Tene ere oe OL nd Other Essays ee pet eee Peer eceenit Pee) oe Sen Reena AA DOCUMENT Translations from Drawing to Building Robin Evans The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts waySe J 95 Translations from Drawing to Building e o ©To translate is to convey: It is to move something without altri iu! This is its original meaning and this is what happens in trans latory motion, Such too, by analogy with transtatory motion, the translation of languages. Yet the substratum across which the sense of swords is translated from language 10 language does not appeai broken or lost on the way: The assumption that there is a uniform space throug ing may glide without modulation is more than just a naive delusion, however. Only by assuming its onal existence in the first place can any precise knowl the pattern of deviations from this imaginary con- dition be gained, I would like to suggest that something similar occurs in archi tecture between the drawing and the building, and that a similar suspension of critical disbelie! is necessary in order to enable ar chitects to perform their task at all, would like to suggest al while such an enabling fiction may be made ex been done in architecture, and that because tion has come to passin which, while on the one hand. ¢ be vastly avervalued, on the other the proper ng its peculiar powers in relation to its putative subject, the building ~ are hardly recognized at all. Recognition of th dium turns out, unexpectedly, 10 be re- cognition of the drawing’s distinctness from and unlikeness to the thing that is represented, rather than its likeness to it, which is neither as paradoxical nor as dissociative as it may seem, fore embarking on the investigation of drawing’s role in a tectie, a few more words might be spent on lat particulary, on the common antilogy that would have architecture be like language but also independent of it. All things with co ceptual dimension are like language, as all grey things are Tike Jephants, A great deal in architecture may be language-like with tide eroding vision, bedevilling our abil language to guide our eyes (Fig, 1), In the words ly, used as the title of a recent biography of an gis ctting the name of the thin eer tain? Might not this purism be in das diculow piety? Having recognized that word under no snoral obligation to expel them be achieved. It is unde standable that, in the interest of the inte rity of our art, we should imagine it contaminated by other forms of its aggrandizement, we should imagin guag patible ideas. it comparable vo lan- But this is only to offer excuses for the possession of incomn= Fastidiousness about the purity of vision arises from a fear that all distinction will be lost as one category forces itself into another We protect it because we think it in danger of being overwhelmed by a more powerful agency: With our minds fixed on the pre dominance of language we might even risk enclosing architecture within its own compound, denying it communication with any thing else to preserve its integrity: This would be possible, yet it seems very unlikely to occur because, for architecture, even in the solitude of pretended autonomy, there is one unfailing communi cant, and that is che drawing Some English art historians have been directing attention 10 the transactions between language and the visual arts: Michael Baxandall with the early Italian humanists,’ TJ. Clark with French nineteesth-century painting’ and Norman Bryson with seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French painting ‘Their studies, which have advanced art history into an area never properly investigated, show painters and commenta what was not so much a war between the verbal and the visible as ER ELan economy between them, fill of friction though the deals back have found their work invaluable and nd forth may have been. timulating, It seems to me, however, that this economy dominated by the tracle between two powers cannot be transferred to the such of architecture without adaption, for the architectural drawing cconstitates a third force that may well equal those of the artwork My own suspicion of the enormous generative part played by architectural drawing stems from a brief period of teaching in an art college.’ Bringing with me the conviction that architecture and the visual arts were closely allied, Iwas soon struck by what seemed at the time the pecutiar disadvantage under which architects lab wer working directly with the object of their thought king at it through some intervening medium, almost always the drawing, while painters and sculptors, who might spend some time on preliminary sketches and maqueites, all ended up 1 dhe thing itself which, naturally, absorbed most of their attention and effort, I still cannot understand, in retrospect, wh the implications of this simple observation had never been brought home to me before. The sketch and maquette are much closer to painting and sculpture than a drawing is to a building, and the process of development ~ the formulation — is rarely brought to a conclusion within these preliminary studies, Neatly always thi most intense activity is the construction and manipulation of i final artefact, the purpose of preliminary studies being to give suf- ficient definition for final work to begin, not to provide a complete determination in advance, as in architectural drawing, The result- ing displacement of effort and indirectness of access still seem to of me to be distinguishing feat: al architecture con- ‘dered as a visual art, but whether always and necessaril avant is another question, Two divergent definitions of the possibilities for architecture f Jow from the recognition of this displacement. We may choose t work, we would be relinguishing claim to the architecture that now flourishes within the political, economic and social ordes: I architecture: were redefined in this way, it might become more scrupulous and less responsible, smaller and orld in i better, as the hope w grandiose pretensions to represent and define the of which is comparable to the unlikelihood of compiling a legal code that is also a good novel — an ambition that can only bs confouncled in practice) architecture may, by contraction and con centration, constitute itself anew? Well, chs consolidation through withdrawal is already under way, and the problem is that it has scome exactly this: n simple eeloc- ation of investment within the region staked out long ago a belonging to architecture ‘What might have occurred in architecture, but did not, occurred outside it, and indeed outside painting and sculpture, in so far as these are ically defined.’ To insist on direct access to th the real repository of architectural art, Tt may also be to reject drawing out of hand OF the works be nnd the pale of architecture ~ earth art, ertheless deal formance, installations, constructions ~ which h recognizably architectural themes, several are remarkable no the impos The as an instance: The mainstay 1960s an iy of their development through this medium, k of the Los Angeles artist James Turrell may be used Turtell’s work through the late swas the artificially lit room (Fig. 2). Most archi ectural of th seties of empty spaces which, if drawn upwvithins cursene aichitectural conventions, could only construcd as indicative of witless simplicity. Their effect as installations can none the less be completely overwhelming, Such directly appr hensible presence of the artist's hands, feelings or personality. Fabricated no more trace of Tarrell in these rooms than of Mies in the most of transcendental my sparse of Miesian interiors, Evoking gushe tification from some critics,’ Turrell’s wark is, all the same, qu ‘easy to understand and appreciate since it has to da with observers their own eyes, You look into somethi which you know i another rectangular room with bi scent tubes on the back of the partition through which you pees: You can see how it works. You can put your hands into it. You tan even see, standing out against the haze of illumination that 158 moves from mauve through to pink, evidence of some earlier investigator who took it into his head to climb into the illusion, sving his footprints in the otherwise spotless, spacele Even then, only by deduction can you maintain either the depth the room or the emptiness of it, for the light looks, if not solid then incredibly dense, as if its luminosity would not so much r the image of anything thrust into it as devour it, Take a few steps back and it is impossible to envisage its depth even by an act id the screeniike aperture th which you looked seems to be standing out as a block of light in blatant contravention of what you know to be true” The most remarkable properties of Turrel’ installations are local and not transportable. The result of direct observation of the play of elec tric light on white-painted surfaces and countless experiments iv stu, they cannot be adequately illustrated or photographied aft their construction, and there is no way that even the vaguest hint of their effect could have originated through drawing In this respect Turrell’s illuminated spaces of the 1970s and 1980s ~ Orea, Raemar, the Hiadgneor series, ete. ~ were further remaved fram deawing and the drawable than the earlier works in which shapes of light were projected onto walls through eut templates, Turrell made and put Tished {and sola) preliminary drawings for some of these. One can ine such drawings making any sense in the later works. By continuing in the same medium while eliminating the projector ‘Turrell was effectively taking his work outside the range of the drawing, for it was their projected shape that made works like Afrur dvawable (Fig. 3) Phe drawing has intrinsic limitations of reference. Notall things architectural {and Turrell's rooms are surely architectural) can arrived at through drawing There must also be a penumbra of 1s that might only be seen darkly and with great difficulty quali fhrough it, If judgement is that these qualities in and around th shadow line are more interesting than those laid forth clearly in Jrawing, then such drawing should be abandoned, and anotherReturning momentarily to the recently vaunted status of archi- tectural drawing within the schools: o regard a drawing as a work of art as we usually understand it is to regard it as something (0 be consumed by the viewer, so that his rapacious appetite for for~ mulated experience may be assuaged. Any further use attributable al in so Far as it may reduce its valu (its incidental and detrinn s food for consciousness. We have witne sed, over the past fifteen years, what we think af as a rediscovery of the architectural draw ing This rediscovery has made drawings more consumable, but this consumability has most often been achieved by redefining their representational role as similar to that of early ewentieth-century intings, in the sense of being less concerned with their relation to what they represent than with their own constitution. And so the dlravsings themselves have b me the repositories of effects anc re focus of attention, while the transmutation that occur drawing and building remains to a large lyf sevably combine, in such a way as to enhance both, the abstract The second possibilty Row di this, If one way of al fe and the corporeal aspects of their work, Instead, they stand next tering the definition of architecture is to insist on the arch Pena chelate to cach other, in an unpropitious sort of way, as alternative c (es, Argumnentative opposition is usually stifling, A ty ‘works better between rugby teams than between opposed concept mutative properties of the drawing to better or practices, Tike ‘out sense than articulating it, but it should be said that in the effec, This latter option ~ which I call the unpopular option ~ T et this isthe way we insist on playing games. I would avoid this partisanship, so much more effective in drowning ‘wish to discuss in this article The two options, one emphasizing the corporeal properties of eet eh acter conceited she discaiyedied prop- present climate the tendency is generally to place the abstract and the instrumental within the orbit of a suspect, culp ble profession: erties in the drawing, are diametrically opposed: in the one corner, alism, allowing the direct and experiential presence only within a lity, presence, immediacy, divect be revealed fully in the formes, ce, Tn covert architecture which ean n ‘and which shows up asso m ation and action at a distance. They are opposed but not neces consequence the direct and experiential appears far more ethical sarily incompatible, It may be that, just as some fifteenth-centu and far more interesting, far more at risk and farmore real than the painters (Masaccio, Piero, Mantegna, Pinturicchio, Leonardo) com edged as 51 act approach. This can 160 bined the pithy irregularities of naturalism with the compositional regularities of perspective construction, so architects might conwhich on the whole they a 60 are the artistic pretensions he schools. A contest between two kinds of dullness eannot be es A distinction might be made between 1 ractised in architecture and drawing as practised traditionally in Western art. A story of the origin of drawing, derived from Pl the Elder" and recyeled into the visual arts as subject-matter in th eighteenth century (like all stori the time of its telling than of the time of which it tells), shows up nicely. The story is of Diboutades tracing the shadow of her departing lover If we compare versions by two neo-classical artist ively a painter, the other better known as an architec some indicative differences become apparent | Davie Allan's The Or of Painting of 1773 (Fig. 4) shows the cou ple in an interios, the dressed | surfice