1st Edition

Architects' Sketches

By Kendra Schank Smith Copyright 2008
    152 Pages
    by Routledge

    152 Pages
    by Routledge

    Concepts from architects’ minds evolve through sketches and as a mode of transference are conveyed to the finished building. This book compares qualities of sketches to reveal unique approaches to the instruments of thinking in which all architects engage. It provides new insight into the relationship between architectural sketches and the process of creative manipulation. Sketches comprise a thinking mechanism, and through the qualities of ambiguity, quickness and change, they initiate a dialogue for architects. As a medium to facilitate communication, recording, discovery and evaluation, their pertinence lies in their ability to exhibit both the precise and the imprecise. Exploring four related theoretical approaches, play, memory-imagination-fantasy, caricature and the grotesque, the book shows how imprecision stimulates imagination to conceive new forms in the dialogue of architectural sketches.

    The architectural sketch and likeness; Play, quickness and Festina Lente; Memory, imagination, fantasy; Caricature as a mode of transformation; The grotesque sketch; Observation/compendium

    Biography

    Kendra Schank Smith is an associate professor and chair of Architectural Science at Ryerson University.