Ackerman Drawing

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    The Conventionsand Rhetoricof ArchitecturalDrawing

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    By "a conventionof architectural rawing" mean he sign-made normally on a two-dimensional urface-that translatesnto graphic orm an aspect e.g., he plan or ele-vation)of an architectural esignor of an existingbuilding. t is an arbitrary nvention,but.onceestablishedt works only when it means he same hing to an observer s tdoes o the maker; t is a tool o[ communication.

    Oncean architectural onvention s established,t maintains n astonishing onsistencythrough trme.Plansandelevations erecommon n Romanantiquity;almostal l thosewe know represent xistingor idealbuildings, hough a full-scale rojectelevation orthe pedimentof the Pantheonwas ound recently ncisedon the pavement f theMau-soleum fAugustus.

    My first consideration s for the instrumentsand materialsof drawing.Paper, o s tartwith, when introduced nto the West n the fourteenthcentury,openedup the possi-bility of recordrng apid impressions, f shetching,or the first time. Parchment, sedpreviousll', as n general oo expensiveor any but defi.nitivemages, nd not suited osketchingor experiment.Few parchmentdrawingssurvive; he cost and sturdiness fthe materialencouraged crapingawaydrawings o make he surface vailableor newdrawingsor texts see hapter2).

    Sheets f paperarenot neutraiwith respecto thedrawngsdoneon them; hey aregen-erally cut in a rectangular ormat that promotesa certainrangeof orientation n thedrawing-in particular, he lining up of straight orthogonal inesparallel to the paper'sedges. he format of paperwas echoed n that of the drawingboard,which permittedthe ntroductionof theT-square nd riangle.Almost all drawingboardsanda high pro-portion of elevation nd perspective rawings avea horizontaldimensiongreaterhanthevertical.This mustbe attributable o the natureof thehumanbody,bringing he opo[ the sheetnearer o the draftsmanand conforming o the favoredactionof the arm.On the other hand, plans,particularly hoseof longitudinal emplesand churches, reoftenverticallyoriented,perhaps o that the entrance s nearest o the draftsman.Thedrawing s affected lsoby the color, ex ture,size,and densityof the support.

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    In perspective rawings, he rectanguiar heetof paper s an analogue f the windowthrough which an oblect s seen; here s an inevitableconformity betrveen he tech-nique of perspective rojectiondescribed y Leon Battista lberti n 1435,not long af-ter the ntroductionof paper,and the formatof the sheet.

    The ntroductionof tracingpaper n the eighteenth enturynot oniy facilitated he de-veiopmentof project deas y eliminatingpainstakingransferralsrom oneopaque ur-face o another asby pricking the outlineswith a needle), ut facilitated nteractionsamongplan,section,anclelevation. n effort o codify the rvays n which transparencyinfluences he designprocesswould only rigidify ts open potentialities;t is sufficientlo indicate[s rmportance.

    Draw'ing nstrumentsobviouslyaffectnot only the appearance f the drawingbut alsothe character f the building theyareuse to represent. he quill pen, oftenused o inkin lines incised with a metal point, dominated the earliestdrawings; t was oinedaround 1500 by a finelysharpened lack chalk,a materialsimilar o themodern Contecra)ron.Michelangelo avored he much softel red chalk becauset suited his moresculpturaland texturalorientation.Shortlyafter 1600,Borromini &'ashe first to makeextensive se of graphite-essentially he n"rineral ncasedn the modern pencil. Thistool could be sharpenedo a very fine point or nsed n other ways o communicateawider rangeof texture and shadow From the Renaissancen, ink washeswere em-ployed asan enrichmentof line drawing o distrnguishmass rom void in plans and toemphasize ontrasts f light and shadow n elevations, ections, nd perspectives.n-creasingly,rom the eighteenth enlury on, watercolorwasadoptedwherepictorialef -fects were sought. Later innovations simply refined these choices,as with thesubstitr-rtionf the steelpen or the quill. The computerconstituteshe only significantmodern addition o the reDertorv

