Design in process: creating architecture from first sketch to publication
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How has the process of building design changed over time?
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How best can architects communicate their ideas?
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How has the architectural profession responded to an increasingly image-conscious society?
Workshop overview
Architectural drawings are created for a variety of reasons. We usually assume that drawings are made in order to communicate ideas. However, they are often used by architects and designers as a way of working things out for themselves – exploring and elaborating a thought process. This is rarely straightforward. In this way, architects create many drawings on a day-to-day basis never intended to be seen by anyone other than themselves. On the other hand, architects also spend a lot of time creating images that are explicitly intended to communicate their ideas to a wider audience.
This means that for any given project, a range of drawings will be produced: initial sketches to express the designer's first ideas; presentation drawings clarifying these to the client; technical drawings, created so that manufacturers and builders can produce and assemble the construction; and perspectives reviewing the completed scheme. Each type has significance. Some, however, place more value on presentation drawings, finely worked up. Others, such as historians, often treasure initial sketches. Together, they allow us a rich understanding of an individual building's construction, and access to the fascinating, if complicated development of Architectural History.
Workshop selection
The material contained in the V&A and RIBA collections represents the whole spectrum of drawings made in the process of creating architecture. This workshop offers a small sample to demonstrate this. Listed on the right, the material for this workshop is split into four sections, each chronologically arranged:
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Sketches for design development: from Hawksmoor to Carlo Scarpa
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Drawings for presentation: from Robert Adam to Buckminster Fuller
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Drawings for production: from Jupp to Mervyn Smith
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Drawings for publication: from Palladio to Wells Coates