Abstract
In contemporary architectural practice, designing and architectural drawing generally go hand in hand. Architectural drawings and other visual devices are crucial for architects to think about, develop, and build their projects. In addition to their practical functions, they are means by which a project is conceived, developed, and determined. Architectural drawings are thus the basic means through which architects think; they play a central epistemological role throughout the design process. This essay addresses the inherent cognitive complexity of architectural drawings by considering them as symbols. It makes explicit some of their underlying epistemological assumptions to understand their role in the design process as well as to shed some light on the epistemological processes that take place when dealing with such drawings. This is done by examining a particular set of drawings, that of the Pavilion at Les Cols Restaurant in Olot (Spain) by RCR Arquitectes, taking Nelson Goodman’s theory of symbols as conceptual framework. Focusing on the several architectural drawings from this project, I show the its epistemological aspects as well as the conceptual development of some ideas in architectural drawings.
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Notes
- 1.
“As a rule, architects do not build. They draw, write, annotate, diagram, model, map, sketch, photograph, animate, and otherwise visualize objects, spaces, and territories; they make visual and verbal presentations; they compile visual and written analyses and reports; and they issue visual and written instructions” (Martin 2013). See also Martin’s contribution in Chap. 1, this volume.
- 2.
Not everyone agrees in that all architectural drawings are highly codified constructs that entail complex epistemological processes. Many practicing architects have elaborated popular theories regarding the role of drawings in their professional practice. While these arguments may not be well-developed, they enjoy wide influence among designers. Among the current topics of discussion is the relationship between analog and digital drawing (understanding the first as directly hand-drawn and the second as drawn through the mediation of a machine or an algorithm) and how the use of computers has changed the way in which architects design. This digitalization has raised some worries about the sometimes called dehumanization of the creative design process that has brought several opposing views. Architects such as Steven Holl, for example, consider that paper and pencil offer some sort of immediate extension of their minds, and that architectural drawings capture the creative human aspect and convey it to the finished structures. Digitalization is then a loss of this connection and there is a kind of phenomenal effort to reintroduce the human experience into the digital. In a recent article in The New York Times, Michael Graves discussed how drawings allow him to establish an emotional and personal connection to his projects (Graves 2012). Bernard Tschumi claims that by drawing (be it by pencil or with a finger on a digital tablet), he has an access to the formless of the universe (some sort of apeiron) and that this is better accessed when one’s mental and physical faculties are impaired, be it because of illness, drunkenness, lack of sleep or adverse circumstances, such as having to draw on a napkin on his knee while flying (Tschumi 2013). All these views, according to which drawings provide an immediate connection to the unconscious or to the creative genius, seem nevertheless to ignore the fact that architectural drawings, whether analog or digital, are highly complex and codified symbols. Rather than being just immediate transmitters of whatever is in the architect’s mind, architectural drawings are subject to conventions to convey meanings and contribute to the development and thinking about the design process in very specific ways.
- 3.
For more information about RCR Arquitectes and their projects see RCR (2007); Cortés et al. (2007); Cortés et al. (2012). See also their website: www.rcrarquitectes.es and www.pritzkerprize.com
- 4.
For a general introduction to Goodman’s thought as it applies to architecture see Capdevila-Werning (2014).
- 5.
- 6.
Mock-ups, i.e., partial construction on site of some element of a building in order to see how materials age and react to the environment, would symbolically function in a way similar to model houses: they exemplify some of their possessed properties.
- 7.
- 8.
This aspect is crucial for Goodman, since notations play a role in determining the identity of allographic works. See note 7.
- 9.
For a discussion of ambiguity in Goodman (1968: 147–9).
References
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Capdevila-Werning, R. (2017). Architectural Drawings as Symbols: A Goodmanian Account of Epistemic Practices in the Design Process. In: Ammon, S., Capdevila-Werning, R. (eds) The Active Image. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 28. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56466-1_3
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