This month's review concentrates on the skill and craft of illustration as a tool to imagine interiors, architecture and film worlds. However, as opposed to illustrations by production designers, this post explores drawings made by directors, architects, interior designers and cartoonists - a fresh take on the creative process that flows from eye to hand.
DRAWING INTO FILM: DIRECTORS DRAWINGS (Pace Gallery, 1993)
This catalog from a 1993 Pace Gallery exhibition features the sketches and drawings of well-known directors, including Sergei Eisenstein, Orson Welles, David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, Federico Fellini, Tim Burton, John Huston, and Terry Gilliam. Made in preparation of some of their most famous films, they show a surprising range in form and function—from Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull fight sequence storyboards and Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice character sketches to David Lynch’s surreal Dune landscapes. A fantastic source of visual inspiration.
To buy the book go to Amazon.
THE ILLUSTRATED ROOM (Vilma Barr, 1997)
An overview of 20th-century commercial and residential interior design as it is presented in renderings, drawing, sketches and CAD depictions. Divided by decade, the book presents the work of well-known designers and illustrators in a wide variety of projects - from residential rooms to offices, lobbies, hotels, restaurants, retail stores, museums, schools and institutions. It also explores the development of illustration style and the advent of computer illustrations throughout the century.
To buy the book go to Amazon.
DRAWING: The Motive Force of Architecture (Sir Peter Cook, 2nd edition 2014)
Established Architect Peter Cook writes about the creative and inventive significance of drawing for architecture. The book features some of the greatest and most intriguing drawings by architects ranging from Frank Lloyd Wright, William Heath Robinson, Le Corbusier and Otto Wagner to Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Arata Isozaki, Eric Owen Moss, Bernard Tschumi and Lebbeus Woods; as well as key works by Cook and other members of the original Archigram group.
For this new edition, Cook provides a substantial new chapter that charts the speed at which the trajectory of drawing is moving. It reflects the increasing sophistication of available software and also the ways in which ‘hand drawing’ and the ‘digital’ are being eclipsed by new hybrids – injecting drawing with a fresh momentum.
To purchase the book visit Amazon.
WALK THE LINE (Uncube Magazine No. 42)
Uncube was an award-winning digital magazine for architecture, founded in 2012 in Berlin, Germany. Its 43 monthly issues were dedicated to specific themes, among them the edition called "Walk The Line" which concentrated on the art of drawing.
Among the features are interviews with architects and illustrators, portfolios of architecture firms and essays about the drawing process.
Read the digital edition here.
Browse other uncube magazine issues here.
GERALD SCARFE: STAGE AND SCREEN (House of Illustration, London, 22 Sept 2017 to 21 Jan 2018)
House of Illustration is the UK’s only public gallery dedicated to illustration and the graphic arts. Founded in 2014, it exists to champion, celebrate and explore illustration in all its forms, placing it at the heart of contemporary visual culture.
This fall the venue features the first major exhibition of production designs by celebrated political cartoonist Gerald Scarfe. A rare opportunity to explore extensive but little-known production designs, with storyboards, costumes and props from Pink Floyd’s The Wall, Disney’s Hercules and English National Ballet’s The Nutcracker.
For more information about the exhibition visit the House of Illustration's website
DRAWING AMBIENCE: Alvin Boyarsky and the Architectural Association
(Tchoban Foundation Berlin, till Sept. 24th)
The exhibition highlights the collection of drawings assembled by the late Alvin Boyarsky when he was the chairman of the Architectural Association (AA) in London, the United Kingdom’s oldest independent architectural school. Boyarsky argued that architecture was not only a profession but also an artistic venture—a practice that comprises drawing and publication as much as it engages design and construction. During his time leading the school, from 1971 till 1990, he orchestrated an ambitious exhibition and publication program, that situated drawing as not only a representational tool, but as a form of architecture in its own right.
The show and accompanying catalogue feature formative works by architects such as John Hejduk, Michael Webb, Daniel Libeskind, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas and Bernard Tschumi. The exhibition explores not only Boyarsky’s role as a collector of drawings but also, metaphorically speaking, collector of ideas and people that have come to define a key moment in architectural history. Moreover, its emphasis on the tactile and exploratory foreshadows the renewed interest—in our own digital age—in links between the hand and the imagination.
Buy the book here.
Visit the exhibition at the Tchoban Foundation.
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