This collection does not propose a theory of architectural drawing, but brings together seven essays (written over the last fifteen years), which explore the potential of architectural drawing during the 20th century, through seven modes of representation: plan, section, arrow, grid, images, diagram, drawing.
The hypothesis of this collection is that recent transformations, which we often associate closely with a technological revolution if not a technocratic one, have had little impact on the ways in which architecture is presented.
Admittedly, the ways in which projects are conceived, the forms of transmission and fabrication, the techniques and tools of representation have all been turned upside down. It's true that the working drawing has been reduced to a simple tool for transmitting information, to the point of being called into question altogether. But the actual modes of presentation have not undergone a radical change. On the contrary, plan, section, axonometry and perspective, at once synthetic in their ambition and specific in their form, continue to occupy a central position in the discussion and dissemination of architecture. Magazines, manuals, theoretical works, catalogs and even competition entries bear witness to this.
While the drawings presented in this collection make use of well-known modes of representation, the way they do so is peculliar. It's not so much a matter of questioning the value of these modes, but rather of discovering how they are used.
Laurent Stalder has been an architect and professor of history and theory at ETH Zurich since 2006. His researches and publications are aimed on the history and the theory of architecture from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century where it faces history of technology. His most recent publications include : "Hermann Muthesius. Das Landhaus als kulturgeschichtlicher Entwurf" (2008), "Valerio Olgiati" (2008), "Der Schwellenatlas" (2009), "God & Co. François Dallegret : Beyond bubble" (2011), "Atelier Bow Bow. A Primer" (2013), "Fritz Haller : Architekt und Forscher" (2015), "Architecture/Machine" (2017) and "Architectural Ethnography" (2018). His essays have been published in AA Files, Arch +, Greyroom, Journal of Architecture, Werk Bauen & Wohnen and Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, among others.
