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Journal of Architectural Education, pp. 238–246Ó 2002 ACSA, Inc.

On the Human Figurein Architectural Representation

Alex T. Anderson, University of Washington

This essay argues for the more thoughtful use of human �gures in architecturaldrawing. In most contemporary architectural drawings, human �gures help toprovide simple and clear indications of scale or a proper sense of depth. Thesescale �gures need not be merely metric, however. They can also help to projectsome of the immeasurable qualities of architecture. If they are well conceivedand rendered, human �gures in architectural drawings can help to show howprojected buildings might be perceived and inhabited. They can also be used tounderstand how architecture can be shaped to accommodate human experi-ences and actions.

Human �gures help to provide simple and clear indications of di-mension in scaled orthographic drawings; in perspectives they con-tribute to the depiction of a proper sense of depth. These are themost basic purposes of scale � gures in architectural drawing, buttheir potential extends well beyond these limited functions. Evenas indicators of scale, human � gures illustrate qualities of scale thatare otherwise dif� cult to depict. Whereas other means such asgraphic or numerical keys indicate the projected dimensions of abuilding more precisely than do scale � gures, human � gures seemto promote an intuitive understanding of scale. Scale � gures areparticularly effective because one can very quickly associate the fa-miliar shape and size of the human body with the dimensions ofthings that surround it. Because people naturally associate the di-mensions of their own bodies with those of the � gures depicted,they can also develop a sense for how big or small (which are relativedimensions) the objects depicted in the drawing appear. When � g-ures are drawn in such a way that people can identify with them,they can help to exemplify an experience of scale: how imposing ordiminutive a building might seem, how lofty or compressed itsspaces would feel.

Although human �gures are conventionally used to expressscale in architectural drawings, they need not be constrained to this.Human � gures can also provide clients or potential users effectivepoints of association through which to develop an understandingof how a building might affect them in other ways. If � gures aredrawn as inhabitants or occupants of a projected space, for example(rather than as stylized, metric � gures placed in the drawing), theycan help to express a range of possible actions and experiences.These might include projected patterns of occupation, use, andmovement, anticipated lines of sight, points of physical contact withthe building, and so on. Such � gures can also help designers tospeculate effectively about the actions and experiences of users andthe elements that might be developed to accommodate them.

Marco Frascari argues that “in contemporary architecturaldrawing, the presence of the human � gure, to give scale, is abso-lutely indispensable.”1 Although this assertion is not necessarilysupported in the contemporary practice of architecture (many ar-chitects do not use scale � gures in their drawings, relying insteadon numerical and/or metric keys to “give scale” to them), it isnevertheless a point that demands careful consideration. Withoutnecessarily contending that they are indispensable, this essay arguesfor the more thoughtful use of human �gures in architectural rep-resentation. Scale � gures need not be merely metric; they can alsohelp to project some of the immeasurable qualities of architecture.If they are well conceived and rendered, human �gures can help toshow how projected buildings might be inhabited and experiencedor how they might respond to human actions.

To support the contention that human � gures should be usedmore thoughtfully in architectural representation, this essay � rstexplains how they are typically used in contemporary practice. Itthen goes on to show, through a series of examples drawn fromhistorical and contemporary sources, how they might be more ef-fectively used. A secondary purpose of this essay is to recount thechanging fate of human �gures in architectural representation. Theexamples are arranged chronologically to describe a perceptible shiftin the role that human � gures have played in architectural draw-ing—from describing the radical anthropomorphism of classicallyinspired architecture to showing the increased emphasis on embod-ied experience in architecture during the nineteenth and twentiethcenturies.

