Columbia University: Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation
Drawing and Representation II
Spring 2010
Coordinators: Babak Bryan & Michael Young
Instructors: Kutan Ayata, Frank Gesualdi , Jane Kim, Jennifer Leung, Kelly Wilson
Course Objectives
This course seeks to investigate the possibilities of drawing within contemporary architecture.
From approximately 1400-1700 AD, the discipline of architecture sought to define the act of
design as the central problem in architecture, design often seen as equivalent to the act of drawing. It was
on the plane of the paper page that humanistic endeavors such as geometry and mathematics could be
combined with artistic techniques of representation. The project was a projection, both literally and
metaphorically; drawings opened the possibility of an experience of three-dimensional depth through the
two-dimensional page as well as regulating the measured translations required by construction. The
architectural drawing was a social, political, and aesthetic act that differentiated the practice of architecture
from related building crafts while enmeshing it within the humanist culture of the Renaissance.
The architectural drawing has undergone several revolutions since this period, the modernization
of the medium (ink/graphite/light) and its support (paper/vellum/pixel), the codification of descriptive
geometry in the early 19th century, the incorporation of the axonometrics in the early part of the 20 th
century, expanded diagrammatic notations through the second half of the 20 th century and most recently the
computational and representational possibilities offered by digital drawing. All of these developments may
be seen as part of a continuum bringing us to our current situation, but this would require a skewed view of
the impact of digital techniques. Currently, most digital drawing consists of the construction of a 3dimensional virtual model. In this modality, the plan or section drawing is something extracted from the
digital model, in effect a reversal of traditional practices that sought to build the architectural idea from the
interrelation of a 2-d plan, section, and elevation toward a 3-d spatial resolution. Even perspective practice
has shifted from a controlled artificial armature toward a rendered camera shot.
The changes that digital techniques are presenting to our drawing traditions can obviously be
viewed in several ways. At the extremes, they can be condemned for the breach with former methods, or
they can be exalted as new, exciting and powerful. To avoid both of these paths, this course seeks to
reconsider, investigate and experiment with the possible connections that exist in representational
technologies. The course is divided into three projects each with a specific emphasis on an aspect of
drawing that ties historical developments with contemporary theories, and hopefully provides a new ground
from which to experiment with alternate possibilities for the architectural drawing.
Project 1 involves the drawing translations from a physical object to a regulated drawing space.
This will require visual interpretations of spatial conditions and graphic translations of these perceptions.
Through freehand sketching, rough measuring, and photographic documentation, the goal is a precise
description of a complex three-dimensional body through interrelated sections in a digital environment.
Section contours are a fundamental graphic tool for gaining control of the construction and manipulation of
a surface.
Project 2 focuses on the manipulation of the drawing to generate alternate spatial understandings.
Drawing techniques of projection (auxiliary, axonometric, perspective), intersection (stereotomy, section),
and folding (surface development, unrolling, temporal sequencing) provide a playing field for the
manipulation of architectural form. Many of these techniques also form the conceptual backbone of our
digital modeling software. This second project asks for experimentation in the realm of the drawing toward
the production of novel reconfigurations. These can include notions of time, body, and movement as
possible aspects that a drawing can bring to conceptual and experiential provocation.
Project 3 asks for a shift toward an investigation of atmospheric sensations and diagrammatic
notations. Atmospheric sensations can include aspects that articulate space and surface through qualities of
light, texture, color, and pattern. The issue is one of articulating the qualitative aspects in an architectural
representation; taking responsibility conceptually for the sensory world a drawing creates. The space of a
drawing can also be combined with a multitude of graphic information that allow alternate possible
readings of the drawing’s organization, these can be generally found within notions of the diagram.
Course Work
The course requires you to produce a minimum of a single drawing every week.
The drawings will vary from digital to manual techniques, requiring instruments and drawing boards to be
developed by each student.
Each class session will begin with a lecture to be followed by a pin-up with your individual sections.
There will be a pin-up review of your drawing every week in your individual sections.
