Drawing by hand is making a big comeback. Tired of ubiquitous slick computer renderings that look the same the world over, architects are rediscovering the importance of this very basic, immediate medium: seeing the world and recasting it through their imagination and visual and manual skill. The resurgence of drawing is not merely a retrograde trend, but an affirmation of the continued importance of sketching as part of the design process. Architects' Sketchbooks is the first survey to present pages from the private sketchbooks of a wide international spectrum of architects, who use drawing to express their spatial ideas while revealing their unique thought processes. Sketches from some 85 architects and studios are featured, including Will Alsop, Architects Atelier Ryo Abe, Shigeru Ban, Elemental, Thom Faulders, Norman Foster, Carlos Jiménez, Alessandro Mendini and Office dA. Their works range from simple line drawings and clear perspectives to more abstract, artistic compositions, from quick freehand to measured mapping, from spontaneous squiggles on scrap paper to careful drawings on art paper. Accompanying texts by editor Will Jones include comments by the architects and profile how they use sketches to help evolve their initial inspirations and concepts into more developed ideas, revealing the artistry behind the built world.
Featured image is reproduced from Architects' Sketchbooks.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
ArchNewsNow
Norman Weinstein
A delightful substantiation of Frascari's ideas arrives in an anthology of sketches by 85 architects collected by Will Jones in The Architect's Sketchbook (Metropolis Books, 2011). Here's eye-candy as brain-candy; coffee-table book as a door into creative playground graffiti of a serious order. From the crazed comic designs conceived by M15 Arquitectos to the unnervingly precise and photo-realistic pencil drawings of interiors of Peter Clash, there's more invention and more humanism, more room for enticing puzzling, in these informal sketches than you'll find on a bookshelf of glossy architectural journals filled with BIM bling. A book for all ages, for professionals and the merely curious.
A Daily Dose of Architecture
John Hill
Ultimately this book is loads of eye candy and inspiration for architects, just not the type we're used to seeing online and in magazines. Enthusiasts of architecture may find interest in the imagery, but the stunning level of diversity makes the book especially appealing for architects who can appreciate the sketches as a means towards completed buildings and as artistic expressions in their own right.
STATUS: Out of stock indefinitely.
FROM THE BOOK
"Here’s eye-candy as brain-candy; coffee-table book as a door into creative playground graffiti of a serious order. From the crazed comic designs conceived by M15 Arquitectos to the unnervingly precise and photo-realistic pencil drawings of interiors of Peter Clash, there’s more invention and more humanism, more room for enticing puzzling, in these informal sketches than you’ll find on a bookshelf of glossy architectural journals filled with BIM bling. A book for all ages, for professionals and the merely curious."
In his introduction to Architects' Sketchbooks, Metropolis Books' stunning new collection of drawings, paintings and models by 85 architects from around the world, editor Will Jones writes, "Where do architects get their inspiration? What does that first stroke of pencil on paper look like? And how do they embark on the monumental task of turning a sketch into a skyscraper? Architects' Sketchbooks provides the reader, or perhaps we should say viewer, with a rare glimpse of the first inklings of the individual creative processes – the blood, sweat and pencil lead – that go into designing the world we live in." All sketches and quotations below are reproduced from the book. continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 11.75 x 8.75 in. / 352 pgs / 500 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $49.95 LIST PRICE: CANADA $67.5 ISBN: 9781935202462 PUBLISHER: Metropolis Books AVAILABLE: 1/31/2011 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of stock indefinitely AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: NA ONLY
Published by Metropolis Books. Text by Will Jones. Foreword by Narinder Sagoo.
Drawing by hand is making a big comeback. Tired of ubiquitous slick computer renderings that look the same the world over, architects are rediscovering the importance of this very basic, immediate medium: seeing the world and recasting it through their imagination and visual and manual skill. The resurgence of drawing is not merely a retrograde trend, but an affirmation of the continued importance of sketching as part of the design process. Architects' Sketchbooks is the first survey to present pages from the private sketchbooks of a wide international spectrum of architects, who use drawing to express their spatial ideas while revealing their unique thought processes. Sketches from some 85 architects and studios are featured, including Will Alsop, Architects Atelier Ryo Abe, Shigeru Ban, Elemental, Thom Faulders, Norman Foster, Carlos Jiménez, Alessandro Mendini and Office dA. Their works range from simple line drawings and clear perspectives to more abstract, artistic compositions, from quick freehand to measured mapping, from spontaneous squiggles on scrap paper to careful drawings on art paper. Accompanying texts by editor Will Jones include comments by the architects and profile how they use sketches to help evolve their initial inspirations and concepts into more developed ideas, revealing the artistry behind the built world.