Frascari suggests that human � gures used by most contem-porary architects “have lost any ontological dimension; they aresimply a form of communication oriented to the common man andto the technician, or a formal representation to other architects ofthe possible problems of scale and dimension.”2 The highly stylized�gures that many architects place in their orthographic drawingsare often stripped of features that are expressive of anything but avery general human shape. (Frascari refers to Robert Venturi’s scale� gures as “biped balloons with pointed feet and � oating heads.”3)This may be because, when its function is solely to indicate scale,a � gure need not be realistic or expressive. These stylized scale � g-ures work well as scale � gures, but they do little else. In contem-porary perspective drawings, by contrast, it has become commonpractice to use more fully articulated � gures. However, althoughthese may be accurate depictions of human beings, they rarely seemto have much to do with the buildings or spaces depicted, muchless the narratives that might take place in them. They often appearto be merely pasted into the scene. This is literally the case in many

239 Anderson

1. Vitruvio Adam. Adam cast out from the Garden of Eden,Filarete, c. 1461.

instances because architects often use � gures from clip-art cata-logues that depict people in a great variety of positions and modesof dress (a popular one, called Entourage, contains hundreds of such�gures).4 One need only pick the � gure that “looks right” in thescene, reduce or enlarge it to the appropriate size and trace it on,attach it to, or digitally paste it into the drawing.5 Although these�gures could help to demonstrate the character of projected build-ings, they rarely do. Because they are pasted onto the drawing ratherthan conceived and integrated with it, they seem hardly even tooccupy the spaces of the drawing, much less interact with them.They often appear out of place and disengaged from their contexts,and for this reason their role is usually reduced almost entirely tothat of demonstrating scale.

Frascari’s lamentation of a “lost ontological dimension” inthe use of human � gures implies that at one time, at least, human�gures served to indicate more than scale and dimension in archi-tectural drawings. In fact, the need to argue for the incorporationof human � gures into architectural representations is a relativelyrecent development.6 Architecture was, for a very long time, thor-oughly intertwined with images of the human body. Throughoutmuch of architectural history, architecture, and the elements ofarchitecture were considered to be profoundly, spiritually, symboli-cally linked to the human body, its form, and proportions.7 Con-sequently, architectural drawings were often replete with human�gures.

In his treatise on architecture, Filarete (Antonio Averlino)demonstrates that not only did practical, corporeal needs providehumankind with reasons to build, but that the body itself provideda model for the � rst architectural construction. Filarete’s poignantdrawing of Adam cast out from the Garden of Eden shows himwith his hands raised in anguish to protect himself from the rain,shaping a roof over his head. (See Figure 1.) Filarete asserts: “Itmust therefore be believed that Adam, having made himself a roofwith his two hands, considering the need for making a living, here� ected and exercised himself to make himself some habitationto defend himself from these rains, as well as from the heat of thesun.”8

Although Filarete’s description of the origins of architectureis unusual for its direct incorporation of the human body into thedesign of the � rst hut, association between body parts and buildingelements was commonplace in Renaissance architecture.9 Francescodi Giorgio Martini, another Renaissance architect and theorist, il-lustrates this association at a great range of scales. In his drawings,images of the human body provide order to city plans, to the ar-rangement of buildings and facades, and to the intricacies of build-

ing details. (See Figure 2.) Human scale is of no particular concernin these drawings; it is the � tness of corporeal arrangement andproportion that matter. Francesco di Giorgio emphasizes that prop-erly designed buildings must demonstrate the divine order en-shrined in the human body.10

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2. The body in the facade of a church, Francesco di GiorgioMartini, c. 1492 (The Dancing Column, MIT Press). 3. The Doric Order, John Shute, 1563.

John Shute, an English architect of the sixteenth century,illustrates this point in a series of drawings depicting the classicalorders. (See Figure 3.) His drawing of the Doric order, for example,shows that the proportions of the column correspond to the pro-portions of a brawny male � gure, whereas the more slender andelegant Corinthian column re� ects � ner feminine proportions.11

Shute’s drawings also demonstrate an important aspect of therelationship between buildings and bodies that is not as clearlyevident in the earlier drawings of Francesco di Giorgio: that archi-tectural character corresponds, in part, to variations in human phys-iognomy.

