UnformedDrawing

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contribution to this shared eld of knowledge isextremely valuable but learning from other disci-plines is of equal importance. If this drawinglanguage is easily accessible, how can architectureuse it and further develop it in order to communi-cate itself better to wider audiences? Notes,sketches and diagrams constitute a relativelysimple and less coded system of representationthat recognises the role of the reader / viewer inthe architectural discourse, facilitates dialogue andis open to participation and change.

One year later, in 2005, the architectural exhibitionHerzog & de Meuron: An Exhibition at the TateModern, London, celebrated what Jacques Herzogcalls the waste products of a thought process. 3

The display aimed to show how a thinking processbecomes architectural material. It included dozensof working models, mock-ups at various scales, andbuilding samples. The majority of the exhibits weresketches in three-dimensions, architectural thoughtin its purest and less representational form. The audi-ence, coming from a wide background, seemed

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Unformed drawing:notes, sketches, and

diagramsYeoryia Manolopoulou

Figure 1. Notebook III,35 / 36. On Film: thecollapsing walls of theroom. (Drawing by the

author.)


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content and engaged, perhaps understanding betterwhat an architectural process implies.

Unformed drawingNotes, sketches, and diagrams in mixed combi-nations make what we can call incomplete orunformed drawing. An unformed drawing can bea short record made to help memory, an observationquickly expressed in visual or linguistic form, athought at the impulse of creation, a suggestionfor something to be researched further, a freeillustration of something spontaneously imagined,

a drawing of a seemingly insignicant detail, a pro-posal for future writing or drawing. Most impor-tantly the unformed drawing is alive andchangeable. It forms questions as much as answers.

With the aid of notes, sketches and diagrams welink the abstract world with the material world anddevelop architectural ideas in the form of texts,drawings, objects and buildings. But the unformeddrawing does not attempt to illustrate reality in theway a picture does and should not be seen as directlyrepresenting the geometrical or measurable attri-butes of objects. Surely we can use notes, sketches

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The Journalof ArchitectureVolume 10Number 5

Figure 2. House F:sketch 19. (Project byAY Architects. Drawingby the author.)


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their signicance and articulation is far morecomplex than the surrealist automatic techniques.

MarcelDuchamps workis a goodexample. It offerscomplex artistic, philosophical and mathematicalconcepts that extend beyond the visual substance ofhis work. These ideas were formulated in manuscriptnotes, sketches and diagrams made on any availablepiece of paper. Duchamp carefully reproduced themin the Box of 1914, the Green Box published in1934, and the White Box ( A linnitif ) published in1966. 7 Referring to his Large Glass (191523) andthe Green Box , he wrote: the two elements, glass

for the eyes, text for the ears and understanding,were to have complemented each other, and aboveall prevented each other from assuming either aplastic-aesthetic or a literaryform. 8 Can architecturebenet from a similar intersection of the materialmedium and the realm of language?

Traditional architectural representation attemptsto describe reality uniformly and consistently: usingunfailingly the conventions of a particular projectionsystem, the same drawing scale, uniform detail leveland so on. On the contrary, the unformed drawingmay be inconsistent in these respects. Because of

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Figure 4. Notebook IV01 / 02. The differencebetween what I see andwhat I draw, linked with

Jacques Lacans schemaof the eye and thegaze and MarcelDuchamps Large Glas(Drawing by theauthor.)


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their inconsistent and composite nature, notes,diagrams, sketches, and their combinations, areperhaps closer than the formal architectural

drawing to giving us an idea about the complexityof space, how it is perceived, remembered and ima-gined. Perception is not a clear window onto realitybut a complex constructive act. It is informed by asum of physiological, psychological and culturalfacts, linking vision with language in curious andunpredictable ways. Similarly the unformeddrawing is not always consistent and does notoffer singular interpretations. It combines languageand picture elements and might be paralleled withthe way in which perception actually works.

