Drawing Out Meaning: 500 Years of architectural history
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What is the relationship of drawing to architecture?
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How have styles of architecture, and the drawings which architects used to express them, changed over time?
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Is drawing relevant to contemporary architects and architecture? How?
Workshop overview
The architectural drawing collections held by the RIBA and V&A are the largest in Europe. Both institutions began to collect prints, drawings and models at their foundations: the RIBA in 1834 and the V&A in 1852. With a broad collecting policy, the RIBA has the largest number of artefacts – an estimated 750,000 drawings and 250 models. The V&A collections comprise approximately 20,000 drawings and 50 models. One way to begin to appreciate these vast collections is to view some of the drawings which have instigated the most interest and provoked the most comment from observers.
Workshop selection
The selection of 19 drawings for this workshop (listed on the right) includes some of the real highlights of the collections. They show some of the most fascinating ideas conceived by architects over the past 500 years. These snippets of imagination each have their own meanings. However, when collected together they allow us to reflect on the nature of drawing as a tool for the architect/designer whilst also thinking about the importance of a given medium to the message which it tries to communicate.
The drawings are presented in chronological order, in four categories representing broad historical periods and the general modes of drawing and conventions then used, namely:
A. Sixteenth and seventeenth-century architecture: with the rediscovery of perspective and Classical architecture
B. The long eighteenth century: with the development of formal drawing techniques
C. The Victorians: with their increasingly varied architecture and new professional methods
D. Twentieth-century architecture: with its proliferation of alternative media and forms.
There are of course consistencies which run between these chronological periods which can also be considered throughout.