The relationship between architectural character and humanphysiognomy played an increasingly important role during the eigh-teenth and early nineteenth centuries, particularly among the aca-demic architects of France. Rudolf Wittkower asserts that duringthe eighteenth century “beauty and proportion were no longer re-garded as being universal, but were turned into psychological phe-nomena originating and existing in the minds of the artists.”12

Thus, prominent architects of the late eighteenth century could

seriously maintain, as did J.-F. Blondel, “that the character of abuilding might be in� uenced and modi� ed by altering the size ofthe moldings to � t the appropriate human pro� le.”13

In classically inspired architecture, human bodies and build-ings relate in subtle and intricate ways at many scales. Architects ofsuch buildings tuned them to proportions embodied in the humanphysique but dictated by universal natural law (these were the sameproportions that ruled geometry, harmony, in music, and the mo-

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4. A metropolitan cathedral, Etienne-Louis Boullee, 1782 (BritishArchitectural Library, RIBA drawings collection).

5. A Venetian Palace, Eugene Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, 1864.

tions of the heavens.)14 They also used analogous relationships be-tween the human physiognomy and elements of buildings todevelop architectural character. Human � gures in their drawingsserve to demonstrate these associations; however, they rarely showobjective scale relationships or attempt to indicate human occu-pancy in buildings. These sorts of relationships, although alwaysimportant, were often considered to be incidental to the more fun-damental problems of form, order, and proportion.

Although generally neglected in orthographic drawings, theseissues of scale and use were often illustrated in architectural per-spectives. Linear perspective, which was invented during the Re-naissance as a technique for constructing scenographic content inpaintings, is well suited for depicting human scale, as well as theactions and emotions of human subjects. Human presence is alsodeeply insinuated in perspective technique, revealing itself as a pointof view at the convergence of visual rays.15 Not surprisingly, whenarchitects used perspectives to illustrate design projects—a practicethat became increasingly popular during the eighteenth century—they often included human �gures to clarify issues of scale anddimension. They also gave these � gures realistic and sometimesexaggerated attitudes to represent the momentary dramas thatmight unfold in the buildings depicted. (See Figure 4.) The oftenimprobable simultaneity of events occurring in these drawingsseems to heighten their descriptive value by showing not only whatmight happen in a building at a particular moment but what thebuilding will become because of these events. These scale � guresdemonstrate not only how people might occupy the building, butthey also help to elucidate its functions and its character. (See Fig-ure 5.) When a building’s character is predicated primarily on theactions that take place in it, as was the case with some modernistprojects, these � gures become indispensable for the proper ex-pression of the designer’s intentions.16 (See Figure 7.) Severalexamples drawn from the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentiethcenturies demonstrate that, when human � gures are conceived tobe integral to a drawing and are carefully composed, they can con-vey information that a drawing would not be able to communicateotherwise.

An interior perspective of “A Project for a Metropolitan Ca-thedral” by Etienne-Louis Boullee, for example, depicts an immenseedi� ce occupied by the �gures of more than 150 people and severaldogs. (See Figure 4.) Many of the people appear to be conversingquietly or strolling under the immense vaults of the cathedral;others gesticulate animatedly, and still others rush to the left or tothe right. John Martin Robinson remarks that these people are“dwarfed to insigni� cance by the sublime grandeur of the architec-

ture.”17 They indicate the immense scale of the building, but theirpresence in the drawing also helps to express its character: not onlyimmensity, but also “sublime grandeur.” The insigni� cance and ant-like busyness of the �gures contribute to an understanding of theawesome physical and spiritual forces gathered in the building. “Anedi� ce for the worship of the Supreme being!” Boullee declares ofthe project, “That is indeed a subject that calls for sublime ideasand to which architecture must give character.”18 Yet the variety ofactivities and the care with which they are depicted in the drawingalso indicate that this is very much a “metropolitan” cathedral. It

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6. The Doge’s Palace, Venice, Eugene Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc,1864.

is not solely a place for ritual and solemnity but also for the con-tingency and bustle of quotidian life in the city. The �gures inBoullee’s drawing facilitate the expression of building characteristicssuch as immensity, grandeur, and contingency that would otherwisebe dif� cult to express—not only because they defy direct represen-tation, but also because they are present only because of the inter-action of people with the building.