    Drawing hasnot been he only means or communicatingarchitectural orm. For cen-turiesdesigns nd buildings havebeen epresentedn models, vhichhave he advan-tageof vivid representation ore accessiblehan the abstrac[ion f drawings o clients ,

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    12.1 Fragmentro mhemarblelanofRome,.D . 05-208.Photo:ine rts ibrary,HarvardniversitY.

    the public, and the masonor woodworker.Now two-dimensional representationsmay be composed bycomputer-aided esign,which is becomingprogres-sively more flexible and responsive o the designersimagination.

    The lanPlans rearbitrarydiagrams f anonexistent ootprint'Realbuildingsarenot simplysetdown on flat surfaceslike amodel on a table.The fragment rom the marbLeplan of ancrentRome fig. 12.1) s evenmore arbitrarythan most;being ust iinesand dots, t is the diagramof a diagram.

    But plans,apart rom the fact hat hey ndicatesome-thing literally invisible,arehighly capricious.The rep-resentationn lig. 12.2 of the Erechtheionn Athensvividly illustratesthe arbitrarinessof the convention'The building has hreequite different evels hat are allrepresented ere as f they were on the sameplane'Even structures on relativelyflat basesare shown ascomposites f differenthorizontaicuts,oneat hebaseof thesteps, neat thebaseof the columns,oneat thebottom of the column shafts.The thirteenth-centu ryplans from the lodgebook of Villard de Honnecourt(fig. 12.3)arean earlyexample f combinlng he foot-print type of plan with what is called he "reflected"plan of the vaultingoverhead.Moreover,he vaultingis represented s fit wereon a flat surface,houghac-tually t curvesup towardan aPex.

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    12.2 Athens,rechtheion,la nPhoto:ine rts ibrary,Harvardniversity.

    12.3 Vil lardeHonnecourt,projectwith ieneeCorbie)fora chevetnd lan f St.Etjenne,Meaux,a. 30 . aris,BibliothequeNationale,s. r29093.

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    The ect ionThesection emained asically he same rom rts irstappearancen therhirreenth en-tury; thatof PeterParleror the ourteenrh-cenruryraguecathedral fig.2.6) s theear-liest ully correctone I know, houghthe nnovation s probably raceableo the Reimsworkshop n the 1220s.As with the plan, the section'sut through the walls s unveri-fiableby ey'e,n mostcases,r canbe drawnonly with rheaid of theplan. Fromrhesrarr,partsof the building at somedistance ehindthe verticalsecrionwere ncluded n therepresentation-in this case, he flying buttresses.

    Somenonrectilinear esigns [our own timemake t difficult to makeand o reada sec-tion, eitherbecausehe structure s not rectilinearor becauset hasconstantshiftsofplanes fig.12.4).

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    12.4 Hans charoun,Philharmonicall,Berlin,1959-'1963,longitudinalect ion.From ckehardanofskeArichtektur-RAume:ldee ndGestalteiHansScharoun(BraunschweigndWiesbaden,984).

    I 2.5 LeCorbusier,rojectfor he nteriorfVilla"Les enasses,"arches.PhotoypermissionfArtists ightsociety.

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    ThePersoectiveThe Roman theoristVitruvius recommendedperspective rawings-rather ambigu-ously-and they havebeenemployed ince he fiiteenthcentury o helpdesignerso vi -sualize heirwork in threedimensions r to rrrake inished enderings or patrons,whounderstandably realmostalways affledby the abstractionsIthe conventions ehavejust examined, nd to represent nd reconstruct xistingbuildings.