upon which Diboulade races the shadow nade by anol | lamp, placed at the same level as the sitter’s head, on a ledge close at band. Katl F Schinkel’ unusual variation on this theme w i painted in 1830 (ig) Sigaifcandy, and in contrast o mos othe treatments {as well as departing from Pliny), the architect chose not an architectural interior for his reconstruction of the event, bu a pastoral scene with shepherds and shepherd Tn pla 4 face of rock. In the worked surface of stone, a natu show quite clearly the combination f abject upon which it plays, a surface behind the subject, and something to trace with. Schinkel, however, shows the mini- his painting, the fist human mark put on nature might well ha i SEERbeen the line of charcoal on the rock, while in Allan's the accoutre the necessary ning and reflective accessory: Se rtinent that, while Diboutades herselt it is perhaps equally been delegated to a performs the task in Allan's painting, it ‘muscular shepherd in Schinkel’. ‘The artifice shown by Schinkel is that of an already organized social structure of deference in which is expressed also the di tinction between thought and labour, a distinction absent in the more intimate surroundings of Allan’s painting. In Schinkel’s om it, OF version drawing precedes building, in Allan’s it follows t was the architect who was obliged to show the fi the two, drawing in a pre-architectural setting, because without drawing there could be no architecture, at least no classical architecture lcfinition, In Schinkel’ constructed on the lines of geometrical work, drawing is, from the beginning, a divided activity, resolvab into a prior act of thought ond a consequent manual undertaking which the arrival of architecture would duplicate, on a much larger scale, a5 the difference between design and construction. In instance the man ;nt to the woman: she conceives; he At least a8 important in the symptomatology is the manner of lighting. Allan uses a lamp, that is, a local, point source of illumi nation from which issue divergent rays. Schinkel uses the sun, that is, a source so remote that its rays have to be regarded as trave parallel to one another past the earth. The two kinds of light cor- respond to the two types of projection, based on diverg jectors, which played crucial part in painting through che lopment of perspective; and parallel projection, based ot P ale! projectors, which has played an equally eruetal, though far in architecture through the developmen of orthographic pr ction. The painter's version 164 intimate, less differentiated; the architects more remote, public insistent on differentiation, Just as we would expect, perhaps, but these tendencies in Schinkel beways professional proclivity, giving drawing a priority, potency and gen erality not evident in Allan's rendition, The most notable difference of all, however, is registered on n an oblique way in the two paintings. This has to do with th subject-matter of the artis’s work. In painting, until well inte Dibou ization, distortion or transm es, taken from nature, It may have suffered vast fication, but th thing like it, is held to exist prior to its Thi is presentatio true of architecture, which is brought into existence through drawing, The subject-mat {the building or space) will exist afr the drawing, not before it, I could list v arious riders and quali fications to this principle, which may be called nciple of rae yy in drawing, to show that it may occasionally be ‘complicated, but these would not alter the fact that, statistically peaking, if [may put it thae way, t good account. We might surmise, then, that the absence of an architectural seting in Schinkel’s painting is a recognition of this reversal, by which th raving must come before the buil ing, of so litle consequence Alllan the painter, who follows Pliny, innocently imagining chat architecture developed to classical maturity without its ai Drawing in architecture is not done after nature, but prior 1 ‘construction; itis not so much produced by reflection on the reality outside the drawing, as productive of a reality that will end up outside the drawing, The logic of classical realism is stood on its head, and itis dhrough this inversion that architectural drawing has obtained an enormous and largely unarknowledged generative power: by stealth. For, when I say unacknowledged, I mean un: ‘acknowledged in principles and theory. Drawing’s hegemony ove the architectural object has never really been challenged. All that «ithe whims renunciation ever since Philip Webbtance, bencath the level of words, of its singular priority within theartof architecture, if artit be, such as in architectural portrait svhete, as a rule with but few exceptions, and as in Willison’s por trait of Robert Adam (Fig 6}, they are portrayed with their draw- are sculptors with their sculptures and painters with their ranged, for posterity, from the results of their Jabour the clients more usually retaining the privilege of being portraye with a ulin Icwoukd take much more than an article to reveal the full exten {° drawing’s intrusive role in the development of architectural ‘medium of this or that consistency. Three instances must suffice to give some idea of what we are dealing with. The importance of orthographic projection has already been Tuded to. Although the geometric principle of parallel projection was understood in late antiquity, Claudius Prolemy having di cribed it in a work on sundials around AD 300," evidence of its u in architectural drawing is not found until the fourteenth centur The earliest more or less consistent orthographic projection of a tuilding to have surv Campanile of S, Maria red is a large, detailed elevation of th | Fiore, preserved in the Opera del Duomo in Siena and thought to be a copy of an original by Giotto produced after 134 (Fig, 7).""To say that this was the first instance is not deny the existence of many drawings of a similar sore plans, eleva ‘cond millen rium BC. But the Campanile rawing requised two imaginative s never before taken together, as far as T know: First, a com pletely abstract conception of projector lines” secondly, an ability Y ye of the thing being represented (the surface of the 66 uilding) as not equivalent to the surface of representation ~ not quite. The corner bastions of the tower, with their chamfered sides, and the din onal Gothie windovrs above are drawn obliquely bu ‘with no indication of perspectival recession. In other detailed held for all the parts of a facade that are frontal and close to being, coplanar, but not in surfaces receding at an angle from the picture 1." In other words, the orth applied only if the build ng itself was identified by the ntsman as sufficiently sheet- like and frontal. To maintain effectively ~ as did the author of the ampanile drawing — the relations between an array of invisible arallel projectors, a plane 01 which they are projected at right ingles, and other surfaces at various angles to the plane of projection required, at that time, insight of a different order; a ason, perhaps, for accepting, in the me Jdence, Gioseff’s contested ascription," since it is ac- knowledged that as a painter Giotto gave co the presentation of jetorial space far greater coherence than his predecessors. 