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Architects should ditch their cameras and carry sketchbooks.

7/16/2014


    There is an undisguised air of evangelism running through this article, for it seeks to encourage Architects and students of architecture, craft and design to forsake their cameras and learn the art of freehand sketching. Drawing is not only more enjoyable and far more educational, but the end product is more likely to remain a cherished object than would an anonymous slide or photographic print. Drawing an object, building or townscape forces you to engage more directly in the subject than as a mere photographer; the search to record shape, proportion, detail and colour requires greater effort and more skilled observation than that needed to press the shutter of a camera. The discriminatory eye encouraged through sketching has value to the potential for it engages the observer in an important dialogue with his or her subject.

 

    Many students of architecture and design today spend a great deal of time making photographs rather than sketches. They could, of course, buy postcards which often contain better and more accurate pictures at only a fraction of the cost, thereby concentrating their efforts instead on the harder but more valuable process of drawing. What the sketchbook provides is a means of delving deeper into the subject than merely recording it, in order to begin to understand why and how the scene was shaped. The main barrier to using the sketchbook in this way appears to be the lack of basic graphic skills, together with the hectic pace of modern life. As with all endeavours of value, you have to practise a great deal to cultivate the craft of freehand drawing, in order to fulfil the potential offered by the sketchbook.

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