4. Drawing Ambience | Robin Evans | Translations from Drawing to Building | 1986 The article mainly talks about the transition process from drawing to building. Different artists will adopt different methods and different degrees of control for the transition process. The Robin uses James Turrell's work as an example to illustrate a point that "the drawing has intrinsic limitations of reference"1. Take his work the "Artificially Lit Room" as an example. Although from the architectural convention, his work is just shaping a simple space, but as an art installation, it brings more strong visual experience and effect about mystification. "Turrell’s installation are local and not transportable"1. That is to say: Turrell’s works can only be viewed by observers in person, and they cannot be fully conveyed to people by any other mediums. Neither the sketches before completion of the construction, nor the recording of photos or videos after completion of the construction can replace what people see and feel with their own eyes. As an art form, drawing itself also has different forms and various stages of expression with different levels of completion, such as sketch done quickly with pencil or charcoal, and painting done with gouache, watercolor, or oil color. When drawing is used as the production medium of architecture, it has more flexibility, because the level of completion does not need to be that high. In the process of building production, drawing is not the only medium. Physical model and any other digital works are also the various kinds of mediums before the completion of the building. Even the communication and negotiation are all these efforts that make up the gap between the drawing and building. Like the “Artificially Lit Room”, Turrell may have done countless lighting experiments, and these experiments themselves as the medium may be as important as the role of drawing. I really like Robin’s research about the transition process from drawing to any object it depicts. The process of transition is separated and studied “how things travel within it”1 and “what will happen to them on the way”1. And I also like I'Orme's explanation towards the relationship between the pattern in pavement and the pattern in the dome of the Royal Chapel. As the author said, we should "extend the journey"1, "maintain sufficient control”1 in transition, and finally reach more remote destinations. This reminds me of some research on the relationship between Chinese classical painting and space. Take the drawing “Along the River During the Qingming Festival” as an example. It mainly uses the scatter perspective which is different from the scientific view of the west painting.2 It uses an idealistic and suprarealistic way to display multiple spaces overlapping with the same volume to achieve the effect of parallel narration. Many architects also try to use this narrative perspective to show the space they have designed.3
1. Robin Evans, Translations from Drawing to Building. (Architectural Association School of Architecture, 1986). 2. Da Wei, Chinese Brushwork in Calligraphy and Painting. (New York, NY: Dover Publication, 1990). 3. Sullivan. The Birth of Landscape Painting in China. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1962).
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