7 A comparison of the Campanile drawing with the high! ee A oS SS EET RECESS AE TES‘oped proto-orthography of ancient Egypt, 09 well preserved on a drawing board of around 14008C row in the Britihh Museum (Fig. 8), reveals not only greater reliance on outline in the Egyptian ‘example and the compensatory flattening of the figure across the shoulders, preparing it for re- embodiment in the fosilized compressed form of a bas-relief, but also reliance on a manual activity the sculptor’s chisel cutting straight into the face of the cubic stone on which the profile was to be inscribed ~ to make the projectors tangible. Prior to the abstractions of orthographic projection, projectors could be kept in mind through the thoroughly physical realization given them in the fabricat of relief and sculptures.” Another choice presents itself: two quite diff cent possibilities attendant on the use of archi twa nible in the Campanile drawing, It could drawing are dive rest on the simple and primitive expedient of assuming near equi valence between the surface of the drawing and the mural surface it represents. Through the miracle of the tat pl \e, Kines transfer with alacrity fom paper to stone and the wall becomes a petrified drawing, inscribed or embossed to lesser or greater degree. Much, this ancien identity remains with us to this day carried, through lassicism, into the professional pastime we call implying depth. To imply depth within a solid three-dimensional body is to conceive of it as being made up of flat surfaces modulated within a thin layer yet giving the impression of being much deeper: It is to attempt to ‘make virtual space and real space at one and the same time and in a sophisticated idea utilizing simple technical ie (Fig. 9) the mneans. In Palladio’s sketch of the S. Petroni close alignment (but not quite identity) between drawing and building is at once obvious, This is the kind of architecture so much fascinated Alberti: a massive, monumental architecturceungemicred fin the etiolated, red bodiless clements of “line and angles which comprise and form the re made through drawing and made of the same species f ilusion as is to be found in ar ing, For into its patterns of lines ting we project, by a well-und a deeper space. And in just buildings of Alb ino and Palladio, borne project mante, Raphael Giuli same absorbing reflex of overdetermination, the illusions of drawing, I feel as uuncomfortabl depth, which has become one of architecture's bboleths, as T do when wearing someone elses suit. It is nevertheless n do so, if onl point out how the pursuit of this partic led architectural vision by keeping it restricted within he confine disdain, In fact they wereresponsible for establishing the drawing asa viable medium, allow ing the architect to spill his imagination onto it, sure in the know. his reassurance of sufficient affini Only with d ween paper and wall could the drawing have become the locus of the archi tect’s activity and then apable of al orbing all his attention: ing his ideas into buildings without undue disfigurement. Sill if its advantage was the ease of translation, its disadvantage stemmed from the same source: too close likeness, too cautious a tion of frontalities, aison, too much bound up in the elabo 1 seeing outside the drawing technique, his ima may seem obvious that only whe fighting this tenden 5 ahove the confines of the medium, can an architect create fully embodied three-dimensional forms, Obvious it most seems, because everyone believes it to be true. It is also demon: strably fake, I come now to the second possibility attendant on the use of parallel projection. The arrurance and relative precision ively determined in with which the splayed surfaces were pre the Campanile drawing indicates that the draughtsman did not need to imprison forms within orthography. Although he corres pondence of frontal surface and sheet was still dominant, there is at least a hint that through the rigour of the technique, not despite it, the representerl surfaces might prise themselves from the surface of representation, floating free from their captivity in paper ~ no, attempts at vivid phrasing can do so much damage. Rigorous pro- jection does not free anything, not in the sense of emancipation, Things are just made more manipulable within the scope of the drawing. For any material object to obtain freedom is for its handler to kc control of it, and that does not happen Think of a 3 of paper sprouting thousands of imaginary corthogonals from its surface. In conventional architectural dravs of the drawing mnal drawing, they are often identified with the direction incision into the stone of more recently, with the direction © mulkiplied layering in ser What if they were longer and more abstract? Would it strain the architect’s power of visualization? Would it endanger his cont Would it jeopardize translation: The next example I would like to consider involves one detail of small buil De Orme, a truly fasci ing by Philibert de POrm ating subject, did more to wrest orthographic proj the predominantly painterly usage of earlier practitioners (Pier Raphael, perhaps Giotto] than anyone, and his work deserves bet ter elucidation than Tam able to give it in this article of the argument, however, this one incident will hav In the dome of the Royal Chapel at Anet,a chateau west of Pari enlarged for Diane de Poitiers by de Orme after 1547, can be seen a net of lines, not exactly ribs and not exactly coffers, neither spiral nor radial (Fig. 10). They are nevertheless laid out and carve ies, hard at first with unusual precision. Mi nee anne accessible to vision, Most noticeable of all is the continuous rib thicknesses and angles of intersection a pansion of lozeng ‘The effect is of a coherent diffusion and enlargement or, co ersely, of concentration, remoteness and rotary acceleration towards the lantern, There has never been anything quite lke nd, although there are similarly patterned apse heads (as in the 173Bed ie Tiowreas Avera) ae the Temple of Venus in Ron pavements (as in Michelangelo's Campidoglio pavement, possibly gh not laa till nich later), which de ?Orme -e, While all designed in 1538, tho could have known about, there is one crucial diff hese others-were determined metrically, de YOrme’s was deter mined projectively. We know this because he tells us so spherique, laguelle Pay fie faite en la Chapelle du chasteau d'Annet Prune, & {& perpendicule, desus le plan & pavé de ladicte Chappell sis that