Didactic Drawing

[3CPO]

Didactic Drawing
From Drawing Room Lost by Kevin W. Sloan, Assoc. AIA:

In an accelerated world, drawing by hand is rapidly becoming an endangered activity. Once the cornerstone of architectural practice and a fundamental part of architectural education, today it is a momentary step in the production of digital images or as part of the preparation of implementation documents that can be shared electronically. Gone is the sensitivity of line weights, the development of a personal drawing style, and the ability to learn by drawing or by direct observation from a given place or site.

The development of hand-eye coordination has traditionally been best accomplished by using the pencil as a mediating tool between seeing with the mind and eye and drawing with direct muscular control. Drawing by hand is an indispensable tool for developing visual memory, able to permanize the image in the mind with the kind of understanding and recall that taking photographs cannot duplicate. The computer, with its attendant keyboard, is not the transparent tool necessary for immediate feedback and is, at best, a blunt instrument in need of self-conscious guidance and time.

The notion of drawing as a device to see and understand builds upon the works of others. In lieu of making drawings that are personalized views of the world—i.e., expressions or interpretations—the process I refer to as “notational drawing” requires the opposite from the observer in that “you put yourself away” and succumb to the building or place in order for it to reveal its lessons. By this process the observer enters into a direct and penetrating dialogue with the author’s ideas of the studied work. By these means, one’s experience is enlarged and one’s passion for design is refreshed.

Seeing architecture as an activity added to by one’s work is admittedly out of step with the current fashion for originality and self-expression. This is not a bad thing, since it does not necessarily lead to stylistic expression or neoclassical thinking. Rather, the activity of notational drawing suggests understanding architectural design to be a knowledge-based activity using architectural cultural production as an informed resource for contemporary practice. Clearly, the cultural values and meaning of a given building or site shift from time and place, but the techniques of notational drawing are applicable anywhere. And the lessons still have strategic relevance in analogous situations as a design heuristic.

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Fonte: www.aia.org