Intuition and knowledgeUnformed drawings are highly intuitive. Althoughintuition is difcult to grasp, its value in the creativeprocess should not be ignored. Intuition directs theimagination beyond previous learning and consciousreasoning to unexpected associations. In this sense asketch might evoke confusion but might also stir theimagination. Sketching is not an arbitrary pictorialprocess but a mechanism that assists the possibilityof seeing something new emerging within theunknown and the indeterminate. It is charged withscientic curiosity and the search for knowledge.Important here is Henri Poincare s belief that intui-tion invents whereas logic proves. He writes:

We believe that in our reasonings we no longerappeal to intuition; the philosophers will tell usthis is an illusion. Pure logic could never lead usto anything but tautologies; it could createnothing new; not from it alone can any scienceissue. In one sense these philosophers are right;

to make arithmetic, as to make geometry, or tomake any science, something else than purelogic is necessary. To designate this something

else we have no word other than intuition .9

Increased possibilitiesThe architects of the practice Coop Himmelblautranslate the graphic attributes of a sketch straightinto the structure and appearance of a building.They begin their designs through extra quick acts(deliberately using fast body gestures, quickdrawing, and model-making techniques), whichthey then capriciously enlarge into buildingforms. Although this is problematic, as it is an only

formal operation detracting from the full potentialof the unformed drawing, what is interesting isthe speed with which they work. The speed isimperative because it reduces conscious controland elaboration, and encourages spontaneity, mis-takes and accidents that can be meaningful. CoopHimmelblau name these techniques psychogramsand the resulting architecture open architecture.While they claim their projects emerge like afeeling rather than a building form, most architectsprefer to justify design choices with an objectivereasoning that downplays the function of instinct.A large component of architectural theory and prac-tice, for example, from Leon Battista Alberti to LeCorbusier, has been based on systems of proportionrooted in Euclidean geometry. These attempt to limitthe choice of shapes, dimensions and ratios whicharchitects might choose from the theoretically in-nite range open to them. In this sense, they aim toreduce randomness and restrict choice. Contrarily,projects that take good advantage of sketching

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naturally encourage an increase in choice andrandomness.

As CAD drawings and digital imaging now domi-

nate design processes, notes, sketches and diagramsare among the few valuable intuitive tools we stilluse outside the computer. As unrened rawmaterial, the unformed drawing has characteristicsthat are difcult to adapt to computers: rst,because it favours instinctive and less controllablemanners of working, secondly because it is notlimited to xed lists of choicessuch as theCAD software palettesand it, therefore, offersincreased possibilities.

On the other hand the role of the diagram in

architecture seems to be diminishing. AnthonyVidler writes that the diagram usually takes a sec-ondary place in architectural practice and wordslike diagrammatic tend to have negative connota-tions. 10 Yet during the last decade or so thediagram has become fashionable. For example, thepractice UN Studio uses diagrams in order to trans-late movement, statistical and economical mappingsof activities straight into built form. Peter Eisenman,on the other hand, sees diagrams on a graphicrather than functional level without addressingspatial or material relationships. Vidler writes thatRem Koolhaas and Bernard Tschumi offer a moreconvincing use of the diagram since their diagramsnot only pregure their buildings but incorporatetheir qualities. 11 However, I would argue thatKoolhaas and Tschumi still reduce the role of thediagram to a representational tool of xed architec-tural form and function. The diagram can stronglyinuence design decisions but it is not an authoritar-ian and xed sign. It is instead a process that

develops and changes along with our architecturalthinking. The diagram is not a representationalobject: it is not prior or subordinate to the building

and it functions best when it operates independentlyfrom the building process.

Uncertain and incompleteAlthough most unformed drawing is not concernedwith aesthetics, it often has a particular texture.While we should not overvalue the graphic eleganceof scribbles, we, likewise, should not undervalue it.The casual appearance of notes disguises their con-ceptual signicance. But they can be as important asthe nal presentations of projects. Accidents and

mistakes, the minutest slips, the random eetingof inconsistent ideas, the errors and doubts ofnote-making are signicant aspects of the creativeprocess that should not be neglected. The processof architectural thinking is as important as thenished product because it opens new possibilities.

Notebooks can trace the history and the uncer-tainties of the creative process. For the uninvolvedreader the cloudy information contained in note-books is hard to comprehend. Yet this informationis not fully controllable by its author either.Unformed drawings are indeed open to variableinterpretation more than any other elaboratemedium of expression. So open are they that oftenthey confuse both authors and readers.

