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    From the mid-90s, digital technologies have been transforming architectural practice. The accuracy, speed, and realism of digital drawing and rendering have dominated the discourse of architectural representation. After three decades since then, analog drawings have become almost obsolete in contemporary architectural practice. In strictly technical terms, architects no longer draw. To illuminate this state, in Signal. Image. Architecture., John May defines architectural drawing.

     

    "Architectural drawing" referred to acts of geometric gesturing, always aided by mechanical tools, always in some way mechanized, so that the gesture itself belonged to a geometrical synchronization between the hands and various externalized organs (straightedges, compasses,  squares, curvature templates). Even "freehand" drawing (sketching) always involved the becoming mechanical, through practice and repetition, of hand movements in relation to a tool. In both cases, gestures become predictable, regular, controlled, and approximately repeatable; their coordination is mechanistic.¹

     

    Architectural drawing is a “geometric storage format of orthographic age.” The orthographic age refers to a period in history when orthography, the conventional system of writing and drawing, was the dominant mode of representation. This system emerged with history as its character of recording and archiving produced a sense of linear time. On the other hand, "Images are data, and all imaging is, knowingly or not, an act of data processing." Images are intrinsically instantaneous as the data can be processed all at once at incomprehensible speed. He asserts that the orthographic age no longer exists as images have already pervaded the post-orthographic age, and we architects should understand our work as a part of a larger culture of imaging.² Based on his argument, digital drawing is an oxymoron. Using this term is evidence that we have been confused between drawing and image. The discussions have never been about analog drawing versus digital drawing. Those have always been about drawing versus image.

     

    However, even though we realize that we have been losing our drawing skills (if we have ever developed them properly) while occupied with looking at images on screens, is it inevitable to let the past be past and let the drawing be obsolete? Do we no longer need to draw? What are the meanings of architectural drawing if we refuse to lose it in this postorthographic age? Would the meanings make us dare to battle the contemporary world?

     

    Although we still think we draw calling images on screen drawings, we process images to communicate and store information most of the time in practice. However, for this reason, as crises oftentimes are opportunities, architectural drawing can be reborn. Although it is inherently orthographic, it can break from the conventions of architecture's orthographic past. It never had to be, and now no longer needs to be orthographic in the same ways. As Neil Spieler proclaims, "The drawing is dead; long live the drawing!"³ The drawing has future potential more than ever in this postorthographic age. However, to explore the potentialities, we first must learn from May's elucidation and rigorously distinguish between drawing and image, and by doing so, understand the benefits of drawing that image cannot offer. 

     

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    With these questions and thoughts in mind, I proposed architectural drawings about Art Omi, taking advantage of staying there during my residency. Conscious of my habitual reliance on digital tools and refraining from processing images, I intended to expand the realm of gestures of hands, the primary organ for the drawings. 

     

    The hands have neurological connections with the brain. Using the hands means thinking, and drawing is a thinking tool. The act of drawing makes us speculate. The connection between the hands and the brain allows for an exploratory drawing process. As Henri Focillon writes, "The mind rules over the hand; hand rules over mind,"⁴ the hand and the mind affect each other simultaneously through neurological activity in every single act of drawing. This reciprocity between hand and mind enables drawings to express and visualize emotions, moods, and motives. This emotional dimension of drawings unleashes the subconscious mind and discovers latent potentials, avoiding the reductive process that often confines drawings in the descriptive dimension. 

     

    In his book, The Craftsman, Richard Sennett emphasizes the essential quality of drawing, which computer-aided design is unable to offer. "The tactile, the relational, and the incomplete are physical experiences that occur in the act of drawing."⁵ When we process images with digital tools, we never feel this quality of drawing; we know it is impossible. He also introduces the work of John Ruskin, who he calls a passionate Victorian protest against mechanical dominations over manual craft work.

