Architecture 3rd Year Theory into Practice

Axonometric: Contextualisation and Dissection

An analysis of the different functions of the axonometric as a form of architectural representation, with reference to the work of Rafael Moneo .

Drawings such as these nourish the fantasy of being able to represent architecture - and therefore build itwith one all encompassing, definitive document.1

Rafael Moneo Discussing his axonometric drawings

This essay will examine the axonometric drawing, and my execution of this method of representation as a way of translating the theoretical aspects of my design into fully realised project. Specifically referencing the work Rafael Moneo, and two famous drawings completed during the course of his work on the Merida Museum of Roman Art. In these two drawings, the academic discourse around the axonometric as a mode of architectural representation is demonstrated. Traditionally they are a tool for structural dissection, a method of analysing elements of a building with the deliberate exclusion of others, demonstrated by Stan

Allen’s drawing.2 Conversely, as with Enrique de Teresa’s work, the axo can also be used as a tool for detailed 3-D contextualisation of a scheme. This discourse correlates directly with the theory of my own project for a Centre for Historic Preservation of France, which aims to change public perceptions of Notre Dame from that of an historical object, dissected from the life of the city, to a building fully reintegrated back into Paris’ urban context. Thus, I shall examine how the axo can be used to demonstrate this and also the means around the production of drawings and how this helps to translate architectural theory into practice.

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drawings that convey the sense that he is a doctor of architectural anatomy, dissecting the architectural organism to reveal its skeletal structure3

Richard Etlin - Discussing the method of Choisy

The first of Moneo’s axonometric drawings that I came across in my research is the worm-eye, drawn by famous architect and theorist Stan Allen, when he worked for Moneo as a draftsman. This drawing serves the purpose of demonstrating the spatial sequence and experience of the museum. The roman ruins are not included, but the drawing is from their perspective, looking up at new the building above, emphasising the unreal qualities of the axo. The drawing was intended also to emphasise the regimented series of arches that form the

museums structure and the way the multiple floors of the museum relate to these.4 Crucially though this drawing floats on the page, Moneo seeks to invoke the drawings of Auguste Choisy and his analysis of Roman buildings in the 19th century through axonometric drawings.5 This form of representation is noted as acting as a form of architectural dissection, the rest of the building and its surrounding context are not included.6 Instead, the drawing emphasises that the structure of the building, that being the Roman arch repurposed and reimagined by Moneo, is not only a

Stan Allen’s worms-eye Axonometric Drawing for the Merida Musuem. This drawing was created as the building neared completion, with display in mind.

Dissection

My initial Axonometric drawing of part of my scheme, this was drawn to help me clarify the the buildings structure, scale and spaces.

foremost element of the design structurally, but also its fundamental aesthetic characteristic.7

My own initial axonometric drawing, whilst not from the same worms-eye perspective conveyed similar meaning. The defining feature of my working axo is the buildings structure and tectonic qualities. The drawings isolation on the page, its dissociation from the context of the cathedral or the rest of the structure, mean that the viewer sees the building element portrayed as an object, floating in space, not part of a wider urban or architectural context. Whilst this technique greatly helped me to organise and understand my design, this process of dissection meant that I was making choices about my design without fully appreciating how they would respond to or affect the surrounding site and buildings. This drawing, whilst helpful as a design tool, thus encourages the architect to further objectify their work , and dissect it from the context that should be so crucial to informing design decisions . Moneo’s response to Allen’s work prompted a similar reaction, thus when an exhibition including these axos was curated, Moneo instructed Allen to cut the work

down, so that drawing bled to the edges of the page, thus implying the building continues beyond the page and grounding it more within its context.8

Auguste Choisy Drawing from L’art de batirchez les romains Choisy employed the wormseye viewpoint to convey the sense of standing in the space and looking up at the vaults. It is important to note that Choicy was an engineer by trade and this significantly informed his style of representation

Stan Allen’s axo drawn for the Merida Museum. 15cm were cut from the left side if the drawing

but in the end I believe it [the worms-eye axo] is simply inconsistent with Moneo’s realist orientation, which always wants to understand a work of architecture in its actual context.9

Stan

Allen

discussing his work for Rafael Moneo.

