the workshop and industrial areas qualities

that are immediately recognisable. Even the modern

factory buildings such as the Glasgow Herald printing

works incorporate similar industrial features.

The main business district is also distinctive; the

perpendicular façades of modern office blocks and their

sheer glass walls create unique townscapes. They are a

challenge to the artist since decorative elements are

normally in short supply; one has to rely upon plane,

surface texture and parallel line. When an historic church

or old house is marooned in such areas, a rendition of the

relative scale and degree of decoration can lead to a

telling drawing.

KEY DECORATIVE ELEMENTS SUCH AS WINDOWS

OR DOORS

The design and detailing of windows and doors help

establish the style of architecture. The use of decorative

surrounds picked out in stone, brick or timber allow us to

categorise buildings into particular styles, and often

provide clues to their date of construction. Also the use of

specific technologies in the design and fabrication of

windows and doors tells us a great deal about the

technology of the age that produced them. For example,

the narrow width of Georgian windows and their

subdivision into many small panes of glass provide

insights into the structural limitations of the age and the

specific problems experienced by the glaziers of

eighteenth-century Glasgow in the production of glass.

Similarly, the design and detailing of Georgian doorways

give clues to the symbolic value of building entrances,

and to the level of sophistication achieved by joiners at

the time. Added to this, the proportional elegance of such

doors suggest that even in provincial towns the language

of the pattern book had been well assimilated.

Whole buildings are complex and frequently daunting

subjects to draw, and you may instead prefer to

21.4

This sketch of Hutcheson Street being

terminated by Hutcheson’s Hospital

(Glasgow home of the National Trust

for Scotland) exploits the verticality of

the streets in the Merchant City.

Although the original street pattern

survives, this view shows how much

the architecture has changed over

the years. Note how the

perpendicular lines of the buildings

arrest the movement of the eye down

the street.

21.5

As the termination of streets by public

buildings is such a feature of the

area, any graphic analysis should

focus upon this theme. Here Robert

Adam’s Trades House (1794) acts as a

focal point to Garth Street. It is

framed by buildings whose height is

the same as the width of the street.

21.6

Carved stone detailing such as this

city coat of arms high on a church

gable is typical of the older buildings.

182 Understanding architecture through drawing