the pattern in This statement f Aner Words are such powesfial shin 4s. More interesting than whether it was a hoas or not is wh mne noticed the difference. And far more interesting than is the method he did use to derive the crisscrossing curves under ‘One reason it was not recognized is that all the drawings manifestly incorrect, unable always to transfer dome, or even the pattern of the floor, without gros ne (Fig. 11), though the rest of each of the drawi petent." Yet a look at the patterns in the dome and on the floor of ding would be enough t convince anyone of th impossibility of de 'Orme’s claim. Simply count the number of ctions along one of the eighteen longitudinal lines ofthe dome, and then count the number of intersections along a cor responding radius on the fioar, In the dome there are eight, on the floor six. This alone is conclusive proof that no parallel projection ‘could map the one into the other. De YOrme’s deception was of a Ho peculiar and uncharacteristic sort, because he wa ng far more than he owned to, not les Another aspect of the difficulty of see fugitive character of our third term, the drawing, and its virtual ab vence from our account of the making of architecture, Invok I shall now ery to reconstruct the procedure adopted by de ’'Ormi for mak Put out of mind, for the moment, the floor, and look only at the First, notice how the curved ribs approach the oculus ring around it (in fact the stone wreath around the oculus overlaps th e ® @ telines of tangency ace postoctipt at the end of this article) ‘Then notice how the returning ends of the same loops, as they descend, meet at points along the equator of the dome (obscured by the comice in the photograph). We may then think of the network a made up of eighteen identical teardrop-shaped rings eccentrically laced on the surface of the hemispheres as if spun round its ver ical axis. These are obviously complex, three-dimensional curves, neither circular nor elliptical. The most useful clue so far is in the fact that they make closed loops. How could these complex curves, be defined on the spherical surface with such precision? It was ot through the expedient of dividing the hemisphere iteell into igs of Jatitude and lines of longitude and then interpolating di are adopted, as far as L yes ~ the proced can tell, by every other architect faced with a similar problem ~ as no handy gradation of latitudes could have procured tangenc around the oculus. On the other hand, de POrme possessed an un: ecture, pethaps uniquely vivid compre h of projective relations, ert ect ence an de UArchitecuse that he published in 15672” packed with abstruse stereotomic diagrams involving projections of nameless exoti ccarvatures. One of the remarkable features of these is that eve last one has its origin in a circle. But, as the circles psed, longated), ramped then projected onto cones, cylinders or spheres at glancing angles, they metamorphose into thoroughly plastic olatile shapes, commensurable only through the procedure of projection itsell’ This is the other significant clue Is there, then, a format of circles on a plane surface that wou through parallel projection onto a. hemispher form a nest of teardrops with the requisite number of intersections? The answer is yes, and it carns out to be the si rangement; an annular envelope of circles (Fig, 12). This annula K circles within the envelope would produce, under projection + closed curve, but of quite dllerent shape. The easiest wayswisage this isto think of the cirele as the base of a cylinder (the ides of the cylinder being the projector lines) which cuts through the hemisphere whilst touchi pede," looks nothing like the cirele from which it has Jthough the number of intersections stays the same, neither do the original ensemble of circles resemble their projected translation on the dome, The envelope of circles on the plane can be seen to have an unfortunate appe the annular ring limply stumped in a distribution tha he a of the ome, and it fails conspicuously to register the accelerating contraction towards the inner ring so pronounced above. So, rather ce of didactic evidence on the flo than dutifully deposit Orme tinkered with -spanded it and then clipped off its outer rim ut it ciently like the system of intersections to ook ‘which it had given shape (Fi de VOrme, in the end, the d precedence over the desire to demonstrate the rigorous method through which the visible difference had been achieved. ‘The hhoive to eclipse his own cleverness by marring equivalence between the two patterns is all the more poignant, given his insufferable tendency to brag elsewhere in the To This is an interesting discovery, because it shows the geometric ‘comparison with its much more wonderful product. Parallel pro- | and did it by an ingenious, regulated distortion of a shape by common consent, and by de Orme himself in hi tertings on architecture, as perfect to start with: the circle: Happy results do not of course occur under guaran ne drawing technique, also requiring, as they do, an inquisitive mind, a ve strong presentiment of the sense within forms, together with a Slons. This ability was penetrating ability to visualize spatial rela loubtless erthanced hy the practice of projective geometry, but not purchased with it, Stl, it would be as erude to insist on the archi tecr’s unfettered imagination as the true source of forms, as it sould to portray the drawing technique alone as the fount of for nal invention, The point is that the imagination and the technique jorked well together, the one enl forms in question ~ and there are many more, not only in de VOrme’s work, but in. French architecture through to the end of the eighteenth century ~ could not have arisen other than thi projection. A study of de POrme's use of parallel projection shows drawing expanding beyond the reach of unaided in This, the was architectural drawing in a new mode, more abstract in appearance, more penetrating in effect, capable of "more unsettling, less predictable interaction with the conventional ventory of forms of which monumental buildings are normally composed, destructive albu of smcivie proywstionality, the foun- ation of classical architecture (see below), and sug tive of a per erse epistemology in which ideas are not put in things by art, but released from them, Accordingly, to fabricate would be to make thought possible, not to delimit it by making things represent their wn origin (as tiresome a restriction in art asin social life The pattern of the dome ribs at Anet doe! nn be sketched out. Acker wea provenance. A ‘man, in his study of Michelangelo’s Campi und a medieval astronomical chatt in a similar pattern of twelve rings, indicating lunar revolutions during the course of a year. Its pos ible, though by no means certain, that an investigation of sources would reveal links between the solar and lunar charts, other am: ppidoglio pavement and Anet.