    The major Renaissanceheorists pposed he useof perspective sameansof archltec-tural representation ecausehe receding ineswould inevitablybe unmeasurable ndthereforemisleading. n practice,all the architectsmade perspectives nyhow (flgs.2.16,2.LB). But in the very period in which geometri cally onstructed entral-pointperspective ad been nventedand most exploited,architects aradoxically referredto use ad hoc approaches o representing uild ings rn three dimensions.They thusavoided he rigidity of the fixedcentraleyepoint, and made t possible o put the ob-servern whateverhorizontalor verticalpositionmost avored heir purpose.

    A few sixteenth-century rchitects, otably Baldassarre eruzzi,employedgeometri-cally constructed erspectiven somedrawings fig. 2 23): t may havebeenhis rnter-est n the designof illusionisticstage ets hat ed him to a truly sophisticated ontrol ofpro1ection, ith the planeof projectionplacedbehind the surlaceof the paper.

    A drawing by Le Corbusier liusrrates ow perspectives,nlike plans,elevations, ndsections,end themselves specially o rhetoricalexposition frg. 12.5). By rhetoricalmean hat the aim is not simply to represent s faithfully as possiblean architecturalspaceor mass,but to present t to the viewerso as o emphasize he particulargoal ofthe design; n short, o persuade. e Corbusiersnterior perspectiveor avilla design smeant o exaggeratehe depth of space nd the nterplayof abstract lanes, nd to em-phasize he revolutionary ontrast o middle-classiving spaces f the late nineteenthcenturyl

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    12.6 Phil ibertelorme,erspectivesectionf he hapel,hAteaud'Anet. rom remierome eI'a chtect e Pats,561.

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    The perspectlve ectionaimsto givea readablem-pression [ abuildings nterior; t is used o repre-sent ound or polygonal n[eriors'or partssuchascupolas. lf the rnterior ls rectilinear, t can beshownasan elevadon,and perspectives not rele-1,sn1.) hilibert Delorme n 1567 shor'ved cutthrough the chapelat Anet (flg 12 6) in which wesee,n an adhoc perspectivempression,he nsldeancl outstdesimultaneously,and the thicknessofthe wall aswell. The drawingwould be useless saguide o a builder or mason The Renaissancep-ponentsof perspectrven thepresentation f archi-tectural designs-notably Alberti, Rapl'rael'Palladio,and Barbaro-appealed for orthogonalel-evationsbuilt up from the plan, in which all mea-surements re exactand canbe used n buiiding(fig.2.20).To make he kind o[ orthogonai leva-tion or sectionof a circular or polygonalstlucturerepresentedy frg.2.20, r tspracticall)'essentialoconstruct t from the plan,whrch is why, n the rel-afvely few Renaissancerawingsof such luildingsthat are orthogonal,tl-resectlon s drawn dlrectlyabove he pian on the samesheet'

    ln the seventeenth entur;',milinry andmechan-ical engineers eveloped he techniqueof axono-metric drawing,whrch permitted epresentationsof constructions n three dimensions n whichcorrectmeasurementsould be retained n there-cedingplanes fig 12.7)' Anongeometrical' ub-Jective orm o[ axonometric had existed evenbefore he Renaissance,apanese aintersof the

    12.7 Will iamarrish,achine.ro m"On sometricalersPective,"Philosophicatociety 1822)'fig

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    seventeenth century 1flg. 12.8) frequently illustrated dwellings and town settings froman elevated viewpoint but without perspective diminution, as a way of facilltating theirn211s1i1's5-2gain or rhetorical purposes. In the Renaissance,a similar, unconstructedapproach rvas ound to be the most effective vay of rqt..renting complex machine s, butin this case he recedlng lines were normally bent around to whatever angle rvould re-veal most about a particular part of the structure

    The axonometric method proved to be particularly suited to the forms o[ trventieth-century architecture, rvith its lavoring of straight lines and flat planes. But it came intoprorninence through widely used texts on the history of ancient and medieval architec-ture by Auguste Choisy, beginning in the 1870s. Figure 12.9 shows the plan as well asthe interior and exterlor of a Roman vaulted structure.

