drawing canonical ideas in architecture€¦ · students will produce drawings, descriptions of...

Lecture 1: Introduction, Concepts and Logistics

S. Hambright Drawing Canonical Ideas in Architecture UofA

Drawing Canonical Ideas in Architecture 471k & 571k

Schedule: August 23– December 7, 2011

Fall 2011

Instructor: Sallie Hambright

Contact: [email protected] or [email protected] 636.339.6497 (only in EMERGENCIES) office hours – I am available for telephone conference or through any of the media we use in the class.



This seminar is a History/Theory course that attempts to uncover ideas in buildings using an architect’s medium: drawing. Drawing Canonical Ideas in Architecture will not teach students how to draw but how to draw what is thought. Using Peter Eisenman’s “Ten Canonical Buildings” as a framework of learning how to understand and see architecture, students will learn the relationships between analysis and design. Eisenman produced “Ten Canonical Buildings.” This seminar will attempt to discover if Eisenman himself has a canonical work.

Each student will choose a building designed by Peter Eisenman. They will analyze the building throughout the semester. In the end, each student, will have composed a chapter of their own. Students will produce drawings, descriptions of their analysis, and learn to critique drawings from an analytical approach. This course attempts to teach through seeing, drawing what is seen, and writing/describing what is drawn. These are essential skills to becoming an architect.

Please review the syllabus. It is located on D2L and the blog.



Things you need to do IMMEDIATELY:

•  Familiarize yourself with D2L •  Sign up for Wordpress and familiarize yourself with the blog platform – send me your username and email ASAP, so I can give you editing abilities. UofA emails please. The blog address is http://drawingcanonicalideasinarchitecture.wordpress.com/ . •  Sign up to follow me on Twitter : salliehambright •  Purchase “Ten Canonical Buildings” – This book is on back order. I am working to provide you with the materials •  Review the Google Calendar which can be found on the blog, DCIA – Fall 2011 •  Assignments 1 & 2 are given today. You can find them on D2L and the blog. Start Assignment 2 today!



Teaching Platforms:

D2L: I will post all course documents to D2L including syllabi, assignments, grades, lectures. This is where you will formally post your Assignments, Reading Responses, and Building Examples. COMING SOON!!!!

Blog: Our blog address is http://drawingcanonicalideasinarchitecture.wordpress.com/ . Please, sign up for Wordpress and use your University of Arizona email. Email me your username and email ASAP. We will use the blog for our Blog Responses, sharing our process and completed assignments, Peer critique, and class discussions. Please do not post HUGE files to the blog. Keep it at about 700KB per image.

Google Calendar: I have created a Google Calendar, DCIA – Summer 2011. You can reach it from the blog. All due dates are listed here. If there need to be updates to the calendar, I will make them here.

Twitter: Please sign up to follow me on Twitter, salliehambright. I will make important announcements via my Twitter account. You can also see my Twitter comments on the blog and go to my Twitter page from the blog.

Elluminate: We will only use Elluminate, live video sessions, if need be. I will keep you posted. If we use this platform, it will only be for a couple of sessions.



Graded components of the course will be:

Assignments 1-7: These assignments will be drawing analyses based on different aspects of architecture : space, tectonics, context, program, and circulation. The students will be expected to not only depict what is physically existing but what is thought.

Canonical Chapter: Graduate Students – Graduate Students will write a 3200-3500 word research paper (Chapter 11) using assignments 3-7, any additional drawing analysis, and course readings to establish if their respective buildings are canonical. You must submit a final, hard copy, to me by mail that I will keep.

Portfolio: Undergraduate Students – Undergraduate Students will compose their previous analyses into a portfolio that clearly expresses the ideas discovered during the semester. While this is not a research paper, the portfolio should tell a complete story of the semester long analysis. Students may also be required to develop the analysis further at the discretion of the professor. You must submit a final, hard copy, to me by mail that I will keep.