     

    In early trips to Italy, particularly to Venice, Ruskin found an unexpected beauty in its rough-hewn medieval buildings. The gargoyles, arched doorways, and windows hewn by stonemasons appealed to him⋯⋯. He drew these rough objects in the same spirits as he found them, beautifully evoking the irregularities of the stones of Venice in free-flowing lines on paper; by drawing, he discovered the pleasures of touch.
    Ruskin's writing is intensely personal; he draws ideas and precepts from his own sensations and experience, The appeal he made we might formulate today as "get in touch with your body." His prose at its best has an almost hypnotic tactile power, making the reader feel the damp moss on an old stone or see the dust in sunlit streets.⁶

     

    Ruskin's command still resonates, and once again, it urges us to draw in this domination of electronic images that have been disconnecting our minds from our hands. The architectural drawings hope to encourage us to liberate our hands from the keyboard, mouse, and constraints of technological interface and allow them to move freely to expand our capacity for deep thinking, imagination, and creativity.

     

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    During the two weeks of residency, I planned to work on two different types of drawings: a series of field sketches and an exploratory architectural drawing. And I continued to develop the latter after my residency.

     

    In the sculpture park at Art Omi, I created sketches every day, capturing specific moments by being present and fully engaged with the surroundings, using all available mediums and techniques to keep a pluralistic attitude. The park's intriguing sculptures, which interact with land, water, time, and other thought-provoking natural and artificial elements, became subjects for the sketches. Sketching is a way to practice seeing truly and deeply. A genuine act of seeing and full engagement is not simply a physical act but an observation with the mind, which fosters profound connections with the subjects and the place. The entire experience, ingrained in my mind, became a vivid memory that influenced the development of architectural drawing.

     

    In the studio, I began to work on the architectural drawing in conjunction with the field sketches; the drawing and the sketches informed and influenced each other. The sketching process instilled an idea that the place comprised natural (1. land, water / 2. flora, fauna) and artificial (3. sculptures / 4. structures, buildings) elements intertwined with its history, ecology, and culture. This idea had the drawing set up with four different layers utilizing various types of papers and materials, and it increased interactions among the drawn elements. Then, their material, formal, and spatial characteristics expanded and manifested on the drawing surfaces, revealing unforeseen relationships and stimulating my imagination. Even residues and leftovers from the acts of drawing, such as paper scraps with spontaneous marks and blots of materials, lingered around the drawing table and composed a series of unplanned drawings as a byproduct of the process, joining the force to expand the potentialities.

     

    In the drawing process, I often felt frozen in time. It was the full sense of time completely engaging in every act of drawing. New ideas kept on arising as the drawings developed over time. I needed to look at the drawings long enough to find something emerging. I felt that I always needed more time, yet at the same time, I have had enough. On the contrary, the sense of time is lost when real-time imaging dominates. Real-time is no time. Every idea requires time to be mature. Time constitutes a process. There is no true process without time. Through (non-real) time, the drawings remain speculative, continue to evolve, and begin to propose architectural interventions.

     

    4

     

    While working on the drawings and contemplating the process, artificial intelligence quickly became one of architecture's most often discussed subjects, as in all other disciplines. Now, the questions and concerns have shifted to whether images are authentic. Meanwhile, drawing has been completely forgotten. Indeed, ”everything is already an image," as the subtitle of May's book,Signal. Image. Architecture..

     

    Authenticity comes from human experiences. The drawings were derived from the combination of my experience at Art Omi: waking up at five in the morning when birds start chirping, encountering bunnies when walking out the door, watching cautious deer and other curious animals on the open fields, being mesmerized by countless bright stars in the clear night sky, and walking through the sculpture park observing and sitting down to sketch. The entire experience brought out strong emotions, feelings, and thoughts such as that I am a part of nature and its surroundings; everything is related, connected, and changing, and nothing is permanent; we all come and go, and our creations do as well; I could only experience particular moments in time and space. Into the experience that I could not control yet fully immerse myself, I allowed it to enter into the drawings. This entire experience has enhanced my sensibility in every act of drawing. The journey of discovery was possible through the connections between the hand and mind.

     

    Almost a hundred years have passed since Walter Benjamin asserted that the aura of original artwork cannot be reproduced. He also writes, "The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity."⁷ Now, we are so used to both mechanical and digital reproductions of original works through printing, photography, and imaging. Michael Young brilliantly elucidates digital reproductions in our time and states, "Instead of originals without auras, we have auras without originals.”⁸ As he explains, a data set copied(digitally reproduced) is not a visual image; the images appear uniquely on different display devices with various settings, resolutions, etc. But haven't all the outputs of mechanical reproductions been in similar technical situations, like photographs printed in varying sizes on different papers? Every reproduction can emanate a distinctive atmosphere. But when there is no original, there is no aura to be copied and no authenticity. Aura without authenticity is not the same aura that Benjamin referred to. We may need a new term for it. 