    Painters of the early trventie h century also exploited the axonometric, adding to the ba-sic graphic method the spatial potentiallties of color. El Lissitzky, a Russian artist who

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    12.9 Augustehoisy,omanault. rom 'art ebAttr hezes omains(Paris,1883)

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    12.10 El issitzky,rojectfortheCabinetfAbstractionn heProvincialuseum,annover,Sprengeluseum.

    worked in Germany, roduced many exhibition de-signs,which he claimed to be his mosr imporrantwork; f,g. 12.1"0 asdrawn or an exhibitat Hannoverin 1926-1927. Like many of his contemporaries, eheld pseudo-sci.entifi.cheoriesof an expandedspaceand time to be deslgned nto his work. Partso[ thedrawingcanbe readasa proJectionrom eitherbelowor above,and the figure s calculated o confuse hedual reading: he shifts are ntended o actual ize heviewer's xperience n time and space. n a seriesofhousestudres fi p l2 I l) . PeterEisenman as em -.--o. -- .,ployed axonometricprojections of increasingcom-plexity not only to reveal the interpenetrationofplanes, ut to explore he complexityand ncoherence-- f -- .- , i^ l -^ l^,.^-^ur >Pdudl r ( tduut15.

    Miesvan der Rohedeveloped unique form of archi-tectural representationn which the structure tselfcouldbe representedsa void (fig. 12.12).Thus heResorHouseproject s represented y an interior ele-vation n whlch the wall, which i s glass, s only a pic-turesquecollageof photographsof a vast andscapebeyond t (not even heone hatwould havebeenseenfrom the house)and two mullions,of blank paper; hebroaderwhite bandsaresteel olumns.Although rheyreject perspective epresentation,Miess drawings o[this klnd in fact call upon the viewer's nderstandingof perspectiveo visualize readable paceout of thevoid. Historically hey areallied o the minimalism ofthe 1960s n paintingand sculpture.

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    12.1 Peterisenman,rawingorGuardiolaouse,uertoeSanta aria,adiz,painPhotoounesyf he rchitect

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    12.1 Ludwig ies an erRohe,tudyor heResorouse, 37-1 38.Photo: useumfModernrt ,New ork.

    CAD:TheomputermageComputer-aided design is having a profound effect on architectural drawing (fig.12.13).As a technologicalnnovation n the field, ts mportanceperhaps quals hat ofrhe ntroductionof paper. t is now almost ndispensablen supporting he technical s-pecrsof working drawings,suchas hose or lighting,heating,acoustics, ucting,andstructuraldetailing. t moveseasilybetween wo- and three-dimensionalmaging,al-lowing for visualizationof forms and spaces reviouslyworked out. Increasingly,t hasthe capacityof hand-madedrawing o depart rom thepredetermined arameters ro-grammed nto the software.Recentlynew applications, acilitatedby the softwareFormZ and Alias-and bestknown to the public in illustrationsof the work of Frank Gehry,especiallyhe GuggenheimMuseum n Bilbao fig 12.la)-have permitteda greatex-pansion n the ability to devisecomplexmanipulationsof planes n undulationsandcurves exrensions f what RobinEvanscalled uled lines) beyond he capabiiities ftraditionalstereotomy in any case, ow virtually a lost technique).Here he machinedoesnot merelyaccelerate rawingprocesseshathadpreviously eencarriedout onlyby hand,but opensup a potentialnot attainable n the drawingboard,onewith ex-traordinarypotentral or the extensionof architecturalorm'

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    '|2.1 AsymptoteHani ashidnd ise nneCouture),nterfacetudy, uggenheimVirtual usuem,999. hotoourtesyof hearchitects.