Eugene Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc uses human � gures to helpconvey very different building characteristics in a drawing of “A

Venetian Palace.” (See Figure 5.) The sectional perspective includessix � gures. One sits on a gondola in the canal fronting the building;a second � gure, evidently a porter, slouches on a bench in the canal-level portico. Two � gures converse in the large vestibule beyond thisportico; one of them is animated, head cocked to one side, bothhands raised, as if to emphasize a point to his interlocutor. A �guredressed in aristocratic robes stands in the great hall on the main�oor with hands outstretched, face turned toward the viewer; thisis no doubt the master of the household. A sixth � gure, a womanalso in aristocratic dress, climbs the stairway to the second � oor.Although these � gures help to illustrate the scale of the building,they also serve to demonstrate other important qualities. The rela-tive informality of the portico, for example, is shown to contrastwith the formality of the great hall, not only in the architecturaldetails, but in the postures and dress of the � gures that occupythem. The � gures also express gradations of privacy in the building,from the open commerce conducted at the canal level (which isillustrated by the casual meeting in the vestibule on the ground�oor) to the restricted access at the main � oor (accentuated by thestately pose of the � gure in the great hall), to the more secludedfeel of the living spaces and bedrooms (indicated by the presenceof the lady of the house on the second �oor). Viollet-le-Duc usesthis drawing to convey a sense that the typical Venetian palace “wasperfectly accommodated to the requirements of a noble family inVenice.”19 The � gures play an essential role in this task.

Viollet-le-Duc used human � gures in a remarkably differentway for orthographic drawings, as his topographic elevation of theDoge’s Palace in Venice illustrates. (See Figure 6.) The drawingcontains two � gures: one stands upright to the right of the palaceon the hatched ground line, and the other stands in the shadowson the upper portico, behind the balustrade. Although each isdressed in clothes appropriate to his position—the � gure to theright in street clothes, the � gure on the balcony in the robes of anaristocrat—each seems to remain aloof from the building. The � g-ure on the balcony, for example, stands back from the balustradeand looks not outward toward the view framed by the portico, aswould seem natural, but to the left, down the length of the portico.The faces, which are seen in full pro� le, appear to be consciouslyaverted as if to avoid the gaze of anyone looking at the drawing.These � gures are evidently placed in the drawing primarily to helpindicate the dimensions of the palace. This function is served moreprecisely, however, by a graphic scale drawn below the ground line(indicating that the �gures are 1.8 meters tall). Why include botha scale � gure and a graphic scale?20 This question seems even morepertinent when considering drawings in which Viollet-le-Duc por-

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7. The Suspended Garden of an Apartment, Wanner Projects,Geneva, Le Corbusier, 1928–1929 (© 2002 Artists RightsSociety (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris).

trays a scale � gure actually holding a graphic scale.21 Despite theirevident redundancy, the human �gures in Viollet-le-Duc’s ortho-graphic drawings contribute something that the graphic scale doesnot. They provide an intuitive “feel” for scale that supplements themathematical determination of dimension contributed by thegraphic scale. In his perspective drawings, the human � gures con-tribute not only a feel for scale, but also a sense of the building’sfunctions and character.

Although his drawing style is very different from that of Boul-lee or of Viollet-le-Duc, Le Corbusier also uses human � gures toconvey effects that are essential to architecture but that are notcontained solely in the edi� ce. The �gures in his perspective draw-ings show how use and inhabitation serve to enhance the characterof the buildings depicted. For example, in the drawings for mass-production houses, the �gures help to show that “standardized”housing units develop character according to the tastes and activitiesof their inhabitants. 22 (See Figure 7.) In these drawings, each unitis identical in form and detail, but furnished and occupied in aunique way.23 Figures are shown engaged in a variety of activitiesamong furnishings clearly not speci� ed by the architect: a babyplays in a playpen, a man exercises with a punching bag, a womanbeats a rug over the balcony, and so on. These illustrations dem-onstrate how inhabitation gradually changes the edi� ce by provid-ing variety and softening hard edges.24 They show how individualapartment cells—which otherwise would be indistinguishable, mo-notonous, and potentially oppressive—become livable by allowingtheir inhabitants to do what they like and express themselves as theysee � t. “The lodging is there . . .” Le Corbusier says, “to receive andwelcome the human animal, and the worker is suf� ciently culti-vated to know how to make a healthy use of [his] hours of liberty.”25