     

    As image processing feels so natural to us and has become an extended storage of our visual memory, these architectural drawings, like others, will appear mostly as images on screen unless seen in person or exhibited. However, the aura created through the unique experience in the drawing process will always remain with the physicality and materiality of the original drawings, and it will influence my future endeavors and, hopefully, others. Rather than getting almost lost in virtual sensations without originals, we all need to spend more time with real experience to create and feel auras that can protect us from the potential negative impact of artificial intelligence and all other forms of mental automation.

     

    In his book, Vita contemplativa: In Praise of Inactivity, Byung-Chul Han writes, "Festivals are an expression of abundant life; they are an intense form of life. In the festival, life refers to itself rather than pursuing aims outside of itself. It suspends action."⁹ Serene festivals occurred in the drawings suspended all disquieting, incessant, and inauthentic actions of data processing.

     

     

    • Notes

     

    1. John May, Signal. Image. Architecture. (Everything is Already an Image) (New York:Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, 2019), 43
    2. John May, Signal. Image. Architecture. (Everything is Already an Image) (New York:Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, 2019), 47, 60-70, 108
    3. Neil Spiller, Architectural Drawing Grasping for the Fifth Dimension from AD(Architectural Design), Drawing Architecture, September/October 2013 (London: John Wiley &Sons, 2013), 19
    4. Henri Focillon, The Life of Forms in Art, trans. Charles Beecher Hogan and George Kugler (New York:Zone Books, 1992), 184
    5. Richard Sennett, The Craftsman (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2008), 44
    6. Richard Sennett, The Craftsman (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2008), 109
    7. Walter Benjamin, Illumination, trans by Harry Zohn (Boston & New York: Mariner Books, 2019), 170
    8. Michael Young, Fear of the Mediated Image, from Cornell Journal of Architecture, Issue 11, Fear (Cornell AAP Publications, 2021), 156
    9. Byung-Chul Han, Vita contemplativa: In Praise of Inactivity, trans. Daniel Steuer (Cambridge: Polity, 2023), 77

     

     

    • Images

     

    1. Architectural Drawing in Four Layers, 2024-25, Graphite, charcoal, pastel, colored pencil, watercolor, spray paint, and tape on Korean paper, mylar, tracing paper, transparency film and fabric, 56x30 in. (142x76 cm)
    2. Field Sketches, 2004, Graphite, charcoal, pastel, colored pencil, watercolor on mixed media paper, set of 31, each 9x12 in. (22.9 x 30.5 cm)
    3. Presentation in the Studio Barn, 2024.6.16
    4. Sketching in the Sculpture Park, 2024.6.3 / Presentation Preparation, 2024.6.15 / Working Desk, 2024.6.10
    5. Residue Drawings, 2024-25, Graphite, charcoal, pastel, colored pencil, watercolor, spray paint, and tape on various paper, set of 24, each 9x12 in. (22.9 x 30.5 cm)

     

     

    • Acknowledgement

     

    I am very grateful to Julia van den Hout, Senior Architecture Curator and Residency Program Director, and Ruth Adams, Co-Executive Director at Art Omi, for creating an incredible residency program and working environment, and to Rita Soares-Kern, the residency chef, for cooking wonderful meals for us to stay energized.   

     

    I would also like to thank my fellow cohort of Art Omi: Architecture residency program, 2024, Ximena Ocampo Aguilar, Leen Katrib, Pablo Kobayashi, Onnis Luque, Immanuel Oni, Cyrus Peñarroyo, Sam Schuermann, Sebastián Trujillo-Torres, and Lily Chishan Wong, for inspiring conversations, discussions and suggestions, and sharing unique interests, energy and enthusiasm. 

     

    My appreciation also goes to all other Art Omi staff who helped us have a memorable time during the residency, to the board members and alumni who joined us for our final presentation and offered us insightful feedback, and to my dear friends, Noah and Jeenie for coming up to see my work with warm support and genuine interest. 

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