Drawing: The Motive Force of Architecture

by Peter Cook

Focusing on the creative and inventive significance of drawing for architecture, Drawings highlights the work of key contemporary figures who have, through their drawn work, affected the course of architectural thinking. Bringing this together is a chapter-by-chapter series of essays that broadly charts the forward movement and expansion of drawing iconography, techniques and methodologies. Thus it will move from such conditions as Victorian romanticism; Modernist heroics, Minimalism, Diagrams, the representation (and inspiration) of movement, technology and motive power; through to notions and examples of digital automatism. In this way, the advent and challenge of computer-based drawing vis-à-vis ‘sketching’ or technique based drawing will be argued as a natural progression rather than a radical explosion. In particular, there are many examples of hand-in-hand development of a project using several techniques.  Also includes drawings by Sverre Fehn, Mark Goulthorpe, Zaha Hadid, Ron Herron, Tom Kovak, Enric Miralles, Marcus Novak , Cedric Price, Wolf Prix, and Lebbeus Woods.

Genres: Architecture, Art, Design, Nonfiction

208 pages, Paperback

First published April 22, 2008

About the author

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Reviews

[Jia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice pictures, but uses overly academic language for no reason.

[TJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cook is the best

One of my favorite architects. Cook is aggie to share the power of drawing and explore the outer boundaries of what is possible in Architecture.

[Brandon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Largely esoteric nonsense, but a small number of passages are interesting and the selection of artworks/architects is decent

[Pamela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Peter Cook attempts to impart information regarding the role drawing plays in the architect’s progress from the nascent idea to a fully-realized concept of a building. Unfortunately, he gets in his own way with his verbiage. He seems incapable of explaining anything simply, elegantly. We are told by the publisher that Cook is one of the the “greatest proponents” of the “creative and inventive significance of drawing for achitecture.” However, in reading Cooks words, I didn’t see him as a proponent of anything other than his own ego.

What I found most interesting about this book were the drawings by architects who didn’t have computers and computer software to do their drawings for them, for instance, Hermann Finsterlin’s and Iakov Chernikhov’s drawings from the 1920s.

If you are looking for a book detailing the role of drawing by hand in architecture today, this is not the book for you.