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8/11/2019 Conventions and Rhetoric of Architectural Drawing
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Origins Imitation Conventions
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D a t a
A c k e r m a n J a m e s S .
O r i g i n s
im i ta t ion ,
c o n v e n t io n s : r e p re s e n ta t i on in t h e v i s u a l a r ts / J a me s S. Ac k e rm a n
p . c m .
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1 .
A r t c r i t i c i s m H i s t o r i o g r a p h y . 2 . A r t H i s t o ri o g r a p h y . 3 . A r t ,R e n a i s s a n c e . 4 .
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heConventions andR hetoric
of rchitectural Drawing
LU
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B y a
convention
ofa rch i t ec tu ral
drawing
I
mean
th esignmade
normally
on a
two-
dimensional
su r f acetha t
translates into graphic form
an
aspect (e.g.,
th e
plan
or
ele-
vation)
of an
architectural design
or of an
existing building-
Itisa n
arbitrary invention,
but
once established
it
works only when
it
means
the
same thing
to an
observer
as it
doesto the
maker;it
is a
tool
of
communication.
Oncea narchitectural convention isestablished,i tmaintainsanastonishing consistency
t h roughtime. Plansandelevations were common inRomanan t iqu i t y ;almost allthose
we
know
represent existing or ideal buildings, though a
full-scale
project elevation fo r
th epediment of thePantheonw asfound recentlyincisedon thepavement of theMau-
soleum
of Augu s tus .
M y
first consideration is for the instruments and materials of drawing. Paper, to start
with, when introduced into
the
West
in the
fourteenth century, opened
up thepossi-
bility
of
recording rapid impressions,
of
sketching
for the first time.
Parchment, used
previously,was ingeneraltooexpensive for any butdefinitive images, and notsuited to
sketchingorexperiment. Fewparchment drawings survive;thecost andsturdinessof
th e
material encouraged scraping away drawings
to
make
th e
surface
available
for new
drawings
or
texts (see chapter
2 .
Sheetso fpaperare notneutral with respectto thedrawings doneonthem; theyaregen-
erally
cut in arectangular format thatpromotes a certain range of orientation in the
drawinginparticular,thelining up ofstraight orthogonal lines parallelto the papers
edges. The
format
ofpaper wasechoed inthatof thedrawing board, which permitted
th e
introduction ofth eT-squareandtriangle. Almosta ll
drawing
boardsand ahigh pro-
portion
of
elevation
and perspect ive
drawings have
a
horizontal dimension greater than
thevertical. This mustbeattributableto thenatureof thehuman
body,
bringingthe top
of
th e
sheet nearer
to the d ra f t sman and
conforming
to the
favored action
of the
arm.
On the
other hand, plans, particularly those
of
longitudinal temples
andchurches,are
often
vertically oriented,
perhapsso
that
the
entrance
is
nearest
to the
draftsman.
The
drawing
i saffected
also
by the
color, texture , size,
and
density
of the
support.
294
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In perspective drawings, the rec tangula rsheet ofpaper is an analogue of the window
through which an object is seen; there is aninevitable conformity between the tech-
nique
of
perspective projection described
by
Leon BattistaAlberti
in
1435,
not
long
af-
ter the
introduction
of
paper,
and the
format
of the
sheet.
The
introduction
of
tracing paper
in the
eighteenth century
not
onlyfacilitated
the de-
velopmentofproject ideasbyeliminating painstakingtransfer rals from oneopaque sur-
face
toanother as bypricking the outlines with aneedle , but facilitated interactions
among plan, section,
and
elevation.
An
effort
to
codify
th e
ways nwhich transparency
influences thedesign processwould onlyrigidify itsopen potentialities;it is
sufficient
toindicateitsimportance.
Drawing instruments obviously affect not only th eappearanceof thedrawingbut also
th echaracterof thebuilding theya reused torepresent.Thequill pen,oftenused to ink
in
lines incised with a metal point, dominated the earliest drawings; it was joined
around 1500by a
finelysharpened black chalk,
a
material similar
to the
modern Conte
crayon. Michelangelo favored
th e
much softer
red
chalk because
it
suited
his
more
sculptural and textural orientation. Shortlyafter 1600, Borrominiwas the first tomake
extensive
use ofgraphiteessentiallythe
mineral encased
in the
modern pencil.