The human � gures in the perspective drawings of Le Cor-busier, Viollet-le-Duc, and Boullee emphasize that buildings affecthuman sensibilities and accommodate human actions. The � guresin the drawings of Carlo Scarpa, on the other hand, show thatelements of architecture can respond actively to human gesture, thatspaces shape themselves to affect sensations in particular ways, andthat the human body is a direct agent of architectural composition.In his drawings, human �gures do not merely help to explain thedimensions and effects of architectural compositions, they motivatedesign decisions. Frascari suggests that “in Scarpa’s architecture, thehuman � gure is both the subject that produces the buildings subspecie corporis, and the object starting from which the building ismade,” and that “the small things of the body and its habits con-stantly regulate Scarpa’s planning.”26 Even in orthographic projec-tion, the � gures are integral and essential to the intentions being

expressed. These preoccupations are abundantly evident in hisdrawings, where bodies (including Scarpa’s own body) touch, reston, observe, lurk behind, peek through, pass by, dodge, and balanceupon elements of the architecture, which in turn shape themselvesaround these actions, in what Frascari calls a “metonymic proce-dure” of design.27 This procedure is clearly illustrated in a drawingfor the private meditation pavilion in the Brion Cemetery at SanVito d’Altivole, Treviso. (See Figure 8.) In this cross section of thepavilion, Scarpa includes three � gures, presumably representationsof the same individual in various positions: one standing facing theviewer, one standing in pro� le, and a third seated in pro� le. Thesequickly drawn but expressive � gures indicate the relative size of thepavilion, but they also demonstrate how the occupant of the pa-vilion in� uences its design. The concrete of the ground platform,for example, steps up to accommodate the seated posture of the� gure, while the canopy hangs low over her bowed back and head.The seated � gure seems to carve a space of contemplation for herselfin which she feels the volume of the canopy resting protectivelyover her on slender pillars. The standing � gures, however, appearto shape and sense the pavilion differently. The canopy lifts anddeforms itself to make space for her head as she enters the pavilion,to shield her eyes from the sun, and to limit the view outward. Inthis drawing, Scarpa indicates that the pavilion responds directly tothe postures and movements of the people who will occupy it.Although the �gures clearly indicate scale and suggest the sensationsthe pavilion might evoke, they also demonstrate Scarpa’s design

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8. Pavilion, Brion Cemetery at San Vito d’Altivole, Treviso, CarloScarpa, 1969– 1978 (Collection Archivio Carlo Scarpa,photographed by L. Sloman).

intentions. The � gure and the project become complementaryagents, mutually shaping each other in Scarpa’s hands.

Frascari proposes that the metonymic procedure that Scarpauses in his drawings can provide a means by which architects mightreclaim the ontological dimension of human � gures in architecturaldrawings. By forming architectural elements in direct response tohuman gestures and actions, this procedure develops implicitly froman attempt to understand how human beings meaningfully inhabitthe world. This problem preoccupied a number of philosophersduring much of the previous century. Early in the twentieth century,for example, Henri Bergson declared that “the objects which surroundmy body re�ect its possible action upon them. [Bergson’s italics]”28