Every drawing produced will be a single sheet 24” x 24”. No exceptions.
These drawings are to be kept flat in a portfolio by the student to be turned in for evaluation at the end of
the semester.
Attendance to all lectures and pin-ups is mandatory.
The final portfolio will be submitted at the end of the semester containing the original drawings of the
semester. In addition, a CD will be submitted containing the files for all digital drawing work.
Reader
The collection of essays in an online reader provides a supplement to the projects and lectures, it is a
sourcebook and set of extended footnotes for the course. It can be found in the Class Folder section of
Coursework
Schedule of Topics
Drawing Project 1 – Descriptive Sets
Readings:
Ackerman, James S. “The Conventions and Rhetoric of Architectural Drawing” in Conventions of Architectural
Drawing: Representation and Misrepresentation. Harvard University Press, 2000, pp. 9-36.
Booker, P.J. “Constructional Drawings: Sun-Dialling and Stone-Cutting”, “Ships and Forts: Water-lines and Figured
Plans”, “Plans and Multi-view Drawings” in A History of Engineering Drawing. London: Chatto & Windus,
1963, pp. 37-78.
Cache, Bernard “Geometries of Phantasma” in Fast-Wood: A Brouillon Project, Wien: SpringerVerlag, 2007, pp. 4661.
Carpo, Mario “Alberti’s Media Lab” in Perspective, Projections & Design ed. By Mario Carpo & Frederique Lemerle,
New York: Routledge, 2008, pp. 47-64.
Evans, Robin “Architectural Projection” in Architecture and Its Image, edited by Eve Blau and Edward Kaufman,
Montreal: Canadian Centre for Architecture, 1989, pp. 134-139.
Evans, Robin “The Developed Surface: An Enquiry into the Brief Life of an Eighteenth-Century Drawing Technique”
in Translations from Drawing to Building and Other Essays. Architectural Association Publications, 1997,
pp. 195-232.
Guillerme, Jacques & Helene Verin “The Archaeology of the Section” in Perspecta 25 (1989), pp. 226-257.
Hildebrand, Adolf von “The Problem of Form in the Fine Arts” in Empathy, Form, & Space, Getty Research Institute,
1994, p. 228.
Hood, George J. “Auxiliary Views” in Geometry of Engineering Drawing, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1958, pp. 26-49.
Latour, Bruno “Visualization & Cognition: Drawing Things Together” from www.bruno.latour.fr
Lefevre, Wolfgang “The Emergence of Combined Orthographic Projection” in Picturing Machines: 1400-1700,
Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004, pp. 209-244.
Lotz, Wolfgang. “The Rendering of the Interior” in Studies in Italian Renaissance Architecture, Cambridge: MIT Press,
1977, pp. 1-65.
01.19.10
Issues:
Lecture – Course Introduction – Contour & Cloud
-The Regulation and Manipulation of Graphic Information
- Project, Cut, & Fold
- Surface Articulation and Sensation
01.26.10
Issues:
Lecture - Descriptive Sets
- Interrelated Projections
- Shipbuilding, Stonecutting, Sundialling
- Gaspard Monge & Descriptive Geometry
02.02.10
Guest Lecture
02.09.10
Final Drawing Review Project 1
Drawing Project 2 – Configurations of Transformation
Readings:
Allen, Stanley “Constructing with Lines: On Projection” in Practice: architecture, technique and representation, G+B
Arts, 2000, pp. 1-29.
Bois, Yve-Alain, “Metamorphosis of Axonometry” in Daidalos (Sept. 1981): pp. 41-58
Cohen, Preston Scott. “Stereotomic Permutations” in Contested Symmetries and Other Predicaments in Architecture,
New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2001 pp. 96-103.
Crary, Jonathan “Modernity and the Problem of the Observer” in Techniques of the Observer, Cambridge: MIT Press,
1992, pp. 1-25.
Deleuze, Gilles. “Frame and Shot, Framing and Cutting” in Cinema 1, trans. By Tomlinson & Habberjam,
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986, pp. 12-28.
