Master’s details. From hand-made drawing of the great masters to the digital drawing of Starchitects
From Florence University Press Journal: TECHNE
Giuseppe De Giovanni, Cesare Sposito, Università degli Studi di Palermo
Abstract
If in Architecture, the drawing «is not just a document that collects specific data and information, but it inevitably bears the imprint both of its author’s style and personality, and of the age and place in which he works» (Ackerman, 2003) the detail drawing reveals.
Architecture’s nature, its artifices, to know its components, to analyse them, to be able to understand and eventually modify or repair them. Franca Helg is of the same opinion when she underlines how «drawing is the specific instrument, the main instrument to create architecture: […] it already shows the first glimmer of an idea that then gradually becomes precise. It is defined. It takes form. […] Through drawing we define our own thoughts, we show our intentions to others, we control its formal aspect, we check its feasibility. The drawing includes the ensable and the detail» (Clemente, 2008).
Therefore, the drawing has the ability to transfer what our thought processes into vision, looking for possible technological and technical solutions to create an artifact or a product, including in its essence the technological culture (poiesis) that the designer has developed during his experience. An example of this evocative ability is to be found in the work of the designer Angelo Mangiarotti from Milan. In his long career, he has always drawn, believing that this practice represents the only tool for the first test of what constitutes the baggage of the material knowledge of Architecture for the designer. In fact, according to Mangiarotti, drawing does not only transmit an idea, but it must also bear parameters of formal, material, technical and historical correctness: «Drawings that acutely illustrate […] shapes and technical solutions found by reasoning on the characteristics of a material, deeply analysed time after time, radiographed, enjoying turning it inside down and understanding its quality but also identifying deficiencies and defects» (Finessi, 2002).
Today we are witnessing a change of paradigm in Architecture and a transformation of contemporary practice. The drawing is increasingly replaced by digital tools and the operators of the detailed design are increasingly specializing, by separating the roles between the designers of the form and detail engineers. In fact, in the modern practice, if Architecture’s main field of interest is the “social” purpose of a building, architects are mainly asked to give formal answers to the complex relations with its urban contexts, favouring well-structured geometries or «modulated curvatures and gradient transitions» (Schumacher, 2014) and delegating technical-executive developments to engineers or specialized operators
DOI: https://doi.org/10.13128/techne-7516
Read full text: https://oaj.fupress.net/index.php/techne/article/view/7516#authorInfoCollapse
