Symposia Spring 2012

Is Drawing Dead?

Thursday–Saturday February 9–11, 2012
Since the early Renaissance the defining act of architecture has been the production of drawings. Originating within the site-bound paradigm of ancient and medieval building practice, architecture as a distinct professional and intellectual endeavor emerged from a newfound ability to define and depict form, space, material, and structure. As conventions of scale, measure, projection, and perspective were developed and sharpened, drawing not only became a tool for creative ideation but also offered designers the potential for control and authorship of the process with patrons, builders, and larger audiences.

Over time, drawing practice proved sufficiently stable and flexible to remain the architect’s primary instrument of investigation and expression. However, as the promise of digital technology is increasingly fulfilled by sophisticated methodologies, such as parametric modeling, computational design, digital design and fabrication, and Building Information Management (BIM), drawing has come under stress and become ill-defined and moribund. Developments over the past decade have challenged a practice that has flourished for a half millennium leading one to ask: Is drawing dead?

For some, the current moment is one of crisis. The proliferation of digital tools has radically changed the historic role of drawing, once the signature skill of the architectural profession. Drawing, and consequently, the entire architectural profession is withering while architects surrender creative agency to digital processes. Designers are demoted to information managers, and the seductive verisimilitude of digital rendering supplants critical reflection. This rapid transformation has led many, such as the Finnish architect and educator Juhani Pallasmaa, to call for “slowness” in face of the digitization of design.

Others see the moment as one of unparalleled opportunity. Digital design has matured through what Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the MIT Media Lab, has called the “accommodative” and “adaptive” phases of integration into conventional design processes. It is now on the brink of the “evolutionary” phase in which digital processes assist designers to advance the formal possibilities of building design while also altering conventional understanding of the process of design and construction through previously unimagined paradigms of conception, representation, and distribution.

Convened at this liminal moment, this symposium will explore drawing in all of its variants and its place in the making of architecture.

Thursday, February 9
Evening Session, 6:30 PM
Massimo Scolari Yale University
“Representations”

Friday, February 10
Afternoon Session, 2:00 PM

THE VOICE OF DRAWING: HISTORY, MEANING, AND RESISTANCE
Introduction
Victor Agran Yale University

Cammy Brothers University of Virginia
“Experience and Fantasy in Renaissance Drawing”
Deanna Petherbridge University of the Arts, London
“The Remains of Drawing”
Juhani Pallasmaa Architect
“Drawing with the Mind: Pen, Hand, Eye, and Brain”
Antoine Picon Harvard University
“A New Sensorium: Digital Culture and the Eclipse of Drawing”

Discussion Moderator
Jennifer Leung Yale University

Friday, February 10
Evening Session, 6:30 PM

KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Sir Peter Cook Royal Academy of Arts, London
“Real Is Only Halfway There”

Respondent
Stanislaus von Moos Yale University

Saturday, February 11
Morning Session, 9:30 AM

BURNING BRIDGES: QUESTIONING PRACTICE
Introduction
Turner Books Yale University

Julie Dorsey Yale University
“Exploring the Middle Ground between Sketch and Object”
Andrew Witt Gehry Technologies
“A Reverse History of Mechanized Drawing 2012–1900”
Patrik Schumacher Architect
“Medium and Form”
Casey Reas University of California, Los Angeles
“Conditional Drawing”
Marvin Chun Yale University
“How the Brain Conceives Space”

Discussion Moderator
Michael Young Yale University

Saturday, February 11
Afternoon Session, 2:00 PM

THE CRITICAL ACT
Introduction
George Knight Yale University

Preston Scott Cohen Harvard University
“Plan vs. Drawing”
Marion Weiss University of Pennsylvania
“Vanishing Points”
Greg Lynn Yale University
“Drawing into Medium”
Michael Graves Princeton University
“The Necessity for Drawing: Tangible Speculation”

Discussion Moderator
Sunil Bald Yale University

Concluding Address
Mario Carpo Yale University
“On the Opacity of Architectural Notations”

This symposium is supported by the J. Irwin Miller Endowment Fund. It is free, but reservations are required prior to January 27, 2012. You may register online Register Now or by phone at 203.432.8621.

The Yale School of Architecture is a Registered Provider with The American Institute of Architects Continuing Education System. Credit earned by attending this symposium will be reported to CES Records for AIA members. Certificates of Completion for non-AIA members are available upon request.