Right, Private Apartment, Turin, Italy 2016 Nataliya Eliseeva, Moscow, Russia
Part of the generation of architects who were trained to draw both by hand and with digital tools, Nalina Moses recently returned to hand drawing. Finding it to be direct, pleasurable, and intuitive, she wondered whether other architects felt the same way.
Single-Handedly is the result of this inquiry. An inspiring collection of 220 hand drawings by more than 40 emerging architects and well-known practitioners from around the world, the book explores the reasons they draw by hand and gives testimony to the continued vitality of hand drawing in architecture.
“Drawing is the imperfect but poetic process of attempting to make a connection between an external reality and our internal impulses,” writes renowned architect Tom Kundig in his introduction. “As this book demonstrates, drawing is where we explore an inner poetry. This process is not unlike that of composers who create music or mathematicians who formulate equations. There is beauty in the act of creation….I know an idea
is working on the page when I can feel the beauty of it. I can’t explain how or why, but I sense it on a deeper level. I can hear it like music.”
More than two decades after the shift to computer drafting, architects continue to draw by hand, both professionally and personally. The powerful yet intimate drawings in Single-Handedly carry larger propositions about materials, space, and construction, and each one stands on its own as a work of art.
About the Author
Nalina Moses is an architect and writer in New York City. Her writing on art, architecture and design has appeared both in print and online.
