Sketching is not an Art – It’s an Exploration

Since I retired from the rat race of owning and managing my own architectural firm, I have never felt like more of an architect. Rather than constantly scrambling for the next project and worrying how I was going to continue to feed twenty families, I now have so much more time for more ideal pursuits. I can be a strong voice for architects now that I don’t have to worry about upsetting potential clients. I think that this blog demonstrates that commitment. And I don’t have to hesitate about calling out crap design or condescending post rationalization perpetrated by my fellow architects, although I understand how clients can wring every ounce of enthusiasm out of you with high expectations and low budgets.

Indeed, how underfunded design can lead to poor quality, unsustainable buildings needs to be revisited practically on a monthly basis. This a public policy problem, and a few architects are always more than eager to lower the bar even further, if that is at all possible. You know who you are.

But this post is about the exploration of architecture through the medium of sketching – and it’s for everyone – whether you are an architect and want to become a better one, or, as a layperson, you wish to explore the very notion of architectural composition.

I have been very fortunate to able to travel extensively in my life, accompanied by my long suffering life partner. In our younger years, the camera was an instrument of travel. Back then Kodachrome was everything. It created the record by which you could share the architecture of the world with your peers (and bore your family and friends to death). All you needed was a SLR and slide carrousel.

So it was that I came to accumulate boxes of trays of slides. You younger folk might have to do a bit of research here as admittedly, you may have no idea what I’m talking about. I had trays for Australia. Trays for Italy. Trays for Norway. Trays for Korea. And on and on.

And I admit that when it was clear that photography was going digital, I mourned for my (first obsolescent and eventually obsolete) collection.

Eventually I did go digital. And over time, the slide trays were relegated to an unused closet. Now I have CDs. A CD for Portugal. A CD for Ireland. A CD for Greece. You get the “picture”. Do I look at these? Hardly ever. And soon all that digital tech will be obsolete. The new-fangled laptop I am writing on doesn’t take CDs.

My enthusiasm to photographically record the architecture I have personally witnessed has waned considerably. So it was that when my wife and I went to Croatia for a few weeks I did not bother to take a camera (or a phone for that matter). Before we left I did a really crazy thing. I bought a sketch book and a package of four Staedtler permanent markers (pigment liners) of various widths. I packed these in my knapsack and off I went – fearlessly.

At this juncture I should confess that as an architect, I could never really draw for beans. I did cartographic drafting before I was admitted to architecture school and this tainted my entire career. I got through school building models – which I excelled at, but my drawings were, well, mechanical. There were kids in my class who could sketch out a bird’s eye view of Halifax in an hour. Such skill was beyond my grasp, perhaps even beyond my comprehension.

Are you still with me? I will get to the thrust of this post eventually.

So it was that in Split, Vis and Dubrovnik I found a few quiet places to marvel at the magnificent architecture Croatia has to offer. But I did not take a single photograph. Whenever I had the opportunity, I pulled out my sketchpad and attempted to draw that which I viewed. Sometimes, pressed for time this only amounted to a few scribbles. In fact, whenever I did not sketch, I programmed my brain to record and examine any given building as if I was committing it to paper.

What I experienced was somewhat of a watershed. It’s not that I did not know any better – I absorbed as much through two post-secondary design degrees. In fact, I knew throughout my entire career how to become a better architect by drawing. I simply didn’t have the time or inclination, and relied on other natural talents at my disposal.

So picture thousands and thousands of cruise ship tourists crowding the streets of now famous Croatian cities looking for the perfect selfie to post of Instagram. Dubrovnik’s city wall sees fifty thousand of them every day. And Diocletian’s Palace in Split sees another fifty thousand.

I could not care less about what it is they are after. It is a fleeting vanity.

But ask me about the architectural vocabulary of Croatia. I can speak to you of bell towers that morph from square plan to column arches to hexagon to hexagonal pyramid (topped with cross) as they proceed from base to top. I can speak to you how various planes of terra cotta roof tile (somehow) converge. I can speak to you of the stone quatrefoil and its recurrence throughout Dalmatia. Of elements borrowed from the Greeks and elements borrowed from the Venetians.

If I had simply photographed these things I would have no such architectural vocabulary. I could not relate the fitting together and juxtaposition of elements. And because I did not do this throughout my life, I now realize that the elemental vocabulary that I was working with was deficient. I regret this, but do not intend to dwell on it. I had success. But I know there are so many ways that I may have been better at my craft. This is only one of them.

Perhaps if I had had more time. Perhaps if I had had the presence of mind. Perhaps if I had simply lived in the moment – only for myself, and not for anyone else. Perhaps I needed to realize that the motivation and goal behind architectural sketching is not to create art, but to understand it. This is accentuated by using a pen or indelible marker. There are no mistakes to be erased. There is only someone else’s brilliance to try to capture.

I don’t design buildings anymore. However, my sketchbook and pens will never be far from my reach ever again. There is still so much to learn.

And if I ever get to regretting my poor sketching past – well – there’s always wine.