Experiments in Drawing Theory

The elective Experiments in Drawing Theory is a seminar, offered by the chair BordersenTerritories, in which the speculative power of drawing towards developing a reasoned architectural design approach is both discussed and experimented with. The course consists of the development of an individual drawing experiment, with seminar discussions. During the seminar sessions, the themes experiment, drawing and theory will be introduced and contextualized as a specific field of architectural research. The incredibly profound history of architectural drawing will be investigated through a series of case studies, though these are not exclusively linked to the architecture discipline but belong to the much broader field of creative disciplines.

During the seminars exercises, participants probe how specific means of representation relate to specific conceptions of space. Drawing is not only considered to be a technique, though this aspect should not be underestimated at the same time, it has a lucidity that is intrinsically connected to thought (teoria) as well. Drawing is an autonomous instrument of architectural knowledge, while it is also simultaneously simulacrum of reality and reality, memory and anticipation, subject and object. The individual assignments will consist of the production of one or a series of architectural drawings, positioning an innovative notational system and its performance.

The seminar course aims to approach this complex theoretical question about the specificity and un-specificity of drawing, herein intended both as a concept and instrument of innovative architectural thinking. In this present context, the focus is directed to the challenging of the convention governing a design approach and the definition of an alternative notational system of signs, rules, and techniques preceding the idea of the architectural object.