The type of drawing employed reflects well the
intellectual inquiries undertaken by the architect. The plan
is often the primary generator but sometimes the section
or orthogonal projection takes priority. Sketches are
explorations of spatial or formal possibilities. However,
ideas are not only worked out in drawings, models and
increasingly paintings are also employed, especially by
those architects who are under the influence of art
practices. More adventurous architects, from Rem
Koolhaas to Zaha Hadid, use diagonal rather than
orthogonal projection, creating dynamics in section as
well as plan. When the lines are then stretched and
twisted, the resulting buildings have a richness that the
obsessive use of the right angle tends to deny.
Architects uniquely have invested in them the
shaping of the future of cities. They shape this visually,
functionally and socially (the latter in collaboration with
town planners). Architects are essentially artists working
at the scale of the city and with the material of building.
Like other artists, they engage in shape, colour, light and
space – manipulating all four to solve technical and
aesthetic problems. Although architectural design is
anchored by function to the reality of everyday life,
architects are responsible for the evolution of buildings as
cultural icons. They shape cities by looking sim-
ultaneously at precedent (with the sketchbook) and
forwards to some unknown future (with CAD). As such,
the freehand drawing is not part of a dead tradition but of
a lively and inventive future. In this sense also the sketch
is not made redundant by CAD but complements it. The
two together provide architects with powerful tools to
design the future. However, to ignore the act of drawing
and to over-rely upon mechanical aids is to undermine any
shared values between artists and architects.
The benefits of drawing 13