* I might even div 11 informing symbolism that would explain the increased number of rings at Anet. Although this has not yet been Jone, let us assume that the quest for symbolic meaning would ve results. Where would this symbolism reside, if not in the envelope of circles, whic ‘expendable piece of formwork forthe transfigured phenomenon af the dome? Would we not be forved to concede, in the tances, that the symbolism was a mere ingredient, lost in form, no arvied in it? What comes out is not always the same as what goes in, Archi tecture has nevertheless been thou 2s an attempt at maxi n idea th Joss. This is the d held to be paradi matic throughout the classical period. It was held to in architectural fexs, but not always in architecture. The table thing about the working cchnique used by de POrme, which could only be written about from within the limits of archi tectural theory asa way of moving truth from here to thei the enchanting iwansfigurations it performed. Curiously, che pliae lity of forms was made possible by a homogenization of spa Orthographic projection isthe la translator's dream, With perfectly congruent formations anywhere else, yet this rigidly Icfined homogeneity made distortion measurable, It was this capa bility that de 'Orme exploited. Orthographic projection played its one of numerous techniques used by artists and architects to counteract the rampant instrumentality of essentialism,* which would have art be a form wulage, transporting incorporeal ideas into corporeal expres~ jons. And is an amusing irony in the prospect of the rigi bunch of spectral parallels along which Tines were pushed! in orthographic projection, disturbing the rigidly graded conceptual space through which ideas were pushed into thin The theme of this article is translation, and I am now talking about transportation, There are all those o Jentically prefixedtransposition, transubstantiation, transcendence, any of which ‘ule sit happily aver the blind spot between the draveing and its object, because we can never be quite certain, before the ever athe way. Wi how things will travel and what will happen to the may; though, like de 'Orme, try to take advantage of the situation by extending their journey, maintaining sufficient contol in transit so that more remote destinations may be reached. T retain this inane parable, as it gives some idea of what I believe to be thi ly unrecognized possibility within drawing, One infidelity like exotic, far does stand out, however: these destinations are r avvay places waiting to be discovered; they are merely potentialities hat might be brought into existence through a given medium, li jundity). Whatever But always standing in the way are the pieties of essentialism and persistence (the confusion of longevity with pr ‘modernism's much ventilared destructive achicvenscus, ic made no mark on these, In the region of drawing they operate either nn tence on a true and irreducible expressiveness, or in 1 that only pure jeometric forms or ratios be employed, As regards the last, numerous analyses have been published, the secrets of the world’s greatest works of architecture in the presence from the seventeenth century to the present day, divulgin of underlying proportions, Without denying either the presence of br the need for proportionality in architecture, attention might bi directed to certain misconceptio Not all proportionality reducible 10 ratio, yet iti » that it has been admitted into architectural theory. A ratio is a comparison between atio can be made sensible in architecture; the answer leads back to fila sheet like Lord North filled a chair: squarely: And it has to bea sheet of paper with no tucks or folds, and it has to be viewed feontally, otherwise th proportionality degenerates. The less Euclidean the plane, oF the more oblique the Nevertheless, as long as the surface of the building ma tity with the sheet of paper, proportional ratios may be transferred with little loss. The very architects who used thi proximate identity to such advantage, from Alberti co Pal and la were preoccupied with establishing a canon of pr portions, They were also keenly aware of the dangers that lurke in the third dimension, ready to degrade the beauty constructed so painstakingly in the flat But, although this was a perplexing ount of value give difficulty it was in accord with the entropic a ntialism, T in the doctrine of esse as were supposed to degrade J from idea to object. It was a difficulty easy t To judge from the nostalgic and at the same time do Daracter of much twentieth-century literature on architectural proportion, all that has been well and truly ‘ost’ is any sense of th intrinsic limitation of the idea, one remarkable demonstration of this regained innocence being the analysis supplied by Macila Ghyka of Helen Will's face (0 in the golden ratio. The analysis is not of the rotund, undulatin sve that her beauty was founded fe calla face, but of quite another su folded, punctured surf face, onto which the face was fattened by the process of photo graphy (Fig. 14). [present this as an inverted parody of de !'Orme procedure at Anet, The existing, alluring, complex curvature of Will's face is projected through a camera lens onto a flat surfacupon which i then inscribed an unprepossessing visor of lin 1d and work backwards, and you get the spun fretwork in the Anet chapel dome, In Ghyka's analysis, basic plane geometry ended up as a foundation; at Anct it was just the beginning, De TOrme’s was not th nly way; there were others, equally ficacious. A study of other projects that ruptured the equivalence betwee Borromini’s S, Carlo alle Quattro Jrawing and build Fontane or Le Corbusier's Ronchamp ~ would show architects working quite differently though perhaps, in both instances, more in accord with our prejudice that architects of genius (the horse tormented by its bridle, the caged lion, to use Borromini’s bestial images of himself” must wrest themselves free from the restriction of geometrical drawing rather than use it. While I bi rent with this point of view per git has left us insensitive eo the potency that has existed ~ stil exists ~ in the precision of th ing, which is also capable of disengaging architecture from same stolid conformities of shape, propriety and essence, but from within the medium normally used to enforce them Ts paint which shows the frenetic and messy current advertisements: a TV commercial for household Glaswegian artist whose studio is all he while being painted spot- less white by a meticulous, imperturbable decorator; a newspaper ad for the Youth Opportunities Programme that shows lout ing ‘Spurs’ onto a wall, later transfigured into a white-coated ap- prentice painting a trim litle namepl Here isthe absurd public prejudice in favour of neatness: neatmess as a sign of civilization. There