PRECEDENTS IN ARCHITECTURE

Some of the books that we have mentioned in these pages are by Ching, Lauseau, Jenkins, et. al.  And they are great books.  Elegant books.  Theoretical books.  Classic books.

Yet all this theoretical power can blind us to the concepts that lay behind it.  It is almost as if we stare at the pages, rather than being engaged by the pages.

I guess this is my basic gripe regarding Precedents in Architecture, written and drawn by Roger Clark and Michael Pause.   This book is subtitled, Analytic Diagrams, Formative Ideas, and Parts.  It was first published in 2005.  So that means it was not available during my architectural education.  I was first made aware of it when it was handed to me as a text for the first year design studio I was teaching as an adjunct.

The book provides line diagrams of some of the most famous buildings in the world, both classical and modern.  Each building is given two pages.  Across these two pages are simple plan, section, elevation and analytical line drawings.  A typical building might have 20 small drawings associated with it.

The authors use some of the following categories for their analysis:  Circulation to Use, Unit to Whole, Repetitive to Unique, etc.  As we have seen in our brief discussion of other books like this, there is an expectation, a hope, a belief on the part of the authors that by breaking the building down into these constituent segments, we will be given a deeper understanding of these buildings.

Yet you don’t get any sort of deeper understanding.  Breaking a building down into separate parts and elements is resonant with the flashcard mentality of architectural education.  This is like saying an elephant has a long thin trunk, large thin ears, and feet the same diameter as their leg.  And the mentality is that if you know these basic building blocks of the elephant, then you will understand how they work.

Knowing that an elephant needs a long thin trunk works for multiple choice tests.  But this knowledge does not work for the holistic and transparent understanding that these pages advocate.  The knowledge of a few factoids of a building is at the expense of the true knowledge of how the building works.  So in my view, I find Precedents in Architecture to be appropriate for the coffee table at best.

At this link the entire book is downloadable as a pdf.  I have no idea why that fact that you can download this for free is not a copyright violation.  And because the book is freely available, I have taken the liberty to use two of the pages for this discussion.

Many of the projects addressed in Precedents in Architecture have already been addressed here at Transparent Drawing.  So if you are interested, you might compare their presentation of Holl’s St. Ignatious Chapel, Corb’s Ronchamp Chapel, Corb’s Villa Savoye, etc.

As a direct comparison, I will use the very first project in the book, Ando’s  Church On The Water.  These two pages (P18 and P19) from Precedents in Architecture show a dissection and formalization of this iconic building.  I mentioned staring at drawings.  And maybe it is just me, but all I can ever do is stare at these diagrams.  I have been looking at this book now for at least 7 years, and I have never been able to do anything more than simply stare at the line drawings.  For me, at least, the drawings are meaningless.  The term Additive and Subtractive when applied to the top right drawing on page 19 is simply meaningless.  It is architectural gibberish.

And as contrast, I offer my own two transparent analytical watercolor drawings of Ando’s building.  In the spirit of Transparent Drawing, my intentions should be clear.  The entire building is depicted in one drawing.  There is a depiction of how the building works, in one drawing.  And hopefully there is greater value in my one drawing versus the additive (or is it subtractive?) value of analytical line diagrams.

It may very well be that the Precedents in Architecture line drawings are of benefit to some readers.  If so, that is great.  All I know is that my mind simply does not work in this manner.  Instead, I believe it is possible to produce analytical drawings that are holistic, rather than particulate.  Analytical transparent drawings do a whole lot of work.  And I find this holistic approach of far greater value, at least to me.

All I really know is that if you find yourself staring without comprehension at the same drawings for 7 years, you need to find another way.