Drawing the motion force of architecture

by Peter Cook

Focusing on the creative and inventive significance of drawing for architecture, this book by one of its greatest proponents, Peter Cook, is an established classic. It exudes Cook's delight and catholic appetite for the architectural. Readers are provided with perceptive insights at every turn. The book features some of the greatest and most intriguing drawings by architects, ranging from Frank Lloyd Wright, Heath-Robinson, Le Corbusier, and Otto Wagner to Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Arata Isozaki, Eric Owen Moss, Bernard Tschumi, and Lebbeus Woods; as well as key works by Cook and other members of the original Archigram group.

For this new edition, Cook provides a substantial new chapter that charts the speed at which the trajectory of drawing is moving. It reflects the increasing sophistication of available software and also the ways in which 'hand drawing' and the 'digital' are being eclipsed by new hybrids—injecting a new momentum to drawing. These 'crossovers' provide a whole new territory as attempts are made to release drawing from the boundaries of a solitary moment, a single-viewing position, or a single referential language. Featuring the likes of Toyo Ito, Perry Culper, Izaskun Chinchilla, Kenny Tsui, Ali Rahim, John Berglund, and Lorene Faure, it leads to fascinating insights into the effect that medium has upon intention and definition of an idea or a place. Is a pencil drawing more attuned to a certain architecture than an ink drawing, or is a particular colour evocative of a certain atmosphere? In a world where a Mayer drawing is creatively contributing something different from a Rhino drawing, there is much to demand of future techniques.

Genres: Architecture, Art, Design, Nonfiction

248 pages, Paperback

First published April 22, 2008

About the author

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Reviews

[Jia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice pictures, but uses overly academic language for no reason.

[TJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cook is the best

One of my favorite architects. Cook is aggie to share the power of drawing and explore the outer boundaries of what is possible in Architecture.

[Brandon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Largely esoteric nonsense, but a small number of passages are interesting and the selection of artworks/architects is decent

[Pamela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Peter Cook attempts to impart information regarding the role drawing plays in the architect’s progress from the nascent idea to a fully-realized concept of a building. Unfortunately, he gets in his own way with his verbiage. He seems incapable of explaining anything simply, elegantly. We are told by the publisher that Cook is one of the the “greatest proponents” of the “creative and inventive significance of drawing for achitecture.” However, in reading Cooks words, I didn’t see him as a proponent of anything other than his own ego.

What I found most interesting about this book were the drawings by architects who didn’t have computers and computer software to do their drawings for them, for instance, Hermann Finsterlin’s and Iakov Chernikhov’s drawings from the 1920s.

If you are looking for a book detailing the role of drawing by hand in architecture today, this is not the book for you.