This
tool could be sharpened to avery finepoint orused inother ways tocommunicate a
wider range of texture and shadow. From the Renaissanceon ink washes were em-
ployed as anenrichment ofline drawingtodistinguish mass fromvoid inplansand to
emphasize contrasts
of
light
and
shadow
in
elevations, sections,
and
perspectives.
In-
creasingly, from
th e
eighteenth century
on ,
watercolor
w as
adopted where pictorial
ef-
fects were sought. Later innovations simply
refined
these choices,
as
with
the
substitutionof thesteelpen for thequill.Th ecomputer constitutestheonly
significant
modern addition
to the
repertory.
Drawing
has notbeen th eonly means fo rcommunicating architecturalform. Forcen-
turiesdesignsand buildings have been represented inmodels, which havethe advan-
tage
of
vivid representation more accessible than
th e
abstraction
of
drawings
to
clients,
295
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12.1 Fragm ent f rom th e marble plan
of
Rome A.D.205-208.
Photo: Fine Arts tibrary
HarvardUn ivers i ty.
th e
public
and the
mason
or
w oodworker.
Now
two-
dimensional representations may be composed by
computer-a ided
design, which is becoming progres-
sively more flexible
an d
responsive
to the
designer's
imagination.
T h e
l a n
Plans arearbitrary diagramsof anonexistent footprint .
Realbuildingsare not simplyse t
down
onflat surfaces
likea model on a table . The fragment from the marble
planofancient Rom e (fig.
12.1)
isevenmor arbitrary
than most:beingju st l ines and dots, i t is the diag ram
of
adiagram.
B utplans apart from th e
fact
that they indicate som e-
thingliterally invis ible,are
highly capricious.
The
rep-
resentation in fig. 12.2 of the Erechtheion nAthens
vividly
illustrates
the
arbitrariness
of the
convention.
The building has three quitedifferent levels that are all
represented here as if they were on the same plane.
Even structures on
relatively
flat
bases
are shown as
composites
of
different horizontal cuts,
on e at the
base
ofthe steps,one at thebase of thecolumns,one at the
bot tom of the co lumn shafts. T he
thirteenth-century
plans from the lodge book of
V illard
de Honnecourt
(fig.
12.3)are anearly example ofcom bining the foot-
printtype
of plan with what is
called
the
reflected
plan
of the
vaulting overhead. Moreover,
the vaul t ing
isrepresented as if itwereon a
flat
su rface, though ac -
tually it curves u p toward anapex.
9 6
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T
h
e
C
o
n
v
e
n
t
o
n
s
a
n
d
R
h
e
t
o
r
c
o
f
r
c
h
i
e
c
t
u
r
a
l
D
r
a
w
i
n
g
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T h e
e c t i o n
The section rem ained basically the same f rom i ts f i rst appearance in the th irteen th cen-
tury; that
o f
Peter Parler
for the
fou rteenth-century Prague Cath edral
(fig.
2 .6)
is the
ear-
liest fully c orrect one I know, thoug h the innovation is proba bly traceable to the Reims
workshop
in the
1220s.
As
with
the
plan,
the
section s
cut
through
the
walls is unveri-
fiable
by
eye; in most cases, it can be drawn only with the aid of the plan. From the start,
pans
of the
building
at some distance
behind
the
vertical
section
were
included in the
representationin thiscase, the
flying
buttresses.
Some
nonrectilinear
designs of our own t ime make it difficult to make and to read a sec-
tion either because the stru cture is not rectilinear or because it has con stant
shifts
o f
planes
(fig.
12.4 .
12.4
Hans Scharoun,
Philharmonic Hall,
Berl in ,
1959-1963,
longitudinal
sec t ion.
From
EckehardJanofske,
Arichtektur Raum e;
Ideeun Gestalt bet
HansScharoun
(Braunschweig and
Wiesbaden,
1984 .
298
12.5 te
Corbusier,
project
for
t he inter ior of
Vil la
LesTe rrasses / 'Garches .
