Architect Drawings - A Selection of Sketches by World Famous Architects Through History

century neoclassicism. The sketches from these periods reflect both the ‘style’ of the build-

ings and prevalent media for image manipulation. In general, they extensively used graphite,

ink, and wash, with fluid strokes exhibiting the architect’s great dexterity. The nineteenth

century and early twentieth century movements in architecture expand to various parts of

the world including parts of Asia and North America. Many of these sketches demonstrate

the political, economic, and social climate of the world. The media had not changed

remarkably but their manifestation was dramatically varied by individual architect, especially

considering the ideological and polemical movements of the era. Modern architecture

expanded into the International Style and, as the name implies, spread around the world

with numerous cultural variations. The representative sketches reflect the stark geometric

forms with ruled sketches in orthographic and axonometric projection.

The chapters have been organized chronologically, beginning with the architects of the

Renaissance. Examples depend upon the availability of sketches, the prominence of the

architect, representative examples of the architect’s work, and finally sketches that display an

interpretive premise for theoretical exploration. The illustrative examples have been

arranged chronologically by the date of the architect’s death. When trying to categorize the

sketches and their architects into periods, it was realized that some architects span several

movements in architectural theory, and clearly defy categories. For these reasons, the group-

ings follow a loose timeline.

THE SKETCHES AS ARTIFACTS

Each chapter begins with an introduction to the period, general social and political climate,

ideals of the movements and/or architectural thought of the period, the tools and technolo-

gies available, and a brief survey of the education (or state of the profession) of the included

architects. Also discussed is any similarity in technique or function of the sketches.

As a preamble to a discussion of architectural sketches it is important first to examine the

compilation process for this collection of sketches. From the inception of this project the

thesis was to present a historical survey of prominent architects using sketches as indicative of

their design thinking. The selection of architects and sketches to include has been a difficult

task requiring the consideration of numerous factors. The choice of architects relied on the

availability of appropriate sketches and their interesting or unusual approaches to sketching as

a process of design. This study included how the context, subject matter and physical look of

the sketches may have affected an architect’s repertoire of built work. These factors were

revealed through exploring the media used, and how techniques facilitated and expressed the

architects’ intention.

The process of selecting the images to be discussed, either from direct observation in an

archive or inspection of published sketches, involved evaluating the specific sketches consid-

ering a diversity of style and theme to be presented. Of primary concern was the attempt

to locate sketches with a variety of techniques and content to present a wide range of

approaches. Subsequently a sketch example from each architect was chosen because it epito-

mized the style or ‘hand’ of that architect. These conclusions were reached after inspecting as

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