According to Bergson, people understand the world through thebody’s ability to act on things. Objects in turn become meaningfulbecause they seem to shape themselves to accommodate these ca-pabilities. Maurice Merleau-Ponty further elaborates this idea inmuch of his work. In The Phenomenology of Perception, he suggeststhat “our body is in the world as the heart is in the organism: itkeeps the visible spectacle continuously alive, it breathes life into it

and sustains it inwardly, and with it forms a system.”29 Drew Leder,a contemporary American philosopher, describes a speci� cally ar-chitectural manifestation of this understanding when he declaresthat the human body inhabits the world via “a complex dialecticwherein the world transforms my body, even as my body transformsits world. . . . [T]he very house in which one dwells is both a re-construction of the surrounding world to � t the body and an en-largement of our own physical structure.”30 This notion suggeststhat architecture should account for the human body, its capabili-ties, actions, and gestures if it is to be both physically satisfying andpersonally meaningful. Because architects tend to conceive and de-velop their ideas through representation, the human � gure shouldtherefore play an important role in architectural drawings.31

At the most basic level, human � gures demonstrate that peo-ple understand the scale of buildings in relation to their bodies, andthat dimensions cannot fully describe scale. Adjectives of scale, suchas immense, lofty, huge, expansive, tight, or cramped indicate not howbig or small a space is, but how big or small it feels. For designers,human � gures can help to facilitate thinking about the effects ofsize in buildings, and they are indispensable for communicatingthis aspect of scale to clients and potential users. Furthermore, � g-ures that are expressive of occupation, use, or human actions canhelp to elucidate the effects that buildings have on people, as wellas the important roles that people play in shaping their environ-ments. Although human � gures in architectural drawings might notbe absolutely indispensable, they can be powerful tools for con-ceiving and representing architecture.

Notes

1. Marco Frascari, “The Body and Architecture in the Drawings of CarloScarpa,” Res 14 (autumn 1987): 132.

2. Ibid., p. 124.3. Ibid., p. 124. The inexpressive quality of Venturi’s scale � gures is clearly

intentional. Because his projects themselves are highly demonstrative, expressive � g-ures could muddle the clarity of his drawings. Yet, Venturi’s scale � gures also seemto indicate, however intentionally, an attitude that � xes meaning in the physicalstructures of architecture rather than in a dialectical exchange with their inhabitants.In a famous photograph of the Vanna Venturi house, for example, even the realinhabitant of the house takes on these characteristics. Venturi’s mother has beenpositioned outside of the house at the building’s centerline, beneath the broken arch;she is seated on a straight-backed chair with a book in her hands (not a good placefor sitting or for reading). She is represented as an awkward, enigmatic scale � gurewho also happens to be the building’s inhabitant.

4. The cover text declares: “This invaluable design tool will not only helpyou establish scale and convey the function of your work, it will quickly bring all

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your client presentations to life! . . . Here’s just a sample of what’s included: Figures:Women; Men; Children; Couples; Families; Groups; Travelers; People and Pets;Sports; Fashion; Casual.” Ernest E. Burden, Entourage: A Tracing File for Architectsand Interior Design, 3rd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995), cover.

5. Digital drawing techniques have facilitated this increasingly commonpractice.

6. See Rudolf Wittkower, “The Changing Concept of Proportion,” in Ideaand Image: Studies in the Italian Renaissance (London: Thames and Hudson, 1978),pp. 109–123. Frascari also gives an account of this in “The Body and Architecturein the Drawings of Carlo Scarpa,” pp. 123–124.

7. For an in-depth discussion of anthropomorphism in architecture, seeMarco Frascari, Monsters of Architecture: Anthropomorphism in Architectural Theory(Savage, Maryland: Rowman and Little� eld, Publishers, 1991). See also Joseph Ryk-wert, The Dancing Column: On Order in Architecture (Cambridge, MA: The MITPress, 1996), pp. 26–95.

8. Filarete’s Treatise on Architecture, Being the Treatise by Antonio di PieroAverlino, Known as Filarete, John R. Spencer, trans., vol. 1 (New Haven, Conn.:Yale University Press, 1965), p. 10. For an explanation of this passage in a broaderdiscussion of the theoretical origins of architecture, see Joseph Rykwert, On Adam’sHouse in Paradise: The Idea of the Primitive Hut in Architectural History, 2nd ed.(Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1981), pp. 117–119.