Unformed drawings are not conclusive. They areopen to change. 12 Their process can be paralleledwith the construction and life of the building. Thebuilding process and use can be less or more xed,depending on how much the architect allows forparticipation, exibility and change. Notes, sketches

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and diagrams play an important productive rolehere: when used overtly, allowing for doubt, collab-oration and change they aid the development and

communication of an unformed architecture. Anunformed architecture recognises itself as incom-plete because a number of factors, such as designand construction teams, users, nature and chance,are responsible for its creation.

Unexpressed imaginationIn the process of creation, our intention is an ambig-uous desire which we constantly pursue but cannotexpress fully. Captured perhaps in a sketch, our pureintention remains unexpressed and invisible even at

the end of the work. Our passage from the imagined(intention) to the expressed (realisation) is a missinglink. Duchamp denes this phenomenon as the artcoefcient:

[There] . . . is a difference between the intentionand its realisation, a difference which the artist isnot aware of . . . in the chain of reactions accom-panying the creative act, a link is missing. This gapwhich represents the inability of the artist toexpress fully his intention; this differencebetween what he intended to realise and didrealise, is the personal coefcient contained inthe work. In other words, the personal art coef-cient is like an arithmetic relation between theunexpressed but intended and the unintentionallyexpressed. 13

This relationship haunts architecture on all fronts:architects, engineers, builders and inhabitants tryto fulll their desires but cannot always. The gapbetween the intended idea and its possible realis-ations is at the heart of human creativity. Thankfully

we cannot eliminate it, as we do not fully control thepassage of our imagination to its manifestation.

AcknowledgementThis article derives from a research project entitledTechniques of Indeterminacy in the Process ofArchitectural Design which was funded by theUKs Arts and Humanities Research Council(AHRC). An earlier version was presented at theCongress CATH 2004.

Note on guresThe notebook pages I include are not aimed atexplaining the different projects behind them.

Their role is simply to visualise the materiality andaesthetic of one kind of unformed drawing,representative of a personal way of working ratherthan of the diversity of ways of using notebooks.

Notes and references1. The works were selected by David Hockney and Allen

Jones.2. Allen Jones, Royal Academy Illustrated 2004 (London,

Royal Academy of Arts, 2004), p. 8.3. Jacques Herzog, quoted in Sheena Wagstaff, Herzog

& de Meuron: An Exhibition, exhibition leaet, 2005,unpaginated.

4. Andre Breton, quoted in Edward Lucie-Smith, Move-ments in Art since 1945: Issues and Concepts(London, Thames and Hudson, 1995), p. 33.

5. For several artistic expressions of the twentieth century(including action painting, music and performanceimprovisation) automatism has been an importantcreative factor. Jackson Pollock, Jean Tinguely,Cy Twombly, John Cage, Merce Cunningham andTerry Riley are some of the artists who have considered

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the advantages of automatism, many through improvi-sation and collaborative work.

6. Rosalind E. Krauss, The Optical Unconscious(Cambridge, MIT Press, 1993), p. 284. A laterversion of automatism in strong reference to thehorizontality of its support can be found inPollocks work.

7. In addition, a group of 289 notes was published post-humously (Marcel Duchamp, Notes , trans. PaulMatisse, Paris, Centre National dArt et de CultureGeorges Pompidou, 1980) increasing the number ofDuchamps notes to 476.

8. Extract from Duchamps letter to Jean Suquet. Quotedin Pierre Cabanne, Duchamp & Co. (Paris, Finest SA/Editions Pierre Terrail, 1977), pp. 13235.

9. Henri Poincare , quoted in Craig E. Adcock,Marcel Duchamps Notes from the Large Glass: An

N-Dimensional Analysis (Ann Arbor, UMI ResearchPress, 1983), p. 144.

10. Anthony Vidler, Diagrams of Utopia in Catherine deZegher and Mark Wigley, eds, The Activist Drawing:Retracing Situationist Architectures from ConstantsNew Babylon to Beyond (New York, The DrawingCenter, and Cambridge, MIT Press, 2001), p. 84.

11. Ibid., p. 90.12. In their most elaborate version, unformed drawings

become scores, time-based drawings similar to nota-tional systems used in music and performances. Some-times scores are used as limiting and determinatesystems. But used overtly, allowing for change, theycan be very useful mechanisms in design.

13. Duchamp, quoted in Harriett Ann Watts, Chance: APerspective on Dada (Ann Arbor, UMI Research Press,1980), pp. 4041.

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UnformedDrawing