Fetish
L:
Yeah, we struggled to accept that drawing is more than a doodle, that it is a methodology that can generate and become a design. There was this step of letting go and channelling these ideas. We would come to tutorials and show each other work and “post-rationalise” but we started to question this. Maybe we weren’t post-rationalising, maybe we were actually explaining the drawing! Just because we weren’t following predetermined ideas doesn’t mean it wasn’t thought through...
L:
E: Exactly! After all, the doodle/drawing was from our mind, so how could it not be ‘thought’? It was the act of letting go that kick-started our projects - the drawing became a catalyst, integrating design and research almost subconsciously. Not one determining the other - more a simultaneous collaboration. I remember Toby [our tutor] saying “you don’t have to have the answer before the drawing.”
Wise wise words! E:
L: I think this is relevant, as drawing can be seen as a compromise in architecture, we fetishise the drawing too much perhaps and this can underestimate the value that the drawing holds. There is this conundrum that if we aim to create pretty images does this reduce the substance because it’s pretty, or is that the skill of the architect to create something beautiful with substance?
We had a great a chat one Tuesday, where I think we both came to the realisation that it was ok to produce images with the sole aim of beauty. We were discussing the common criticism of architectural education - the fetishised ‘pretty image’ and its supposed lack of substance … E: That’s a good point - beauty and substance in architecture is a massive conundrum, and one worthy of a longer conversation than this article can hold, I think! Though my friend in undergraduate once said to me “if they are looking at the measurements of your stairs, you’ve done something wrong”.
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