9. In 1741, for example, John Wood the Elder declared that “Man is acomplete � gure and the perfection of order. . . . And of the in�nite number of partsof which he is composed, do but unfold any one of them and what astonishingbeauty will arise to the most intelligent eye!” John Wood, The Origin of Building:or the Plagiarism of the Ancients Detected (Bath: 1741), p. 71 f. Joseph Rykwert,commenting on this passage, asserts that “to John Wood the human �gure seemed theexemplary incarnation of that harmony which also dominated building through thevarious orders of architecture.” He goes on to say that “such an analogy betweenthe body and the orders, which is echoed by other parallels between the body andbuildings in general, is deeply ingrained in all recorded architectural thinking.” SeeRykwert, The Dancing Column, pp. 27–29. The drawings of Santiago Calatravaprovide contemporary examples of these sorts of associations.

10. For a discussion of anthropomorphism in the drawings of Francesco diGiorgio Martini, see especially Frascari, Monsters of Architecture, pp. 90–91.

11. John Shute, First and Chief Grounds of Architecture ([1563] 1964).Rykwert discusses these drawings in Rykwert, The Dancing Column, pp. 32–33.

12. Wittkower, “The Changing Concept of Proportion,” p. 117. The ori-gins of this shift are generally credited to the assertions of Claude Perrault, whosede�nitions of “positive” and “arbitrary” beauty had long-lasting implicationsbecausethey helped to legitimize “arbitrary” issues of “taste” and “character” in architecture.See Claude Perrault, Ordonnance for the Five Kinds of Columns after the Method ofthe Ancients, Indra Kagis McEwen, trans. (Santa Monica: The Getty Center for theHistory of Art and the Humanities, 1993), pp. 47–53. For a discussion of Perrault’srole in shaping architectural theory, see Alberto Perez-Gomez, Architecture and theCrisis of Modern Science (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1983), pp. 18–47, andJoseph Rykwert, The First Moderns: The Architects of the Eighteenth Century (Cam-bridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1980), pp. 23–53.

13. Rykwert, The Dancing Column, p. 36. J. F. Blondel criticized an entab-lature designed by Andrea Palladio on the grounds that it appeared to be “like ahuman face whose parts do not seem . . . to have been harmonized. . . . The Noseof a twelve year old [is] imposed on the chin of a man of eighty, and crowned bythe forehead of a man in his middle age.” He praises Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola for

getting these relationships right: “here the three parts seem to present a more ac-ceptable relation between forehead, nose, and chin, which results in a uni�ed pro-� le.” Jacques-Francois Blondel, Cours d’Architecture ou Traite de la Decoration,Distribution et Construction des Batiments, Pierre Patte, ed., vol. 1 (Paris: 1771–1777), p. 258 ff. In characteristic fashion, French architects of the time sought todemonstrate “a measurable, or at any rate a geometrical, ‘proof’ of the relation ofpassion to physiognomy.” See Rykwert, The Dancing Column, p. 47.

14. See Rykwert, The First Moderns, pp. 1–19.15. For an explanation of the distinctive role of the observer in perspective

drawings, see Bernard Schneider, “Perspective Refers to the Viewer, AxonometryRefers to the Object,” Daidalos 15 (Sept. 1981): 81–95. For a more thoroughtreatment of the development and signi�cance of perspectival representation, in-cluding this aspect of them, see Erwin Panofsky, Perspective as a Symbolic Form,Christopher S. Wood, trans. (New York: Zone Books, 1991), pp. 27–36.

16. The notion that the character of a building develops from the lives ofits occupants is asserted with particular vehemence by Adolf Loos. Speaking of hisfamily home, he declares, “but there was one style that our home did have—thestyle of its occupants, the style of our family.” Adolf Loos, “Interiors in the Rotunda,”in Spoken into the Void: Collected Essays 1897–1900, Jane O. Newman and John H.Smith, trans. (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1982), p. 24.

