From Models to Drawings Imagination and Representation in Architecture

This edited collection addresses the vital role of the imagination in the critical interpretation of architectural representations. By challenging the contemporary tendency for computer-aided drawings to become mere ‘models’ for imitation in the construction of buildings, the articles explore the broader range of methods and meanings at stake in the creation and interpretation of architectural drawings, models, images and artefacts. These critical – and often practice-led - investigations are placed alongside a range of historical studies considering the development of representational techniques such as perspective, orthography and diagramming. By also addressing the use of visual representation in a number of related disciplines such as visual arts, film, performance and literature, the book opens up debates in architecture to important developments in other fields. This book is key reading for all students of architecture and architectural theory.

Introduction Part 1: Historical Perspectives Introduction 1. Questions of Representation: The Poetic Origin of Architecture 2. On Paper: The Materiality of Architectural Drawings 3. Imagination and Architectural Representation 4. Drawing Adam’s Navel: The Problem of Disegno as Creative Tension Between the Visible and Knowledgeable 5. Drawn to Scale: The Imaginative Inhabitation of Architectural Drawings 6. The Cultural Context of Design and the Corporeal Dynamism of Drawing as the Foundations for the Imagination of Construction 7. Architecture’s Twinned Body: Building and Drawing 8. Translucent and Fluid: Piranesi’s Impossible Plan 9. Contemplating the Unfinished 10. Le Corbusier’s Spirals Part 2: Emergent Realities Introduction 11. Forms in the Dark: Nature, Waste and Digital Imitation 12. Concealment, Delay, and Topology in the Creation of Wondrous Drawing 13. A Digital Renaissance: Reconnecting Architectural Representation and Cinematic Visual Effects 14. Drawing Air: The Visual Culture of Bio-political Imaging 15. 'Higher' Being and 'Higher' Drawing: Claude Bragdon's 'Fourth Dimension' and the Use of Computer Technology in Design Part 3: Critical Dimensions Introduction 16. Seeing Time/Writing Place 17. Marks in Space: Thinking About Drawing 18. Drawing Lines of Confrontation 19. Weather Architecture, Weather Drawing 20. Drawing on Light 21. Post Secular Architecture: Material, Intellectual, Spiritual Models 22. Specifying Materials: Language, Matter and the Conspiracy of Mutenes 23. Architecture as Image-Space-Text 24. Acts of Imagination and Reflection in Architectural Design 25. In the Corner of Perception – Spatial Experience in Distraction

Marco Frascari is Director of the School of Architecture, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. Jonathan Hale is Associate Professor in Architecture and Course Director for the interdisciplinary MA in Architecture and Critical Theory at the University of Nottingham, UK. Bradley Starkey is a Lecturer in the School of the Built Environment at the University of Nottingham, UK.