Understanding Architecture Through Drawing

Photography is also a useful tool in undertaking
documentation of architecture, perhaps in the context of
comparative analysis of typology variations. The ability of
the photograph to record from a consistent perspective
removes some of the subjective qualities of drawing.
Such documentation can help inform a designer whose
subsequent drawings are influenced by what is revealed
through the lens. For instance, if an architect was
commissioned to design a radio mast (as Lord Foster was
in Barcelona in 1996) the documentation of existing masts
could provide a useful archive of photographic images
that sketching can compare, analyse and take forward as
ideas for new design solutions. So there are benefits in
combining the lens and sketchbook, just as there are later
in the design process in synthesising ideas developed
through drawing, model-making and CAD.

A great deal of interest was shown in the ‘city’ by

photographers of the modern movement. The aim was to

document the rich, diverse and often horrific imagery of

the twentieth century urban scene. The exploration of the

‘city’ by photographers influenced architects of the period

such as Le Corbusier, whose visionary plans for Paris and

Algiers sought to embrace the whole urban world in one

clean sweep of reform. The squalor and chaos recorded

by the photo-journalists of the period became an

inspiration for large-scale reconstruction. Having recorded

the city, architects felt motivated to use fresh approaches

to urban design to create a new, ordered utopia. Le

Corbusier’s urban remodelling and, to a lesser degree,

that of Walter Gropius were a response to the horrors that

the documentary photographers had revealed. The

stretched image of the wide-angled photographic

10.2a and b (left)

These studies of patterns of

magnetized iron dust by James

Bingham from his ‘Dead Reckoning’

series can readily be turned into

formal compositions applicable to

building design. The sequence of

images captures the fluidity and

movement in modern architecture

(James Bingham)

10.3a and b (opposite)

Comparison between documentary

photography (a) and documentary

drawing (b) using grain silos in

Montreal as an example. (Susan

Fahy and Brian Edwards)

82 Understanding architecture through drawing