youthful imagination
drawing as signature
creative image carrier
the praise of imprecision
the drawing as organising force
the origin of architecture
My "conquest" of the architectural world began in my early school days with project imitations of contemporary architectural icons such asKenzo Tange, Richard Neutra and Justus Dahinden. But I was happy and in an innocent state of self-study. And I drew, or rather imitated plans, built clumsy little models, and wished for subscriptions to "Werk" or"Casabella" for Christmas. When I started studying at the ETH, my idealised approach to architecture was abruptly destroyed. Somehow I was nolonger naive enough for the geometric games in the basic course, but I was also too self-conscious due to my own previous education. In any case, I kept a certain unease with the design theories in the textbooks of modernism. Moreover I still questioned established doctrine and missed an answer to the question of meaning. Like other students of my generation, I graduated with a great deal of uncertainty. And again, in the years that followed, it was not built but imaginary architecture that strengthened my convictions. Even so, the then prevailing trends, such as the Postmodernism of Charles Jencks, the Transavanguardia of Bonito Oliva, the Ticino "Tendenze" with Aldo Rossi or the"analogue architecture" of Miroslav Sik offered worlds of form on which to build.
For me, tools were and remain insignia of craftsmanship. They have nothing in common with today's "tools" in a computer programme. I understood architectural drawing very early on as the architect's musical notation. As the language of design, but also as a construction manual for the complex and elaborate process of creating a building. Architectural drawings can do a lot. They can be inventories, analyses, interpretations of an existing building, but also visions, concepts or critical readings. But it is above all the significance of the drawing as a vehicle for design that has always fascinated me. As long as we build for people, this process must be governed by people. For me, architectural drawing is both a static representation and a dynamic process. As an image, it can show the aesthetic qualities of a work of art, as aprocess, the momentum of the creative act.
Only recently have I begun to explore the potential of unconventional applications of common CAD programs, with mixed success. As a plotter printout or on the screen, the line is simulated by a pixelated structure. But the"analogue" trace, the classic draft (in German “Riss”), is created from physical pressure and movement, removes material or adds colour. It is more definite and reveals the creative energy of its maker. Thus it becomes a nunmistakable signature and lends expressive power to architectural drafts. The drawing becomes a record of its creation.
With the 16.7 million colours on our digital screens today, we forget the role of the image carrier in classical drawing. The carrier is of fundamental importance not only in watercolour painting, but also in printmaking and fresco. It brings brightness, gradation, brilliance and, in the form of reflections, dynamism to the depiction. The light has to be lured through the dark markings of the pencil or brush by skilful omission, so to speak. You only realise this interplay when drawing. Darkness must be applied in order to depict light. But the structure of the image carrier is also indispensable for the creation of the picture. It is not pixels, but the materiality of the surface, i.e. relief, hardness, resistance and erosion that determine the structure of the picture. A Vérgé paper transfers the parallel ribbed structure of the mould to the tonal gradations. A Vélin paper allows gentle transitions in the drawing thanks to its soft fibre structure. The quick-drying lime plaster of the fresco painting also requires a swift, virtuoso hand and its unmistakable mineral quality is captured in the pictorial world
In today's digitalised professional world, only unambiguous and precisely identifiable data units can be processed. However, the design process, from analysing the location to the finished plan, is based on personal interpretations, self-developed methods, as well as ambivalences and does not even exclude wrong turns. Only hand-drawn sketches are capable of reproducing this intuitive search. Borromini's plan sketches for Sant Ivo, for example, show great creative originality with overlapping lines, leaps in scale, coded iconography over a complex but crystal-clear geometric grid. Consequently, my studies of Roman Baroque focussed on deciphering the underlying architectural plan through repeated observation of the built reality, supported by an appropriate knowledge of architectural history.
In the past, an architectural plan required a careful and comprehensible structure in terms of content and presentation. Drawings with different scaleshad to be constructed individually from scratch. The floor plans could only betransferred to a new plan level by drawing one on top of the other. Highly transparent matt foils were used to make visible as many levels as possible. Once the building concept, dimensions and layout had been defined, the design process developed as a continuous construction of the plan outlines on the corresponding sheets. The valid pencil outlines were gradually confirmed with ink strokes and differentiated according to line widths, later supplemented with labelling. This gave two-dimensional strokes a depth effect. The concept stored in the pencil outlines and the gradual structure remained in the plan. All modern design theories emphasise the importance of a clear emblematic ideaand the expressiveness of the first sketch in order to successfully develop acomplex design. For me, it was always the other way round. At the beginning there was chaos, at the end, hopefully, there was form and conciseness. I have always wondered to what extent Leonardo da Vinci's scientific drawings (e.g. in the Codices) are encoded by mirroring, so to speak, and consciously only addressed to themselves.
When did architecture begin? What came first, architecture or drawing? Are animal dwellings, formerly inhabited caves already architecture? Or is it only the primitive hut of Violet-le-Duc, pile dwelling-settlements, Apulien Trulli? Did the academies establish architecture? For me, a small relief drawing on a megalith from the temple complex of Mnajdra on Malta provided a credible answer. The engraved relief, measuring approx. 15cm, shows a building front with curvilinear forms and hints of architraves and columns. It must clearly be understood as a façade drawing. This made it clear to me that the origin of architecture as cultural expression is to be found where building was reflectedin a representation, i.e. where the mutual existential conditionality of dwelling, man and nature in a common living space is understood visually. With the depiction of reality comes the will to design and consciously shaping: constructions become building culture.
