Eleven Exercises in the Art of Architectural Drawing

This book deals with the critical nature and crucial role of architectural drawings. A manual which is essentially not a manual; it is an elucidation of an elegant manner for practising architecture. Organized around eleven exercises, the book does not emphasize speed, nor incorporate many timesaving tricks typical of drawing books, but rather proposes a slow, meditative process for construing drawings and for drawing constructing thoughts. This is an indispensable reference text and an effective textbook for students seeking to advance their appreciation of the nature and exercise of architectural drawings.

Marco Frascari is Professor of Architecture at Carleton University, Canada. He studied and worked with Carlo Scarpa at IUAV and received his PhD in Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania. He taught for several years at the University of Pennsylvania, and as Visiting Professor at Columbia and Harvard. He then became a G. Truman Ward Professor of Architecture at Virginia Tech and is currently director of the David Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism in Ottawa, Canada.

Preface 1. Architectural Iconoclasm 2. The Cosmopoiesis of Architectural Drawings 3. Festina Lente 4. Drawings as Loci for Thought 5. The Pregnancy of Drawings 6. Nullo die sine linea 7. Architectural Consciousness 8. Architectural Brouillons: Work Intended to be Recopied 9. Cosmopoiesis and Elegant Drawings 10. Traces and Architecture 11. Tools for Architectural Thinking 12. Disegnare Designare 13. The Light of Drawing Imagination 14. Cosmopoiesis and World-Making. Postface