conventions and rhetoric of architectural drawing

8/11/2019 Conventions and Rhetoric of Architectural Drawing

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Origins Imitation Conventions


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2 0 0 2 M a s s a c h u s e t t s Inst i tute o fT e c h n o l o g y

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A m e r ic a .

L i b r a r y

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C a t a l o g i n g - i n - P u b l i c a t i o n

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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b ib l iographical

references a n d index.

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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.

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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,

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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.

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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).


11/27

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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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.

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18/27

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


19/27

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


20/27

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


21/27

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.


22/27

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


23/27

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.


24/27

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


25/27

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


26/27


27/27

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.

conventions and rhetoric of architectural drawing

Documents