Photo by permiss ionof
Art ists RightsSociety.
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T h e e r s p e c t i v e
The Roman theorist Vitruvius recommended perspective drawingsrather ambigu-
ouslyand they have been employed since the fifteenth century to help designers to vi-
sualizetheir work in three dimensions or to make finished renderings for patrons, who
unders tandably arealmost alwaysbaff led by theabstractionsof theconventionsw ehave
just examined,
and to
represent
and
reconstruct existing buildings.
Thema jo rRenaissance theonstsopposed the use ofperspectiveas ameanso farchitec-
turalrepresentation because the receding lines would inevitably be unrneasurableand
therefore misleading. Inpractice, all thearchitects made perspectives anyhow figs.
2.16, 2.18).Butinthevery
period
in which geometrically
constructed
central-point
perspective
hadbeeninvented and most exploited, architects paradoxicallypreferred
to use ad hoc approaches to representing buildings in three dimensions. They
thus
avoided
the
rigidity
of the fixed
central
eye
point,
and
made
it
possible
to put the ob-
server
in
whatever horizontal
or
verticalposition most
favored
their purpose.
A fewsixteenth-century architects, notably Baldassarre Peruzzi, employed geometri-
cally
constructed perspective in some drawings fig. 2.23);it mayhave beenhisinter-
es t
in thedesign
o f
ilhisionistic
stage setslhat led him to atruly sophisticated controlof
projection,with
th e
plane
of
projection placed
behind th e
surface
of the
paper.
A drawing
by Le
Corbusier illustrates
how
perspectives, unlike plans, elevations,
and
sections, lend themselves especially
to
rhetorical exposition fig. 12.5).
By
rhetorical
I
mean that
the aim is not
simply
to
represent
as faithfully as
possible
an
architectural
spaceormass,but to
present
it to theviewerso as to
emphasize
theparticulargoalof
the
design;
in
short,
to
persuade.
Le
Corbusier
s
interior perspective
for a
villa design
is
meant to exaggerate the depth of space and the interplay of abstract planes, and to em-
phasize
the
revolutionarycontrast
to
middle-classlivingspaces
of the
latenineteenth
century.
299
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2 6 Phil ibert Delorme, perspective
section
of the
chapel, Chateau
d Anet. From
Premier tome de
/ architecture
(Paris, 1567).
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The perspective section aims to give a readable im-
pressionof abuilding s interior;it isused torepre-
sent
round
or polygonal interiors, or parts such as
cupolas. (If the
interior
is
rectilinear,
it can be
shownas an
elevation,
and
perspective
is not rele-
vant.) Philibert Delorme in 1567 showed a cut
through
the
chapel
at
Anet (fig. 12.6)
in
which
w e
s e e , in an ad hoc perspective impression, the inside
and outside simultaneously, and the thickness of
thewallas
well.
The
drawing would
b e
useless
as a
guide to a builder or mason. The Renaissance op-
ponentsofperspectivein thepresentationofarchi-
tectural designs notably Albert . Raphael,
Palladio,an d
Barbaroappealed
fo rorthogonal el -
evations
built up from the plan, inwhich al l
mea-
1 2 y
i l l i a m F a r r is h ,
m a c h i n e . F r o m
surements areexact and can be
used in
building
f i g . 2.20). Tomake the kind oforthogonal eleva-
tion or section of a circular or polygonal structure
represented
by fig.
2.20,
it is
practically essential
to
construct it
from the
plan, which
is
why,
in the
rel-
atively fewRenaissance drawings ofsuch buildings
that
are
orthogonal,
the
section
is
drawn directly
above the plan on the same sheet.
On Isometr ical
Perspective,
hilosophicalSociety1(1822),
fig.
9.
In theseventeenth century, militaryand mechan-
ical engineers developed
th e
technique
of
axono-
metric
drawing, which permitted representations
of
constructions
in
three dimensions
in
which
correct measurements could be retained in the re-
ceding planes f i g . 12.7).Anongeometrical, sub-
jective form of axonometric had existed even
before th eRenaissance; Japanese painters of the
3
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12.8 Tale of Gen j i Japanese sc reen 1677. Photo cour tesy of Isabel la StewartG a r d ne rMuseum Boston.
seventeenth
century fig. 12.8) frequently illustrated dwellings and town settings f rom
an
elevated
viewpoint but
without
perspective
diminution,
as a way of
facilitating
their
narrativesagain
fo r
rhetorical purposes.