Reading Response: Graduate Students – Two page reading responses will be required for each of the chapters of “Ten Canonical Buildings” on the respective lecture day. For the response, the students will choose a piece of architecture that also exemplifies the ideas presented in the reading. It is also permissible to choose a building that is contrasted with the ideas in the readings. The submission includes one written page and one page of images of the chosen building. The responses are not finished papers but a reaction to what has been read.

Building Example: Undergraduate Students – Each student will compose a sheet showing an image of an existing building they think uses the same ideas as the building presented in Eisenman’s text. The student should write a short paragraph, 3-4 sentences, explaining how the idea is legible in the image.

Blog Responses: In the PowerPoint’s I post each week on the respective chapters, I will ask questions and pose ideas for thought. You should make two (2) comments on these or other aspects of the chapters. Once, these are posted you will respond to three (3) of your classmates’ comments. Note that your comments are due on Wednesday of each week and your responses to others comments is due no later than Friday of each week. This is to ensure that we will have a vibrant online discussion.

Peer Critique: You are required to comment on two (2) of your classmates’ assignment each time an assignment is due. You are to give constructive criticism, make suggestions, make links with your own analysis, etc… Please note that your critiques are due by Wednesday of the corresponding week.

Documentation: Each student will submit proper documentation at the end of the semester. There will be specific guidelines for the submission. Final copies of the Canonical Chapter and the Portfolio will also be kept and these should be turned in by the Final Submittal date.



Grading: Graduate Assignments 1-7 35% Canonical Chapter 30% Reading Responses 10% Blog Responses 10% Peer Critique 10% Documentation 5% Total 100%

Undergraduate Assignments 1-7 35% Portfolio 30% Building Example 10% Blog Responses 10% Peer Critique 10% Documentation 5% Total 100%

Grading Scale: A (90-100): Excellence in most areas of evaluation, high competence in others. B (80-89): High competence in most areas of evaluation, competence in others. C (70-79): Fulfilled all course requirements with competence. Competence is the answering of all requirements; adequate ability, capacity; sufficient for the purpose. D (60-69): (Undergraduates only) Less than competent work in one or more areas of evaluation. One or more requirements lacking and/or sub-standard quality. F (below 59): (Undergraduates only) Substantially incomplete work and/or work of an unsatisfactory quality. F (below 69): (Graduates only) Substantially incomplete work and/or work of an unsatisfactory quality. Late Work: In order to develop good professional habits, work that is late will be marked one or more grades lower than similar work completed on time, depending on the degree of lateness. Incomplete: Work left incomplete at the end of the semester due to circumstances beyond the student’s control.



This course owes its creation to Colin Rowe’s analysis/comparison of a Corbusian and Palladian villa. This analysis shows that there are hidden structures in architecture that can link seemingly disparate buildings. These two buildings could not ‘look’ more different.



Through an analysis of the plans, you can see how Rowe discovered similar underlying proportions and spatial organizations. This is similar to what we will do this semester. We will be discovering the hidden or latent ideas in the forms of Eisenman’s own work. We are not concerned with the way the building looks optically (what we see with the eyes), but what we can see visually (what we see with the mind).



Examples of a student’s work, Sarah Lin, in a similar class. She was analyzing a Carlo Scarpa building, the one in the upper left image.

Notation and Spatial Form Movement

Program and Function Tectonics and Structure Detail

Carlo Scarpa, existing building



I’m looking forward to a great semester! If you have any questions, please email me, post on the blog, post on Twitter, or any of the other ways I have set up for us to communicate.

Drawing Canonical Ideas in Architecture 471k & 571k

Schedule: August 22 – December 7, 2011

Fall 2011

Instructor: Sallie Hambright

Contact: [email protected] or [email protected] 636.339.6497 (only in EMERGENCIES) office hours – I am available for telephone conference or through any of the media we use in the class.

drawing canonical ideas in architecture€¦ · students will produce drawings, descriptions of...

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