DRAWN TO DESIGN 1

Drawn to Design, by Eric Jenkins, is a book about architectural drawing.  I was not aware of the book when I started Transparent Drawing.  It was thru a Linkedin connection that it was brought to my attention.  The closest analogue to Drawn to Design is Ching’s Architectural Graphics, which I have touched on at various times.  And let’s not forget Paul Laseau’s Graphic Thinking.  Drawn to Design was published in 2013, which is the principal reason that I did not know it existed.

Architectural Graphics was first published in 1974.  And here we are, 40 years later, with essentially the same type of information.

I don’t know about you.  Maybe it is simply the way my mind works, or does not work.  But I have the same sort of reaction to Drawn to Design as I do to Architectural Graphics.  I sort of glaze over.  I leaf thru the book stopping to look at a nice drawing or two.  I start to read the text.  And then I put it down, glazed.

I’ll list a sequence of topics from the book starting on page 160 and ending at page 168:

Alternating Edges and Centers
Establishing and Then Breaking Order
Diagnosing Proportional Systems
Connecting Scales
Understanding Continuity

Each of these topics uses text and graphics to explain one of these topics, using a real building as a model.  And I find that each of these topics is basically irrelevant to both understanding existing buildings and designing new ones.  I simply do not find it helpful to think in terms of, say, Establishing and Then Breaking Order when I design.  Nor do I think in terms of Establishing and Then Breaking Order when I analyze an existing building.  I don’t want it reduced to Establishing and Then Breaking Order.  It’s not that simple.  For me, this phrase is meaningless.

Quite possibly my opinion is simply not justified.  There is a wealth of information in either of these two books.  And this information indeed might be of great help to some.  Each of them tries the best they can to break down the process of drawing into smaller parts.  Each of them tries to give us the tools with which to draw our drawings so as to understand better.  Each of them seems to think that if you can be given the parts, then you can assemble your whole.

You might say that one reason that I felt compelled to put together Transparent Drawing was exactly because of the glaze over factor of the other books.  And you also might say that at least in relation to these two books, I am trying to give a holistic way of thinking about design.

I’ll give a concrete example.  On page 178, Mr. Jenkens uses Villa Muller by Loos as a model for his topic, Subtracting Voids / Adding Figures.  And this is his first paragraph:

A building’s mass is often a combination of added elements and subtracted voids.  Added elements are those elements added to a building’s mass, while voids are those elements that appear to be carved into the building mass.  These are essential ways to shape space: adding, or assembling, versus carving.

Like I said, when I read that about the absolutely amazing and wonderful Loos house, I loose the connection.  It is almost as if it is a sacrilege for this text to be applied to this wonderful composition.  I glaze over when I read the text above.

And to be fair, this link is my “treatment” of Villa Mueller, which now that I read it again, could use a healthy rewrite.  While either of our examples may not stand up to direct comparison, I do believe that my drawing gives a valid explanation of my precepts.  I will continue to make reference to Drawn to Design as we go along.