In the
Renaissance,
a
similar,
unconstructed
approach
was
found
to be the
most
effectiveway of
representing complex
machines,but
inthis
case
the
receding lines were normally bent
aroundto
whatever angle would
re-
veal
most about a particular pan of the structure.
The axonometric method proved to be particularly suited to the forms of twentieth-
century architecture, with its
favor ing
o fstraight linesan d flat planes.But itcame into
prominence through widely used texts on the history of ancient and medieval architec-
ture
by
Auguste
Choisy
beginning
in the
1870s.Figure 12.9
showsthe
plan
as
well
as
th e
interior
and
exterior
o f a
Roman vaulted structure-
Painte rs
o f the
early twentieth century also exploited
th e
axonometric, adding
to the ba-
sic graphic
method
the spatial potentialities of color. El
Lissitzky
a Russian artist who
302
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T
h
e
C
o
n
v
n
t
o
n
s
a
n
d
R
h
e
t
o
r
c
o
f
r
c
i
e
c
u
r
a
l
D
r
a
w
i
n
g
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12 1
ElLissitzky project for the
CabinetofAbstraction in the
Provincial Museum. Hannover
Sprengel
Museum.
12 11 Peter Eisenman
drawing
fo r
Guardiola House Puerto
d e
Santa
Maria Cadiz Spain.
Photo
courtesy of the architect.
worked in
Germany, p roduced many exhib i t ion
de-
signs,
which
he
claimed
to be his
mos t impor tan t
work;
fig.
12.10
was
drawn
for an
exhibit
a t
Hannover
in
1926-1927.
Like
manyof his contemporaries, he
held pseudo-scientific theories
of an
expanded space
and
t ime
to be
designed into
his
work. Parts
of the
draw ing can be read as a projection from either below
or above, and the figure is calculated to confuse the
dual reading: the shifts are intended to actualize the
viewer s expe rience in time and space. In a serieso f
house studies (fig.12.11 , Peter Eisenman has em-
ployed
axonometric projections
of
increasing com-
plexity not only to reveal the interpenetration of
planes, but to exp lore the complexity and incohere nce
of spatial relations.
Mies van der Rohe developed a un ique form of archi-
tectural representation
in
which
th e
structure itself
could be
represented
as a
void
(fig.
12.12 .
Thusthe
Resor Ho use projec t is represented by an interior ele-
vation
in which the wa ll , which is glass, is only a pic-
turesque collage of photographs of a vast landscape
beyond it (not even the one that would have been seen
from the house) and tw o m ullions, of blank pa per; the
broad er white bands a re steel colum ns. Al though they
reject perspective representation,
M ies s
drawings of
this kind in fact call upo n the viewer s understand ing
of
perspective to visualize a rea dab le space out of the
void. Historica lly, they a re allied to the minimal ism of
th e1960s
in pain ting and sculpture.
304
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2 2 LudwigMiesv an derRohe s tudy fo rthe
Resor
House
1937 1938.
Photo: Museum o fModernArt New York.
CAD:Th e Com puter Image
Computer-aided design is having a profound effect on architectural drawing fig.
12.13)-A s atec hnologic al innovation inthe field, itsimpo rtance perhaps equals thatof
the
introduction
of paper.