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    Hand ndMindAs a sign, a convention efers o an aspect hat ssignified. f the drawing n which it lsused epresents n existingbuilding or a fi.nished roject, hen t relateso the signifiedsomewhat sa verbaldescription elateso an aspect f the ob.lectt refers o. This snotto say hat either he graphicor theverbaldescription accurately"epresentshe signi-fied,bur only that t relateso t in someway thatcanbe read.What are hedifferentef-fectsof a graphicand a written representation? hat aspects f architecture re morecommunicable y drawingasopposed o words?

    A study by Michelangelo or the plan of the church o[ SanGiovannide' Fiorentini nRome,o[ 1559(frg. ]2 l5), poses he questionof what the graphicsignsignifiesn thecaseof a sketchor study for a possible tructure hat has not fully materializedn thedesignersmind. Is r thena sign or a mental mage? hat would be a possibleexplana-tion in termsof Cartesian sychology, h lch, I take t, would hold that the mental m-age s fixed and unrnflectedby the process f drawing. But archltectural ketching smost oftenan nteractive rocessn which an nitial dea sput down and he mark sug-gestsan extensionof that idea, which then results n an alteredmark. This is howMichelangelo's lan becameso heavilyworked over;while it may have ost its initialclarity, t gainedan expresslve itality that makeseveryelement eem o be aliveand nevolution.The nterchange oeson until a resolntion s found. Sr-rchheets reparticu-larly preciousbecausehey bring us closest o the moment of conception.An earlierproposal or the samebuilding (lig. i2.l6) by anotherarchitect,Antonio da SangallotheYounger, resents lternative roposalsn a more eadablevay,hough one a ongi-tudinal plan with side chapels)s quite nconsistentwith the other(a circularplan withrqAiqttno chrnpls)-" '^r__' . '

    Even marks aimlesslymade can be organizedby a draftsman nto purposeful orm.Leonardoda Vinci proposed hat a paintedcompositionbe started rom ar tain madeby throwinga spongeagainst wall. Inventionmay thus be physicalaswell asmental,thoughneuroscientistsodayarequestioning his distinction. 1

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    12.15 Michelangelouonanoti,projectorSan iovannide 'Fiorentini,ome,I 559. lorence,as aBuonarrot i,4.

    12'16 Antoniodasangal lotheyounger,pro. ject forsanGiovannide'Fiorent in i ,Rome, l5lg- , |519Florence,ffizr,1 92 photo:uthor).

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    12.17Louisahn,ypostyleall,arnak.ollectionueAnnahn.

    The architect's ketch n preparation or a work differs rom the paintersor sculptors.A basicconventionof the former,such asa p1an, ears irtually no visual elationshipto thestructureasbullt; onecannotevensce heplanof a completed uilding.yet mostfrequentiy he initial studies or a building are made n p1an.The figuralarrist,on rheotherhand,makespreparatory ketcheshat relatedirectly o the appearance f the n-tendedsculptureor painting-sometimes for the compositionas a whole, sometimesfor somepart of it ; he or shehasvirtually no conventional igns hat arestand-ins orthe ina1 roduct figs.6.17,6.18).TheRepresentat ionf Exist ingui ldingsThe rhetoricof drawing s perhapsbestrllustratedn represenrationsf buildings rhatal-readyexist figs.12. 7-12.22) Thedrafrsman hooseshe building he or shewanrs odrawwith a particular urpose n mind, and hatpurposeaffects hat s representedndhow.An immenser:rngeof representationss available,rom the sun,eyor's r archaeolo-gist's rthogonal levationo thewatercolorists r-rilding et n a landscapend rendered

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    with its contoursand detallsblurred by contrasts flight and shadow and of color.The surfaceand the in-struments sedarechosen n accordance ith thepur-poseand he ntendedaffect;n the irst example,t maybe a delicateine executed n draftingpaperwith a finesteel en,or engraved n ametalplate; n the second,tmaybe oosebrushworkapplied o a varietyof roughersurfaces. ot only doeseach epresentationeek o con-veya particularmessage ith themeans estadapted oit , but eachobservations the productof an ndividualsway of perceir'rng,and of his or her way of conveyingwhat he or sheperceives. he atter nvolves ndividualtraitsof rendering, omparableo handwriting,and hestyle of the time and place of making. Therelbre he"accuracy" f a depiction s entirely dioslrlcratic, herearemany potential accuraciesl'

