From the Renaissance to the current day, architects have made drawings for study and pleasure, to represent their projects, document their travels and supplement their income. Architects as Artists, a new exhibition at the V&A Museum in London, examines the relationship between architecture and art. From work by Raphael to a project by contemporary Brazilian architect Isay Weinfeld, the exhibition presents examples of the many ways in which architects use and create art.
Drawing on the collections of the V&A and RIBA, this display of about 50 works includes a pair of striking digital renderings for ‘A House for Essex’, a project between FAT Architecture and the artist Grayson Perry. These images sit alongside designs for an artist’s house by E.W. Godwin, a drawing by Raphael of the Pantheon in Rome, a lithograph by Cyril Power depicting the staircase of Russell Square tube station, a watercolour sketch by Hugh Casson, a drawing by Italian Futurist Virgilio Marchi and a volume of architecture fantasies by the Russian architect Iakov Chernikhov. Recent works including Tom Noonan’s depiction of the re-forestation of the Thames Estuary and drawings by William Burges, Augustus Pugin, Alfred Waterhouse and William Walcot are also featured in the show.
Architects as Artists considers how the ability to represent a building in two dimensions and communicate space has been fundamental to architects’ work since the Renaissance, when architecture first developed as an independent profession. It looks at the importance of experiencing historic architecture and how architects make drawings of buildings and landscapes to record their travel and improve their designs. The display also explores how architects create drawings for different audiences and how pictorial conventions are often adopted when communicating with a wider audience, showing how these ‘artistic’ images often bridge gaps in knowledge, ideas and perceptions.
Architects as Artists will run until March 15th 2015 at the V&A Museum in London.
Images from top to bottom: Image courtesy Ordinary Architecture Ltd; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; RIBA Library Drawings and Archives Collection; Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Rujana Rebernjak