is a counter-prejudice, a reaction, a expiation no less limiting, reall, which operates in favour of the unpremeditated and unregulated as signs of art and feeling Neither will do, Yet there is something about the way people work It would be possible, I think, to write a history of Western archi: tecture that would have litle to do with either style or signification,POSTSCRIPT article before visiting Anet and seeing the dome ani floor of the chapel, It seems to be as I described it, with the ex- ception of one detail which had escaped my notice in the photo gwaphs available to me. After my return, another photograph ~ ont that I had taken — showed this up. It is easier to dis n projective relations between two such surfaces in photographs than in the milding itself, where they cannot both be held in view at the same ime, and it is only the recollection of apparent similarity that carries the idea of their relation within the building. (Given the lifculty of direct comparison, de !Orme’s modification of pre jective equivalence to make the two surfaces look more alike is all the more effective and all the more artful.) The anomaly in my account of the chapel dome concerns the relation of the eighteen ribs looping round the lantern ring, I had thought that they pass across the edge of the lantern ring tangentially —and seen from the floor they give every appearance of doing so ~ but they do not. In fact th litle antern ring ay into the edge of the pattern of intersections, eliminating the final circle of half lozenges. Evi dently this was another of de !Orme’s modifications of projective " does include his part of the pattern, It is possible that this fication had less to do with the forging of apparent likeness between dome and floor than with the technical difficulty of utting such acute angles in the more friable stone of the dome L Weschler F Name of te Thing One Si Berk Michael Baxandal, Git ond eC 0 Ty. Cath, Tr nage ofthe Pople London, 1873} o enington Callge, Verme ind Keaus’s'Seulpture in the Expanded Bel, Oso 8 (1979) a in Kaus, The Ovi of he At Carded Ot Mode th Bote, 198 (Others might inchide Waker de Maris, Robcst Irwin, Gordon Mata-Clak, Don ere Smithion, Michael Heer, Christo, Robert Moris, Dan Flavin, DeWain Valentine, Maro Mere John Aten, Sarah Bradpiece, Da ings ome do but how they we thems and wl. Ave all the question so wh tothe thing represents: Many of the works of the arts ste, which vericand appara vdieo drawing ect oe ee ibe derlonedi ved Sin is rates Tiong in architectural schoo Thins re or instance, of Kay Larson otherwise excelent review of Tuell Whitney etrospecive in Art Fram Janacy 1981, pp 30 1 am conscious of how sinilar my desctpson io Barbara Haskell description ‘Las, another of Tarells installations, which appeared in tit Ane, Ma 1981, pp. 999. Thnew of Haskell arte beore Isa Turells work frm instalation diferent but found I ould not do sot any eflec. This er on indication of my indebiedness o Barbara Haskell. I may als indicate an Suzan Boctge, dt Firm, September 1984, pp. 11 Pliny the Elder, Nata se para 151, See ako K. JoeB Ede Pliny Caen the tr of Art Lodo, 1896), The story sinters was recorded by Pliny aso the origi Of wodlingDihoutade father, Poster aerward ling in the outline ofthe head with clay to make a eliSchikat paoing i encaracerce win he oe. Adtough a dour 9 FF 1 tn det Porat the ious rin whi Pliny cache sacl ing th gps Tak Naban fo aa Gahan by Jc vom Sanat, TET. Schnklaen 8 bb Bacchi £0 an, 1 eee ‘gravte (Bern, 1981, cata 1 207s, p. 267; and Reber drasring (M. Tracinenberg, T+ Ganp ¢ ¢ x Town, “The Origin of Ping st Be, De. 1297 ps2 York, 171 pp 2 ibe ae ty Latha one We geste aie Fie eer as irate ee ee wee ja is (Lenco, 1979) pp. 117-25. “Thee are ele the rod. Sex Ervin Pact “Th Hidery the They of i hanes, human oF bins drawings of rer ere tetiestPchicran se uty otra at Shion dig ek ene or 4 Aitelon kaso be mace es a estate LBAbe df chic UO Satan aN preene he acapao (an te tae och ea : eet 22, ELH, G (London, 1972), parti especially “Th G1. Toone, "Cus ley in Diary of Sie Big, tel by ibis a Giles sel pp 186K and Claud Pec, kr d dln Ram Geyer ee Air toa OGRE SUL eu Ge hehe Soe peril Vat att hao ake er he ope at Ach seals of Do Gi, GaAs an, 1969), pp, 824, Clos nrc reve Fanchesnctned in onary econ ad frag by tl means eee caer a 0 pel’ De'Orm, Le rn Te de Arie : alg atthe Celene a melatieuae Hana T 24, ‘The mot comprehensive recent work onde TOrme i Anthony Bhi hk Bo mpeg cs eee eee Ber eres Orme (London, 1958). Blunt nc andl ac the projec ation in eee vnamiroren Ie ereig that ihe wary of te igo Greek pore alo incaded i Me: - ; - Pin ivery similar otha of the origin of drawing Tel of Thales ing th one beri a eo ale a ett 1 dat prope, hich he proceed to demons and expan ig ae ape rtdioctia clof atnox Bee Te Gee Re eae tenn a pavement fects in the dome could quite easly be viualized from joining the tops of the verticals with the ends of their shadows em he ground, Bose a insula ber of aba ines, Ths Inpecpon The peripeave section publ by de VOrme hime prin, te most Bnei oA Went eel stage pater falhough sere sone vain ofthis which dos ince dhe paver York, 1989) pp 2223; and Mitel Sees, Mathematics and Picropy Wh Je dravings of the chapel by de Orie survive, The pl pub’ by Thales Sawn Hes akinoe, 18D), pp. -5 Andou Cerca in Za ps exes bint de Fes, 2 (Paris 1607 (One the ies carp fh peal inthe Oper de Duo in Sen x cenving of the Siena Bapinery facade made fou 187, probably by a ofthe parm The pon Eom dhe survey pabael by Ruope Po is 1s Domenic Agana The d a se wis dep om area ofthe ' ; raphe projection, Se ohn Whe, and date i ay 1250-100 Mg Chen i rely 1) al syne ch eeintersection inthe dome flo contend tothe pater as construc tnbuted ois ue of icin the chapel 27 Blunt note he ngenions natu ofthe cfferng pater, ts departure 81. This interpretation accor with he decreased muniber of intenections 1a method of eomparmenting domes using lines of la svement Mor important accor wth the morphology ef the paver ses sees Ent guy ry He wre scey the lozenges ate broadest in the me ofthe annular ng and faten poison the oculs two great cick are dea, iki som th towards the inner and outer ri, The paca sbi by increasing the ac rato separated fom ton ground plan b Biase ofthe cides and extending the eater im ofthe envelope, plas only i of th 10" Wat Bln dda o giv a description of Cerca’ pan of ginal eight rings of lozenges onto the alae for space. "The fact ha he nem ith i shacen pars of branches, not eightec, calling eats grat ci fourth and fit ings of lovenges aurtere frm the ceuus outa) ae th ‘es and nox taking ino account the supcrtnposion of the lantern pln in the same proportion, while the sb (outermost) ving i woteably Racer a hoe of the dome (ret crs could notin any ase meet twice an ake the Hoe pater look more lke the expansive dome pte, bat th spherical surface ules both intersections were on he rm. Se Blt, ss, pp rojectng hm the Hore xs te lower rim ofthe dome i ern $9442, For) own imeaigation have wae a rude photogrammetry, with view, obscuting mich of the lowest in of leenges and making its obser photographs of the dare and for from the Conway Library Couranld I densiy even more nearly equivalent to tha ofthe oo Sister ati 9, 16M 1900p, 7004, The mci ry hai 82, De YOrme, Freie Time p. $8. Yet de VOrme wis nowhere near insistent on ot fulproof uti is probably adequate, Certainly i gives Gar more rein ‘ i geht Oo ae results than could be obtained frm exiting drawing. 