It
is now
almost
indispensable
in supporting the technical as
pects ofworking drawings, such asthose fo rlighting, heating, acoustics, du c ting,and
structural detailing. Itmoves easily between two- an d three-dimensional imag ing,al-
lowingforvisualizationofformsand spaces
pr viously
w orked out .Increasingly, it has
the
capacity
o f
hand-made drawing
to
depart
from th e
predetermined param eters pro-
grammed
intothesoftware. Recentlynewapplications,fac ilitatedb y the
software
Form
Z and
A liasand
best known to the public in illustrations of the work of Fran kGehry,
especially the Guggenheim MuseuminBilbao fig. 12.14)have permittedagreatex-
pansion
in the
ability
to
devise complex manipulations
of
planes
in
undu lations
and
curves extensions ofwhat R obin Evans c alled ruled lines) beyond the capabilitiesof
traditionalstereotomy
in any
case,
n ow
virtually
a
lost tec hnique). H ere
the
mac hine
doesnotm erely ac celerate drawing processes thathadpreviously been c arriedout only
by hand, but opens up a potential not attainable on the drawing board, one with ex-
t raordinary
potential
for the extensionofarchitectural form.
305
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2 3 Asymptote Hani
Rashid
a nd
Use
Anne
Couture) , interface study, Gu ggenh eim
Virtual Musuem,1999 Photo courtesy
of th earch itects.
6
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T
h
C
o
o
a
R
h
o
c
o
r
c
e
u
a
D
r
a
w
i
n
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and
a n d ind
As
asign,
a
convention refers
to an
aspect that issignif ied.
If the
drawing
in
which
it is
used represents
an
existing building
or a finished
project, then
it
relates
to the signified
somewhatas a verbal
description
relates to an
aspect
of the object it refers to.This is not
to
say that either the graphic or the verbal description
' accurately
represents the signi-
fied, butonly thati trelatesto it insome waythatcan beread. Whatare the different ef-
fects of agraphic and awritten representation? What aspectsofarchitecturearemore
communicable
by
drawing
as
opposed towords?
Astudy byMichelangelo for the planof the church of SanGiovanni de' Fiorenti.ni in
Rome,of 1559 (fig.
12.15),
poses the question of
what
the graphic sign signifies in the
case
of a
sketch
or
study
for a
possible structure that
has not
fullymaterialized
in the
designer s mind. Is
it
then
a
sign
for a
mental image? That would
be a
possible explana-
tion
in
terms
of
Cartesianpsychology
which, 1
take
it ,
would hold that
th e
mental
im -
age is fixed and uninflected by the
process
of
drawing.
But
architectural sketching
i s
most
often an
interactive process
in
which
an
initialidea
is put
down
and the
mark sug-
gests an extension of that idea, which then results in an altered mark. This is how
Michelangelo s
plan
became so
heavily
worked over;
while
it may
have
lost its initial
clarity,itgained anexpressivevitalitythat makes every e l emen tseemto bealive and in
evolut ion.
The interchange goes on until a resolution is found. Such sheets are particu-
larly precious because they bring us closest to the moment of conception. An earlier
proposal
for the
same building (fig. 12.16)
by
another architect, Antonio
d a
Sangallo
theYounger,presentsalternativeproposals in a more readable way, though one (a longi-
tud ina lplan with side chapels) is quite inconsistent
with
the other (a circular plan with
radiat ingchapels).
Even marks aimlessly made can be organized by a dra f tsman into purposeful form.
Leonardo da
Vinci proposed tha t
a
painted composition
be
started
from a
stain made
by
throwing
asponge
against
a
wall .Invention
m ay
thus
be
physical
as
well
as
mental,
though neuroscientists today
ar e
questioning
this
distinction.
3 8
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2 5 Michelangelo Buonarrot i ,
project
for San Giovanni
de Fiorentini,Rome,
1559.Florence, Casa
Buonarroti, 124.
2 6
Antonio
da
Sangallo
the
Younger,
project for San
Giovanni
de
Fiorentini, Rom e,1518 1519.
Florence,Uffizi,
A 1 2 9 2
(photo: author).
9
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12.17
LouisKahn Hyposty le Hall Karnak. Col lect ion
S ue
A nn Kahn .
The
architect s sketch
in
preparation
for a
work
differs from th e
painter s
or
sculptors.
A
basic convention
of the
former,
such
a s a
plan,
bears
virtually
no
visual relationsh ip
to the structure as built; one cannot even
s
the plan of a com pleted b uilding. Yet m ost
frequently th e
initial studies
for a
bu i l d ing
a re
m ad e
in
p lan.