    Louis Kahn sketched he HypostyleHall at Karnak nawhol ly diosyncrat icay f ig. 2 I 7).asa momenl nhis career-long ursuit of the effectsof hght and ofmonumental composltion.Photographs f a buildingare nflectedby the samepersonaland cultural orcesthat affectdrawings see hapter4).

    Piranesi's tching of the baseof CastelSant'AngelonRome fig. 12.18) s an exercisen communicating hesublime; ts ntention s not to provideclues o the ap-pearance f thebuilding, but to overwhelm heviewerwith what heart ist awas tsawesomeower.

    The representations of the results of modern archae-ologicai excavation are certainly the drawings least

    I 2.1 Giovanniatt istairanesmoat f Castelant'Angelo,Rome.rom e ntichitdromaneRome,a. 1 5]',vol, ,plate .Photo:ine rts ibrary,Harvardniversity. .==

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    12.19Athens,Agora,lan.romesperia3T1968).

    influenced y personal actors.We call hem"objective"when he aspectshe draftsmandepictscorrespond o our expectation f how the drawingcan be most useful. n theplan of theAgoraat Athens fig. I 2 19 , we can ollow a story of thepalimpsest f cu]-ture n the courseof time.But we could go with this drawing n hand to the site t de-scribes nd be totallyunable o orientourselves. he structures hown herearementalconstrlrcts ypothesized rom scrapsof evidence,much of which may havebeen de-stroyed n the finding, or covered verafterbeing ound.

    The reconstruction f destroyed r alteredbuildings ends o edgecloser o Piranesi'sfantasy han to the measured lans.All are edolentof the historicalmoment n whichthey weremade.A typical econstructi on f theParthenonn Athens fig 12.20)selectsa viewpointcalculatedo dramatize he approach n a mid-twentieth-century ay, eek-ing verisimilitudeby the additlon of actors n Greekcostume.Another visitor to theParthenon, efore t had beenblown up in the early ifteenthcentury, rovideda quitedifferent estorationfrg.12.2i). Thereaiso s abuilt-in unreliability n thepresentationof the eievations nd sections f existingbuildings; hereareno rulesconstraining he

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    12.20G.PStevens,econstructionf heParthenon,thens.rom estorationsfClassicaluildinqsPrinceton,I955), ourtesyfAmericanchoolfClassicaltudies,thens.

    draftsman; e or shemay havearrivedat the height of an entablature r the width of awall by guessing.Guessings he preferredmethod n representingheheightsof Gothiccathedrals, hich aremostly oo tall to measure y affordablemeans.

    In early pre-1500)drawings hi s alterations usuallydue o an ndifferenceo what wewould call accuracy: ichardKrautheimer howed hat medieval raftsmenmight rep-resentanykind of central-plan uilding as ound,since hesymbolismof centralitywasmore significant han the actual orm.

    We know the Renaissanceeriod or its devotion o the remains f antiquity, nd or theastonishing number of drawings of ancient remainssurviving from the hands of Re-naissance rchitects nd renderers.We would expect hesedrawings o provide asac-curalea representation f ancient emainsas he techniques nd styleof the time wouldhavepermitted.Not so ; even,or perhapsespeciaily,he most distinguished rchitectsremadeantiquity according o their own interests r carelessness. reconstruction frhe fourth-century Santa Costanza n Rome by Francesco di Giorgio Martini (fig.

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    1222)-a structure hat still stands n an exception-aliy good stateof preservation-presents he circularplan with eighteen airsof columnsaround ts centralspace, ather than the twelve hat actuallyare there,and gnores he thick wallsandniches.

