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    Andres Lara
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    Robin Evans

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    Translations From Drawing to Building

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    Robin Evans

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    50 views16 pages

    Translations From Drawing To Building

    Uploaded by

    Andres Lara
    Robin Evans

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    of 16
    TRANSLATIONS — ¥* FROM DRAWING TO BUILDING Robin Evans. come to passin which, while on the one hand the drawing might ‘alucd.on the other the propertsrot drawing — its peel powers in relation co its putative subject, the building — are hardly recognized at all, Revagnition of the drawing's power as a medium ‘of words is translated from language to turns out, unexpectedly, to be recognition of the drawing’ dstiner 1 the thing that is represented, rather than sradoxical nor asdissosiative asit 1 tohave the requisite evenness and comtinu- ness front and unlkene itys things can get bent, bro that there isa uni cout mod sof lost on the way, The asomption itslikenesstoit, which is neith ce through which meaning may glide with: sn just a naive delusion, however. Only by tigation of drawings role in architec nore words might be spent on langusge; more particu nnconditional existence inthe frst place can cure, a few that would have archivecure be like ofthe pattern of deviations from this imagin- larly, on the common ant languag snd guage ff it. All things with conceptual gest that somethingsimilaroccursinarchitecture dimension are like language, as all grey chings are like elephants wing and the building, and that a similar suspension. rt deal in architecture may be Tanguagelike without being of critical dsbeliet is necessary in order to enable architects to per- language. Some mught say thac the recent insistence that archiecture is only the last wave of s persisenc verbal tide eroding age to guide our ‘dastherite ofa while such an isa lang n done inarchi of this inexplicitness a curious situation has sdevilling our ability co see without ‘eli ghe words ofthe poet Pal Valé recent biography of an American artist, "sing is forgetting the name ‘of the chingone sees? Can we really be ccitain? Might not this pursm bye in danger of becoming a ridiculous piety? Having recognized thar womb eet vision, we ae under no mora obligation to expel them irom it, ven ifthe expulsion could be achieved Is understandable that inthe incre she integrity oF our awe should imagine ie contaminated by other forms of communication, jus ai is under standable tht, in the interest of is agrandizcment, we should imagine it comparable to language. Bu thisisony to offer excuses for theponesion of incompatibeidess Futidiovsner about the purity of vision ates foc fur that all distinction will be lost as one category forces itself into another. We Provct because we think tin danger of ing overwhelmed by 2 more powerful agency. With our minds fixed on the predominance of dimgurge re might even risk enclosing archnerure within fa va compound, denying it communication with anything else co pre- serv itsintgrty. Ths would be posible, ye it seems very uae to occur because, for architecture, even in the solitude of pretended tutonony there one unfalngcomrnuicant and thar isthe drawing Some English ae hsorian have Bor dieting arention tothe transactions between language and the visual arts: Michael Batandal ‘vith she early alan humanists TJ Clark with French nineteenth Century paiming* and Noman Bryson with sevenceenhy and tighteenthecentary French painting’ Their stages, which ave Sdvanced at history imo an aca never properly investigated, show hinters and commentators tryingto extricate pantingtom ngage Er trying to ecomumodane 00 i in what was aot mech & war beeen the verbal and the vible av an economy heeween ther Fall of riction though the deals back and forth may have been have found their work invaluable an stimuli, I seem 10 me, how ver, thar tis conamy dominated bythe rade berwsen tv powers Canot be transfered tothe uy of achiectore without adapcion, forthe archiceraral drawing constitute third force that may well equilthow ofthe art work anditscommentaries, My own stpicion of the enormous generative par played by archtectoral drawing tems from abril period of teaching nan ar College® Bringing with me the conviction that architecture and the vinsal arte were cosy allied, Iwassoonsruckby what seemed athe time the pecliardayaniag: under which orliecs labour, newer working directly withthe object oftheir thought always workings Eubiniphinons ineyecigcuetion, sluoe eles lhe' dere, while painter and ceptors who might pend sme dine on pele Frary Seether eal marta all ened op working onthe hinge which, acral, absorbed most oftheir tention and effort | ill picked with abstruse steretomic diagrams invaling protons of fameles exuic curvatures, Oucal the emakablefesturerol theses ther eva. le oor he orig am eck Boas the rclevare ellen logael taped chea prjened namtcona cine spheres at lang angiey they mceimorphoor ine thoes plastic, volatile shapes, eommensucable only through the procedure af projection vel, hiss tbe che sient cl In here, then forma of crs on 4 plane surface that would, throug pred projction ant a emsphererasfora oa ns of teardrops with the roqulse number ofintestions? The answer ular envelope of circles (Fig. 16). This annular envelope, I suggest, is the real plan of the dome. Each one of the circles within the envelope ‘oul proce, ner proton, another closed curve, bu of aut dferee shape The easst way to ow sae this so think ofthe Sle the bse ofa cylinder he sides she cylinder Being the projector lines) which cus through the hemisphere whist touching “The resulting closed curve on the hemisphere, half of what icalled 2 hippopee,” looks nothing ike he vir from sshich thas asen GF. 17) and, although the numberof inersetions stays the same, Acither do the orginal ensemble of circlas resemble thie projected teanstion on the dome, The envelope of ices onthe plane canbe seen to have an unfortunate appearance the mid Iovengs of the aenular sng limplyshumpat in a disibation chat hs nthe the lysamic siggeiveness nor the quasisrucural appearance ofthe dome, and eal conspicuously 0 restr the accelerating contac: tion towards the inner ring so pronounced above. So, rather than dually cof didactic evidence onthe floor, de POrme Ainkert wth expanded tan thenclipedof ts outer rim nei 15. Diagonal cv oftneafequal longtde ancegua latte om sphere, From Drspoctiva Corpora Regolariom by Wenzel faranitzer 1368 1 Stall forthe of doco Ral Chap Ane dear by ean 17 Three rosctionsafebippopce:the tection paced by aclindrdat ies thrngh ands tangential to theepuator ofa spre Dring by he hor looked sufficiently like the system of intersections to which it had giver shape (Fig. 18 From this we may infer that, for de'Oeme, in the end, the desire for perceptible likeness took precedence over the desire to demonstrae the rigarous method through which the visible difference had been achieved. The choice to eclipse his on cleverness bby marring the projective equivalence becween the two patterns is all elsewhere the more poignant, given his insufferable tendency to brag inthe Tome ‘This jn am interesting discovery, because it shows the goometsi ‘original 1 be complecely expendable, nd indeed quite ugly in com parison sith its much more wonderful product, Parallel projection in this example engendered moze potent forms from less, and did it by an ingenious, regulated distortion of a shape regarded, by ind by de Orme himself i his tvitingy on archi tecture, as perfect to start with: the csc.” Happy results do not of course occur under guarantee ofthe drawing technique, ako requir ing, as they do, an inquisitive mind) a very strong preseatiment of the sense within forms, together with a penetrating ability to visualize spatial relations. Ths ability was doubsless enhanced by the practice ‘of projective geometry, but not purchased with it. Sulit would be as crude co insist on the architec’s unfettered imagination as the true source forms, as it would ro portray thedrawing technique alone as ‘the fount of formal invention. The point is tha the imagination and the technique worked well ogether, che one enlarging the other, and that the formsin question —and there are many more, not only in de VOrme’s work, but in French architecture theaugh o the end ofthe cighteenth century — could not have arisen other than through peo iection. A study of de TOrme’s use of parallel projection shows

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