The limitations of the dissected axonometric led me to study the theory of Moneo’s second axo from the Merida museum, drawn by Enrique de Teresa. This drawing contrasts significantly with Allen’s work through several very different representation techniques. Firstly, the angle of the drawing is flatter, to achieve a more accurate approximation of how a person might see the building. The traditional overhead perspective is also more natural than the Worm-eye, which requires more thought to understand.10 Most significantly however, is the relationship the

Contextualisation

drawing has to the building’s immediate context. The ground is included, as is the street. These help to contextualise Moneo’s design decisions, we see how the basement is lit and access to it achieved, and how the exterior façade is angled to relate to the urban street-scape.11 Furthermore, the drawing bleeds to the edges of the paper, this is intentionally done to imply that the building exists beyond the confines of the page. Instead of acting as a tool for the dissection of specific qualities, here the axonometric drawing provides the viewer with the suggestion that

Enrique de Teresa’s Axonometric drawing for the Merida Museum.

This drawing was created before Allen’s, whilst aspects of the design were still being finalised

the building continues, that tectonic and material structure are closely related with elements of the site and surrounding space.12

Allen states he believes this approach to the axo falls in line with Moneo’s realist approach to architecture. He is not interested in objectifying his design, and elevating it towards a form of dissected artistic expression, instead he highlights that the architecture is a response to things beyond the confines of the walls designed by the architect.13 Many of Moneo’s other projects feature existing buildings or historic structures, and he regularly chooses an axo, with the relevant context included, as a form of representation.

As a direct consequence of this, I felt too that my own initial axo, was too removed from the relevant context of the Cathedral, Seine, Crypts and surrounding urban landscape. That as my design was so closely intertwined with the cathedral, when making design decisions, I should always seek to represent Notre Dame and use that to inform decisions more strictly. Where, in the previous axo I had chosen relavent but arbitrary dimensions and locations for building elements, in my second attempt I tried to relate elements of my design

Contextualisation

more closely to their context. This I feel makes better use of the axonometric as a mode of representation, because through it one can test and relate plan, section and elevation to existing structures all at once. Whilst my drawing is still very rough, I feel it enabled me to better visualise and relate spaces and forms to pre-existing structures.

Below: Another Axo by Moneo for Bankiter, Madrid 1976. This drawing also relates his design to existing historical elements on the site. In this case a palace.

Left: My second working axo, drawn to help establish how the new scaffold structure of the design might relate to the cathedral and its towers.

a drawing done genuinely in the spirit of working out an idea, with all the doubts, hesitations and uncertainties intact, will always be better than one done self-consciously, after the fact, to prove a point.14

Stan Allen discussing his work for Rafael Moneo.

As discussed, the axonometric drawing, and the manner in which architecture is depicted through this form of representation has significant bearings on my own project. However, not only are Moneo’s methods of representation highly significant to my project, to help translate the core theory of my design onto paper. But so too is the manner in which he executes this representation. Crucially, Allen notes that whilst he worked for Moneo, working drawings created as part of the process of realising the design were seldom

redrawn for presentation to contractors or clients. That it was Moneo’s belief that the tares in the tracing paper, construction lines, smudges and rubber marks were all intrinsic to the creation of the drawing and thus the architecture. That the client should be able to see and appreciate the skill and effort that went into creating the drawing.15

This ethos is one that resonates particularly strongly with my own theories around design, as well as with my intentions for what the Centre for Preservation will try to achieve. Where normally the final

Production

restored building is the goal of restoration, for my project I intend to create a scheme which elevates the process of restoration to the same height as the completed building. I wish to demonstrate that the skill and craft involved in creating or recreating historic architecture, is just as worthy of praise and adoration as the finished product. To this end, Moneo’s honesty about the creation and representation of architecture, is just as crucial to me as the methods by which he represents. That a combination of both the contextualised axonometric drawing as a form of representation, and the process by which that representation is achieved will be implemented in my project to accurately translate the theory of my design into practice.

Left: The amputated left side of Allen’s drawing, which maintains construction lines and tares

Endnotes

1 Rafael Moneo, Rafael Moneo: Remarks on 21 Works, ed. Laura Martinez Guerenu (London: Thames Hudson, 2010), p.115.

2 Helen Thomas, Drawing Architecture (London: Phaidon Press, 2018), p.151.

3 Richard Etlin, ‘Auguste Choisy’s Anatomy of Architecture’ in Auguste Choisy (1841-1909): L’Architecture et l’art de batir. Actas del Simposio Internacional celebrado en Madrid, ed. Javier Giron and Santiago Huerta (Madrid: Instituto Juan de Herrera, 2009), p.154

4 Helen Thomas, Drawing Architecture, p.150.

5 Francisci de Gonzalez Canales and Nicholas Ray, Rafael Moneo: Drawing, Teaching Writing, (Yale University Press: 2015), p. 131.

