Architects' Sketchbooks

Drawing by hand is making a big comeback. Tired of ubiquitous slick computer renderings that look the same the world over, architects are rediscovering the importance of this very basic, immediate medium: seeing the world and recasting it through their imagination and visual and manual skill. The resurgence of drawing is not merely a retrograde trend, but an affirmation of the continued importance of sketching as part of the design process. Architects' Sketchbooks is the first survey to present pages from the private sketchbooks of a wide international spectrum of architects, who use drawing to express their spatial ideas while revealing their unique thought processes. Sketches from some 85 architects and studios are featured, including Will Alsop, Architects Atelier Ryo Abe, Shigeru Ban, Elemental, Thom Faulders, Norman Foster, Carlos Jiménez, Alessandro Mendini and Office dA. Their works range from simple line drawings and clear perspectives to more abstract, artistic compositions, from quick freehand to measured mapping, from spontaneous squiggles on scrap paper to careful drawings on art paper. Accompanying texts by editor Will Jones include comments by the architects and profile how they use sketches to help evolve their initial inspirations and concepts into more developed ideas, revealing the artistry behind the built world.