17. John Martin Robinson, in Helen Powell and David Leatherbarrow,eds., Masterpieces of Architectural Drawing (New York: Abbeville Press, 1982), p. 99.

18. Quoted in Powell and Leatherbarrow, Masterpieces of ArchitecturalDraw-ing, p. 99. Original source not cited.

19. Eugene Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, Lectures on Architecture, vol. 2. Ben-jamin Bucknall, trans. (New York: Dover Publications, 1987), p. 257.

20. Viollet-le-Duc’s description of the drawing and the building it depictsindicates that he intended the drawing to show physical characteristics of the build-ing, not how it is inhabited. “By his skillful treatment of the angles—a delicatepoint—the architect has succeeded in giving an aspect of sturdy strength to thesystem of props that support a box of massive appearance. Plate XXIX, representingthe angle, shows the excellence of the design.” Viollet-le-Duc, Lectures on Architec-ture, vol. 2, p. 199.

21. See, for example, Viollet-le-Duc, Lectures on Architecture, vol. 2, � g. 4,p. 63, and �g. 7, p. 283.

22. Le Corbusier protested that standardization does not eliminate the pos-sibility for individual expression, as some of his contemporaries argued; rather, itplaces the individual “on the highest level” because it “distance[s] us from the clutterthat encumbers our life and threatens to kill it . . . and, having won our freedom,we think about something—about art for example (for it is very comforting).” SeeLe Corbusier, The Decorative Art of Today, James I. Dunnett, trans. (Cambridge,MA: The MIT Press, 1987), pp. 73–75, 77, 137.

23. Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture, Frederick Etchells, trans.(New York: Dover Publications, 1931, 1986), p. 265.

24. Beatriz Colomina argues that the � gures in these drawings betray otheragendas: “In a drawing of the Wanner project, for example, the woman in the upper� oor is leaning against the veranda, looking down to her hero, the boxer, who isoccupying the jardin suspendu. He looks at his punching bag. And in the drawing‘Ferme radieuse,’ the woman in the kitchen looks over the counter toward the mansitting at the dining room table. He is reading the newspaper. Here again the womanis placed ‘inside,’ the man ‘outside’; the woman looks at the man, the man looks atthe ‘world.’” Beatriz Colomina, Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as MassMedia (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1994), p. 296.

25. Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture, p. 275.

246May 2002 JAE 55/4

26. Frascari, “The Body and Architecture in the Drawings of Carlo Scarpa,”pp. 125, 130.

27. For a full accounting of the range of Scarpa’s intentions with regard tothe use of human �gures in his drawings and the roles they play, see Frascari, “TheBody and Architecture in the Drawings of Carlo Scarpa.” Frascari explains that “ina metonymic procedure, the drawing of a handle results from a mold in the formof a hand that grasps, rather than from a formal representation of the hand itself.”Frascari, “The Body and Architecture in the Drawings of Carlo Scarpa,” p. 125.

28. Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory, N.M. Paul and W.S. Palmer, trans.(New York: Zone Books, 1991), p. 21. David Michael Levin discusses a similarnotion in The Body’s Recollection of Being (London: Routledge and Keegan Paul,1985), p. 94: “I think we need to ask ourselves: of what are we capable? This question

focuses attention on our capacity to develop the character of our primordial rela-tionship to Being as a whole by virtue of our motility” (Levin’s italics).

29. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, Colin Smith,trans. (London: Routledge and Keegan Paul, 1962), p. 203.

30. Drew Leder, The Absent Body (Chicago: The University of ChicagoPress, 1990), p. 34. For a similar account of the relationship between the body andarchitecture, see also Michel Serres, “Visit to a House,” Daidalos 41 (Sept. 15, 1991):88–91.

31. For an account of the role that drawings play in the conception andrepresentation of architecture, see Mark Hewitt, “Representational Forms andModes of Conception: An Approach to the History of Architectural Drawing,”Journal of Architectural Education, 39/2 (winter 1985): 2–8.