    We might ask whether the representatlon f existingbuiidings s the samesort of signification s epresen-tation in painting and figural or landscape rawrng.Portraits,ike architectural epresentationsother hanthose ntended or use),arenormally expected o re-semble he subject n someway,and they do obsen'eor occasionally stablish onventions urrent n theirtime (asearlyRenaissanceortraltsadopt he forms ofancientcoins,medals,and busts).Like mostarchitec-tural representations,hey are substantially ecast nthe style and techniquechosenby the artistand pa-trons.Portraits ypically ransmitnot only what is ob-sen'edbut aspects f the sltter hat can be nferredbysymbolic lues: haracter,tatus, spirations,tc .Ar -chitectural epresentations re no l esscoloredby so-cialandpolitical orces, s s clear rom the example yPiranesidiscussed bove fig. 12.18).A portrartofDanieleBarbaro fig. 9.1) conveys he sitter'sgravitythroughhis expression nd his ackof contactwith thepainter and viewer; his position is indicatedby thevestments f his office asPatriarch-Electf Aquileia),and his achievements y the prominent role of hispublished works. Attention is further directed o hisarchitectural nterests y the colossal olumn and anodd capital-like orm alongside t.

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    TheRhetor icf DrawinqIn sum, he architectural rawing s not us t a documentcontainlng he requireddata,but inescapably ears he stampof the author's ersonal tyleand that of the time andp1ace.A practiced iewercan dentify the draftsman-provided an adequate umberof drawingsby the samehand havebeen documented-or at least he approximatedate, through evidence hat is primarily of a formal characterbut can include themaker's rientation owardwhat spresented.) urther,a drawingmaybea graphic ormo[ architectural heory,conceived ot only to illustrate he designer's rinciplesbut topersuadehe viewerof thevalidityof his or her point of view(fig.12.12).

    An architectu ral rawing maybe not ust a means o an end but an end n itself.Draw-ingscan be the only way of presenting rojects hat arevisionaryor at east emporar-ily unrealizable.They can becomepromotionai nstruments presentation rawings,competltiondrawings)or an object of fashionquite disconnectedrom the making ofbuildings, o the extent of being quiteunbuildable the fashionof drawing resemblesthat of clothes). n the past century many architects, articularly hose most widelyknown, havebuilt reputations n drawingsprior to havingbuilt much of importance:Le Corbusier, aving had few commissionsn his early career, nergetically roducedand publishedarchitecture n paper. n recent ears, schumi,Koolhaas, isenman,Coop Himmelblau,and Libeskindhaveexercised reat nfluenceon the profession ndon architecturaleducationprimarily through drawingsdisseminated hrough booksand periodicals, nd n art galleries nd museums.Since t east he eighteenth entury,architectural rawingshavebeenprizedby collectors nd exhibitedasworks of art andhaveacquiredavalueon the art market.

    Finally, he conventions re, n a sense,elementsof a language; ike words and sen-tences,hey are nventedor arrivedat by mutual agreement nd,once n place, emainwrth little change or centuries.Becausehey area way in which an architect ommu-nicates asicaspects f his or her work with anyone nterestedn building and the arto[ architecture, lteringor attempting o improve hem can result only in confusion.

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    Therefore' nrikearchitecrural tyres r drafting echniques,hey havealmosrno his_;J: f f:r-J::"rr,ons canbe rearized,withstabrishedonvenrions,s heyinerhereasons,,n.,o."i;;;:HJ.::::,fl;:;.:::.'",:"-":-::ff:"ffi ;.f only minor historical nterest.This ieldof investigation,then, smoreciosely elatedto semiology han to standard rchltectural esearch.t is an aiternadveo architecturalhistoryas t hasbeenpracriced, nd ts appear ies n thefacr hat t is pursuednot in ri_rariesand archives ut with rearworks in hand, through visualexperiencesnd theuminationsthat follow them.

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