6 aes died a wre wh Hot of eq ng and 64 Jore § Actrmen, Th dnbitts of Midegl (Harmoncraihy 108 in thi arte, tom W. Jara, Preis Crom Regula (Norember however tha al the spain dbgonats atte om the pols At Ane this kindof instrumentality tat comes wth posts Tha they may ormay no do. ses compleelyempy of cies. Ase neti von alo gives the pat fc would inst that they bring with them othe Kind of instantly and tem of Michetngelos Campldogio pavement, An oval constructed with major ther artes of aibjecton just as unsveury Iwona that oly oe ‘ive sce parts along the perimeter an eat mater Radi wee ined 35, Thus Albert who had done more than anyone te propagate knowledge ofp limos enval pars Joining hee together produced a spiders web of conczn tectne (Te Ten Bals on Arcee (1955, p the entving cent val acts rl lines Alternating diagonals within dhe network produced proportion is inevitable distortion bythe ye and its practical ‘adjustment! to 19 DePOrme’s teretomy requires separate study His was the rt publication of by numerous authors Claude Pera gave a brit though highly ei h maintained a distinct pretence in Pench architecture w unt of ca iu the eighteenth century and was systematically taught well no the nin Pars, 168 teeth, See J-M. Péroute de Montlos, Andie la Frnaie (ars, 198 acd by ph James (Lond, 1708) Masa Gia, Le Nomd¢Or (Pa 5 and plates 18-2 37. Joseph Connors, Borin ané he Ran Cnt Boston, 1978.3. Connors 30. The hippopede he ew cares athe tha the cl nd he cn ure on S Cato at the Architectural Asean in 1982 was very nor 3, that was well tabbed in-anciem Greek geomet, is propetic shout Borromin's we of drawing 22 ving been ivenigted bythe mathematician Eadowa in the fourth century : HC, See Ca Boyes, A Hizuy of Mathai {New York, 1968, p. 102 1 an Sere arte Lie celen a Comment i Te eae anoth the cures and cei open question whether thi ws known to de TOrme and, iit was Jersecions in the dome fate corespand tothe pater as consmiced tbe his wie fin the chapel dome 27. Blut noted the ingenious natare ofthe coleving pattern, departure from the BL. This interpretation accord withthe decreased mumtber of intersting on she tuual method of compartmenting domes ung line of latte and longinde prvement. More importa accords with the morphology ofthe paement eee reo ee cen peas acpi lozenges. In the envelope of czles Ihave proposed asthe bat ofthe dome sion his own account wen qi ary. He wrote: "though each of dhe 16) tracery the lozenges are broadest in the mide of the anlar rng and aca otis on the oul fo peat kr ae daw inking i with to pnts oa the ‘oveard the inner and outer rns The pavements bu, by iereing the radon equator separated from it on ground plan by what appears (© bean angle of ofthe ices and extending the outer rm ofthe envelope, plot only six of the What Blunt da wae o give a description of du Geteeav'splan ofthe pve orignal eight rings of eeges ont the val lor spe. ‘The fact that the Ener (sil te py Se beck ne eighteen ling th wr gre cr fourth and ith rings of laeages(umbered rom the oculs ouwa) ace the let and not taking into account the superimposition of the lantern pln in the same proportion, while the si loutermio) ring is noticeably fatter and err ere eeet ee ecia adored nin ‘comparable in proportion othe thie ring, appr thi conjecture, since this psig In other words he wae descnbing part of a drawing of the Hot, ot th ‘aatly the property of the fil eight-ing envelope of curves Not only does thie ‘hole of the dome (gest cic could et in ay cate meet ice om hemi make the Noor pattem lok more lite the expansive dome pattern, but dhe spherical surfice unless bth intersections were on the in) See Bhat, sp Projecting cornice below the dame cut the lower rim ofthe dene ite frm 38442, For my oun investigations I have used a crude photogrammetry, wih ve, obscuring meh of the lowest ring of snes and making it observable ha oe fom the Conway Library, Courtauld fo Aes oe ce naey equivalent to tha ofthe oor a te re oa state, ain Cory Lif 16 May 198, pp 7024 The method in my hand, - DeTOrme, Pia Ten, p $5, Yet de YOrme was nowhere near as insert tipo py aeats Cey ge rte ah the perfection ofthe ere as other steenh-cetiry wres on architecture, resus than could be ciained ro esting drawing referring to concentrate his praise o the Fre ofthe eo 2, 1 a epee is vide i tener globe, wih lines of equal engi and : James S. Ackerman, The Aehitte f Aidlayee (Harmondswoeh, 1985) lade and the diagonals rejoined, a pater of this ype emerge ce Fig 1 Bee eee bo to Richard Paterson in this article, fromm W. Jantar, Pet Coram Reza (Nuremiber, 156 tae Cope AM sadn ein he egret at ASE 24, Is nw ellen taken for granted that ial and esentalian sew fom the esos fat lieseiadiig aagoral rnbeicbas Wepeke AARC ‘ind of instrumental that comes wth postin. This hey may may not do, Sr seed zee Se heap oti chin st pes a pe But I would ins that they bring with them ote kinds of inseurentliy and aed minor acs of egal length made the dao of each ofthe four component ads of instantly are nsavoury ures ino ax equal parts along the perimeter an ary mater. Radi wee joined 35, Thus Albert, who had done more han anyone to prpagate know.edge of pe to these fom th centre ofthe val, an then these ail were hemsehes ded spocive in his bool on painting acewed kof ciordon i bis book on an cal crs radia line. Alcnatng diagonal wih the network pred th Proportion its eviabedorton by the ee and its practi ‘adjustment 28, De Orme sterotomy requis separate cy His wa the fit pullicaon of ‘oy mumerous authors. Clade Ferra gov brillant though high erica a spe Ss A on a Sak i ee count of both proportion and adjustment in Oa ding ces de Cao msi ee ett Sto ates areal bes ae a Pats 18) Teo tied, by ohn Janes Ln, 176) cemh. See J-M. Peruse de Montco, LAr dla Fags (Pris, 182 96, Matila Cha, Nombre d'Or (Pais, 931), p. 55 and plates 18-20 parts and 3, especialy pp 0-9 ” 31. Jneph Connor, Beni nd Ronan Ota (Beton, 1978) p. 3 Comme 3. The hippopede was one ofthe few curve, other than the cre and the con ecu on . Carlo atthe Architectural Asociaton in 1982 wa ery inormati sections, at was welleabited in ancient Greck geometry it proper our Borris se f devin York, 1968, Gao, Lipa compl rca (Mila, 1967), pp. 108-9 BC. See Cat Boyes Hit of Math