The figural
artist ,
on the
other han d , m akes prepara tory sketches that relate directly to the ap pe aran ce of the in-
t ended
scu lp ture
or pain tingsom etim es for the com position as a whole, som etim es
for some par t of it ; he or she has virtually no con ven tional signs that are stand-ins fo r
the finalp roduct
(figs.
6.17,
6.18 .
T he R ep resen ta t i on o f
Ex is t ing Bu i ld ings
The
rhetoric
of
drawing
i s
perhap s best illustrated
in
representations
o f
buildings that
al -
ready
exist
(figs.
12.17-12.22). The
d ra ftsman chooses
the building he or she wants to
draw with a part icular purpose in m ind , and that purpose
affects
wh at is represented and
how.
A n
immense range
of
representations
is
available, from
the
surveyors
or
archaeolo-
gist s
orthog onal elevation
to the w atercolorists
bui ld ing
set in a
landscape
and
rendered
0
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with
its contours and details blurred by contrasts of
light and shadow and of color. The surface and the in-
struments used are
chosen
inaccordance withthe pur-
pose
and the
intended
affect;in the first
example,
it may
be a delicate
line
executed on
drafting
paper w ith a fine
steelpen, or engraved on a metal plate; in the second, it
may beloose bru shw ork applied to avarietyofrougher
surfaces.N ot only does each representation seek to con-
veya
particu lar message with
the
means best adap ted
to
it, but
eachobservation
is the
produ ct of
an
individual
s
way of
perceiving,
and of his or her way of
conveying
whathe or she perceives. Thelatterinvolves
individual
traits of rendering, com parable to hand writing , and the
styleof the timeand placeof
making. Therefore
the
accuracy
of a
depiction
isentirely
idiosyncratic; ther e
arem any potential accuracies.
Louis Kahn sketched the Hyp ostyle Hall at Karnak in
awholly idiosyncratic way(fig. 12.17),as amoment in
his career-long pursuit of the
effects
of light and of
monumental composition. Photographs
of a
building
ar einflected
by the same personal and cu ltural
forces
that
affect
drawings (see chapter 4).
PiranesiS
etching
of thebaseofCastelSant'Angelo in
Rome (fig.
12.18
is an exercise in communicating the
sublime;
its intention is not to
provide
clues to the ap-
pearanceof the building , but to overwhelm the viewer
with what
the
artist
sa w as its
awesome power.
The
representations
of the
results
of
modem archae-
ological excav ation are ce rtainly the drawings least
2 8
Giovanni Battista Piranesi,
rnoat
of
Cas te l Sant Ange lo ,
Rome. From Le
ant chita
romane (Rome, ca.
1775 ,
vol.
4,
plate
9.
Photo: Fine Arts Library,
Harvard
University.
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2 9 Athens Agora plan From Hesperia 7
1968).
influencedby
personal factors.
We
call them
objective whenthe
aspects
the
draftsman
depicts correspond
to our
expectation
of how the
drawing
can be
most
useful .
In
the
plan
of the
Agora
a t
Athens fig.12.19),
we can follow a
story
of the
palimpsest
of
cul-
turein thecourseof
time.
But we
could
go withthisdrawinginhandto the site it de-
scribes
and be
totally unable
to
orient ourselves.
The
structuresshown here
are
mental
constructs
hypothesize from
scraps
of evidence,muchofwhichmay
havebeen
de-
stroyed in the
f inding,
orcovered over
after
being
found.
Thereconstructionof destroyed or alteredbuildings
tends
to edgeclosertoPiranesi's
fantasy
than
to the
measured plans.
All are
redolent
of the
historical moment
in
which
they were made.
A
typical reconstruction
o f the
Parthenon
in
Athens
fig. 12.20)
selects
a
viewpoint calculated
to dramatize theapproachinamid-twentieth-century
way,
seek-
in g
verisimilitude
by ihe
addition
of
actors
in
Greek costume. Another visitor
to the
Parthenon, before
it hadbeenblownup in the
early
fifteenth
century,provided
a
quite
different restoration fig.12.21).There alsoi s abuilt-in unreliabilityin the presentation
of th eelevationsa nd sections ofexisting buildings; thereare norules constraining th e
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12 2
G. P.
Stevens,re onstru tion
of the
Parthenon, Athens,
From Restorations of
C lassicalBui dings Princeton,
1955). CourtesyofA m erican Schoolo f
Classical
Studies, Athens .
dra f t sman ; he or she mayhave arrive dat theheightof an entablatureor thewidtho f a
wall by guessing. Guessin g is thepreferredm ethod in repr esen ting the heights of Gothic
cathedrals,
whicharemostlytoo
tall
tomeasureby affordable means.
