Architect Drawings : A Selection of Sketches by World Famous Architects Through History

The political and economic climate of Italy in the cinquecento formed a stable and intellectual
society. The region of Tuscany had experienced growth in population accompanied
by economic prosperity. The government required literate representatives, and international
trade fostered an educated and cultured populace. These wealthy patricians became patrons
of the arts. The Catholic Church began a building program that continued to support artists
and architects for centuries (Allsopp, 1959; Benevolo, 1978; Wittkower, 1980).
With this wealth came a refined worldview. Development in goods and services, some
from around the world, encouraged expeditions between the continents, scientific exploration
of the heavens, discoveries concerning instruments for navigation and astronomy, the
printing press, and advancements in social reform. This period of relative enlightenment –
of humanism – emerged primarily in Europe (Wittkower, 1949). It was reflected in the East
with independent developments as well as reciprocal exchange of ideas.
In Italy, with a break from the perceived ‘dark ages,’ the emergence of humanism brought
the development of rational thought, which did not rely on strict Christian traditions. Still
deeply religious, these artists and architects interested in humanism viewed the sketch as a
direct vehicle of inspiration (Gordon, 1975). Richard Kearney describes how this was a
change from beliefs in the Middle Ages. He writes that medieval ‘imagination was essentially
interpreted as a mimetic activity – that is, as a secondhand reflection of some “original”
source of meaning which resides beyond man’ (1988, p. 115). Attitudes had changed celebrating
the individual and the power of reason during this period of rediscovered classical
civilization (Trachtenberg and Hyman, 1986). Leonardo da Vinci, for example, explored
nature with an empirical approach, and his curious mind engaged in speculation. This creativity
was human-inspired, rather than directed by God or a blatant imitation of nature.
Significance was attached to a work of art by credit being given to the artist or architect.
Independent of the communication of religion, the work of art could stand on its own – it
was no longer merely an extension of magic or ritual (Kris and Kurz, 1979).
This time period also initiated the academic tradition and the workshops prompting the
interdisciplinary practice of designo (Barasch, 1985). Designo can be described as the visual
expression that gives shape to an artistic concept. A definition by Renaissance biographer and
theoretician Giorgio Vasari from his 1568 Lives of the Artists describes the cognitive action of
a sketch as the physical manifestation of thinking: ‘[T]he Idea of perfect form comes to the
individual artist from experience and long practice; the ability to discern the Idea and then
the skill to represent it accurately are both essential for disegno’ (Currie, 1998, p. 138). The
concept of designo as interpreted by Aristotle referred to the actions anticipating the work of
art (Barzman, 2000). Vasari associated the concept with both drawing and theory, suggesting
that it developed from the intellect. Karen-edis Barzman equates disegno to the figures of
geometry, because it involves the abstraction of natural bodies revealing universal truths. In
this way, the connection to theory surfaces and consequently, the artist understands the
‘why’ of their art. These developments helped initiate the activity of sketching during the
Renaissance, but they represent only part of the story.
Discoveries and developments in science, the availability of paper and the desire to graphically
calculate geometry and proportions encouraged the architect’s hand pertaining to
architectural sketches. An attitude about science and philosophy spurred questioning among
learned people. Experiments such as those by Sir Isaac Newton in the fourteenth century
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