By Des Smith

Architects’ drawings are usually of something.  And architects’ drawings are usually for something.  This is because the subject/object of their drawings, ultimately, is to be made by someone else.  Our drawings are instructive, even to ourselves. Our drawings are therefore representational.  They are codified, and this codification asks the line weight to be meaningful and precise.  Precision is professionally essential for architects.  There is a hierarchy involved – which for us is implicit – and this hierarchy sets out the position of things in space, and their significance in the context of the drawing.  Each line has something to say, or else it shouldn’t be there.  Even when we sketch we are drawing in an exploratory, and developmental manner.  We are always representing something, or more accurately ‘pre-presenting’ something.

Here we are using a drawing to say something. These drawings are indicating our understanding, our sensibilities towards something that is not necessarily, or essentially, architectural, although I would suggest that architectural thinking around space and form, possibly even materials, is not far from the essence of the image.  Here we are drawing to make a drawing.  The drawing is the thing.  Even if it is representative, the drawing is the thing.

Have we drawn ideas, patterns, pictures, thoughts, desires, intentions, translations, insights… or just ‘something I’ve always wanted to draw?  Have we said anything?  Have any of us used this relative freedom of drawing to deepen our understanding of the subject of the drawing?  Do any of the drawings have a ‘subject’?  Has the exhibition, literally, illustrated how architects think, offered some insight into how we see the world?  Have we fruitfully indulged in the luxury of making a beautiful drawing, and with this added a dimension to beauty?  What have we done with this precision, this hierarchy, the norms of codification, this control?  With regard to the lines on the paper, who made it through and who didn’t?

I hope these drawings allow you to see the value of this freedom.  Where openness meets rigour.  Where personality meets professional tradition.  Where inside meets outside…

November 2022.