Inearly
pre-1500)drawings
this
alteration is
usually
due to an
indifference
to what we
would
call accuracy: Richard Kra utheim er showed that m edieval dra ftsm en might rep-
resent
any
kind
of
cen tral-plan
buildingas
round, since
th esymbolismof
centrality
w as
moresignificantthan
th e
actual form .
W e
knowtheRenaissance period for itsdevotionto the remainsof
antiquity,
and for the
astonishing number
of
drawings
of
ancient remains surviving from
the
hands
of
Re-
naissance architects and Tenderers.W ewould expect these d rawingstoprovidea s ac-
cura te arepresenta t ionofanc ien t r emainsas the techniquesand styleof the t ime would
have permit ted. Not so; even, or perhaps especially, the m ost dist inguished architects
remade ant iqui ty according totheir own interests or carelessness. Areconstructionof
the fourth-century Santa Costanza in Rome by Francesco d i Giorgio M artin i hg.
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T
f
12.21 C i r i a c o d A n c o n a , f a c a d e o f the P a r t h e n o n A t h e n s 1 4 3 6 . B e r li n
S t a a t s b i b l i o t h e k
M s .H a m i lt o n 2 5 4 f o l . 8 5 r .
4
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12.22)a structure that still stands in an exception-
ally good state of preservationpresents th e circular
plan with eig hteen pairs of colum ns aroun d its central
space,
rather
than th e twelve that actually are there,
and
ignores
t he
thick walls
and
niches.
W e
might ask whether the representation of existing
buildings
is the same sortofsignificationasrepresen-
tation
inpaintingand figural or
landscape
drawing.
Portraits,like architectura l representations other than
those intended for
use),
are normally expected to re-
semb le the subject in some way, and they do observe
or occasionally establish conventions current in their
time
(as
early Renaissance portraits
adopt
the
forms
of
ancient
coins, medals, and busts). Likemost architec-
tural re pres enta tion s, they are substantially recast in
th e
style
and
technique chosen
by the
artist
and pa-
t rons. Po rtrai ts typically transmit not only what is ob-
served but
aspects
of the
sitter that
can be
inferred
by
symbolic clues:character, status, aspirations , etc. Ar-
chitectural representationsare no less colored by so-
cialand
political
forces,as is
clearfrom
th e
example
b y
Piranesi discussed above fig.
12.18).
A portrait of
Daniele
Barbara
fig.
9.1) conveys the
sitter s
gravity
through
his
expression
and his
lack of contact with
th e
painter and viewer; his position is indicated by the
vestments
of his office asPatriarch-ElectofAquileia),
and his achievements by the prominent role of his
published
works. Attention
is
further
directed to his
architectural interests by the colossal column and an
odd capital-like
form alongside
it .
2 22 F r a n ce sco
di
Gio rg io Ma r t in i
plan
a n d
sect ion
o f
Santa
C o s ta n za
Rome
1489ft
Turin Biblioteca
Reale
Ms.Saluzzo l48 c.88.
315
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Therefore unlike architectural styles or
draft ing
techniques they have almost no his-
tory. Radical ly new
expressions
can be
realized with established conventions
as
they
were
in the
earlier twentiethcentur}-.Although
it is
interesting
for a
historian
to
exam-
ine thereasons th e
ideology
and theconditionsof the invention issuesofevolutiona re
of
only minor historical
interest.
This
field of
investigation then
is
more closely related
to
semiology than
to
standard architectural research.I t
is an
alternative
to
architectural
history
a s it has
been practiced
and its
appeal lies
in the
fact
that
it ispursuednot in li-
braries and archives but with real works in hand through visual experiences and the
ruminations that
follow
them.