6 Richard Etlin, ‘Auguste Choisy’, p.154.

7 Rafael Moneo, Remarks on 21 Works, p.116.

8 Stan Allen, ‘Stan Allen on drawing with Rafael Moneo, Madrid 1984’, Drawing Matter, (14th March 2019) <https://www.drawingmatter.org/sets/drawing-week/stan-allen/> [Accessed 14th February 2020].

9 Stan Allen, ‘Drawing with Moneo’, Drawing Matter (2019).

10 Stan Allen, ‘Drawing with Moneo’, Drawing Matter (2019).

11 Rafael Moneo, Remarks on 21 Works, p.115.

12 Stan Allen, ‘Drawing with Moneo’, Drawing Matter (2019).

13 Stan Allen, ‘Drawing with Moneo’, Drawing Matter (2019).

14 Stan Allen, ‘Drawing with Moneo’, Drawing Matter (2019).

15 Stan Allen, ‘Drawing with Moneo’, Drawing Matter (2019).

Illustrations

Page 8-9:

Stan Allen and Rafael Moneo, ‘Merida Museum Worms-eye Axonometric’, Drawing Matter, September 1980, <https://www.drawingmatter.org/sets/drawing-week/stan-allen/> [Accessed 17th February 2020].

Page 10:

Drawn by Author

Page 11:

Auguste Choisy, ‘Palatin’, L’art de batirchez les romains, 1873, <https://www.tumblr.com/search/auguste%20 choisy> [Accessed 17th February 2020].

Stan Allen and Rafael Moneo, ‘Merida Museum Worms-eye Axonometric, Cropped Version’, Drawing Matter, September 1980, <https://www.drawingmatter.org/sets/drawing-week/stan-allen/> [Accessed 17th February 2020].

Page 14-15:

Enrique de Teresa and Rafael Moneo, ‘Merida Museum Axonometric Drawing’, Drawing Matter, September 1980, <https://www.drawingmatter.org/sets/drawing-week/stan-allen/> [Accessed 17th February 2020].

Page 16:

Drawn by Author

Page 17:

Rafael Moneo, ‘Bankiter, Madrid. Axonometric Drawing.’,1976 <https://i.pinimg.com/474x/21/f0/ee/ 21f0ee85d342775e1ec693f160990422.jpg > [Accessed 17th February 2020].

Page 21: Stan Allen and Rafael Moneo, ‘Merida Museum Worms-eye Axonometric, Cropped Left Corner’, Drawing Matter, September 1980, <https://www.drawingmatter.org/sets/drawing-week/stan-allen/> [Accessed 17th February 2020].

Bibliography

Allen, Stan., ‘Stan Allen on drawing with Rafael Moneo, Madrid 1984’, Drawing Matter, (14th March 2019) <https://www.drawingmatter.org/sets/drawing-week/stan-allen/> [Accessed 14th February 2020].

Allen, Stan., Introduction: Practice vs Project in Practice: Architecture, Technique and Representation, (London; New York: Routledge, 2009).

Etlin, Richard., ‘Auguste Choisy’s Anatomy of Architecture’ in Auguste Choisy (1841-1909): L’Architecture et l’art de batir. Actas del Simposio Internacional celebrado en Madrid, ed. Javier Giron and Santiago Huerta (Madrid: Instituto Juan de Herrera, 2009), pp. 151-181.

De Gonzalez Canales, Francisco and Nicholas Ray, Rafael Moneo: Writing, Teaching, Drawing,(Yale University Press, 2015).

Holl, Steven and others, Pamphlet Architecture 1-10, ed by. Clare Jacobson, (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998).

Holl, Steven and other, Pamphlet Architecture 11-20, (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2011).

Lucas, Raymond., ‘Inscriptive Practice as Gesture’, in Drawing Futures: Speculations in Contemporary Drawing Art and Architecture, (London: UCL Press, 2016).

Moneo, Jose Rafael. Rafael Moneo: On 21 Works, ed. by Laura Martinez Guerenu, (London: Thames & Hudson, 2010).

Schank Smith, Kendra. Architects’ Sketches: Dialogue and Design, (Oxford: Architectural Press, 2008).

Thomas, Helen. Drawing Architecture, (London: Phaidon Press, 2018).