Douard, John “E.J. Marey’s Visual Rhetoric and the Graphic Decomposition of the Body” in Studies in History and
Philosophy of Science, June 1995, Vol. 26 No.2, pp. 175-204.
Evans, Robin. “Drawn Stone” in The Projective Cast. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995, pp. 179-239.
Field, J.V. “Beyond the Ancients” in The Invention of Infinity, New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 178-206.
Gill, Robert W. Basic Perspective, London: Thames and Hudson, 1974
Kittler, Friedrich “Perspective and the Book” in Grey Room 5, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001, pp. 39-54.
Panofsky, Erwin. “Section I” in Perspective as Symbolic Form. New York: Zone Books, 1997, pp. 27-37.
Reichlin, Bruno. “Reflection- Interrelations Between Concept, Representation and Built Architecture.” Daidalos, 1983.
pp. 60-73.
Scolari, Massimo “Elements for a History of Axonometry” in AD: The School of Venice. London: AD Editions Ltd.
1985, pp. 73-78.
Uddin,M. Saleh “Introduction” in Axonometric and oblique drawing. a 3-D construction, rendering and design guide. ,
McGraw-Hill, 1997, pp. 2-19.
02.16.10
Issues:
Lecture - Axonometry, Perspective, and Distortion
- Transformation
- Projection & Visualization
- Intersection & Surface Development
02.23.10
Guest Lecture
03.02.10
Issues:
Lecture - Armatures
- Nested Operations & Temporal Sequences
- Armatures & Configurations
- Poche
03.09.10
Guest Lecture
03.16.10
No Class – Spring Break
03.23.10
Guest Lecture – Charles Renfro
03.30.10
Final Drawing Review Project 2
Drawing Project 3 – Sensation & Notation
Readings:
Allen, Stanley. “Diagrams Matter” in Any 1998, New York: Anyone Corporation, pp. 14-17
Deleuze, Gilles “Painting and Sensation” & “Painting Forces” in Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 2003, pp.31-38 & pp.48-54.
Crary, Jonathan “Visionary Abstraction” in Techniques of the Observer, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992, pp. 137-150.
Elkins, James “Painting” in Six Stories from the End of Representation. Stanford:Stanford University Press, 2008,
p.21-50
Goodman, Nelson. “Score, Sketch, and Script” in Languages of Art, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merril, 1968, pp.176-221
Grosz, Elizabeth. “Chaos, Cosmos, Territory, Architecture” in Chaos, Territory, Art, New York: Columbia University
Press, 2008, pp.1-24
Hight, Christopher “Epistemologies of Measure, Order, and Differentiation in Modern Architecture”
Kwinter, Sanford “Landscapes of Change: Boccioni’s Stati d’animo as a General Theory of Models”. in Assemblage
(Dec. 1992): pp.50-65.
Lynch, Kevin “Some References to Orientation” in The Image of the City. MIT Press, 1960, pp. 123-139.
Ruy, David “Lessons From Molecular Gastronomy” in LOG 17 (Fall 2009). New York: Anyone Corporation pp.27-40
Terzidis, Kostas “Caricature Form” & “Kinetic Form” in Expressive Form, New York: Spon Press 2003, pp.9-22 &
pp.33-44
Virilio, Paul “Cinema Isn’t I See, It’s I Fly”. in War and Cinema, New York: Verso, 1989, pp.11-31.
Wigley, Mark “Paper Scissors Blur” in The Activist Drawing, ed. by Mark Wigley and Catherine de Zegher, New
York: The Drawing Center, 2001, pp.27-56.
04.06.10
Issues:
Lecture – Force, Form & Sensation
- Deformation
- Gradients of Intensity
- Interference, Moiré, Camouflage
04.13.10
Issues:
Lecture – Diagram & Notation
- Graphic Combinations
- Text, Notation, Score
04.20.10
Guest Lecture
04.27.10
Guest Lecture
05.04.10
Final Drawing Review Project 3