Twenty (20) years ago (1997) as incoming freshmen students we were told by academics – “You’ll learn construction drawings and contract documents when you get a job, but if you’re interested there always is Architectural Graphic Standards and D.K. Ching and exam study guides.” This is still the case today.
They also told us “Most of you will not graduate as architects, most of you will not ever earn your license, possibly none of you will ever run a firm, and most importantly you’ll never make much money.”
There is a direct correlation between those two statements. Moreover, if a generation ago young budding architects were told - you’ll learn all you need to know in practice so no need to cover it in school - what are they teaching now considering most that teach have limited experience in practice and were told the same thing a generation ago or more. Why would anyone expect to graduate ready for the profession they were not trained for? Why should you expect to earn any money if you graduated with no basic skills?
You can think outside the box, but can you draw that?
The debate: Architecture Academia versus Practice is so common and discussed so often there is no need to belabor it anymore. It’s also a boring discussion, so I’ll just bring you up to speed by reviewing portions of a set of drawings that are about 80 years old.
Let’s start with the basics - theoretically academically. In practice everything an architect does converges into one set of documents – CD’s (a.k.a Construction Documents & Services). Technically CD means Contract Documents, but they usually are Construction Drawings. In these drawings there is the accumulation of design, intent, liability, guidelines, instructions, code and zoning resolutions and confirmations, consulting engineer and vendor design and data, and the cost of a building. Its more technical than this, but the details of this process and production are what you’d learn in practice, no?
The drawings below from 80 years ago cover all the basic parts of a typical building and are coordinated in the form of a 2D drawing that most members of the industry (construction) can read and build from.
Emery Roth and Sons did a lot of work in New York City and there is a good chance if in NYC you’ve walked by one of their buildings where cornerstones were engraved with this architecture firms name on it. Instead of a cornerstones now it’s about exposure on the web. Chronologically, between the cornerstone and the web there were those things called magazines and monographs! (such a short phase in history, the coffee table is so lonely on the web). You probably know The Eldorado from photos of Central Park. Emery Roth and Sons work is noteworthy and the likes of Paul Goldberger have covered their work in the New York Times. The drawings we are reviewing, construction drawings, are stored in a collection at Columbia University.
Enjoy.
[below is a play by play with some modern day Revit definitions, I will be channeling John Madden on this one]
[Titleblock - This is where you put the title of the project in a block, lines that frame in the information, but in case you went to architecture school and did not learn this, the city of New York will help you - click here]
[9A and 10A are columns. You want to know more, go to the column schedule. Step Up 7" means the step going up to the terrace is 7" higher than the floor. 7'-9" head means the top of the door is 7'-9" to the top of the door. Those circles with two lines in them are Duplex electrical outlets symbols. That's two places to put a plug in a wall to charge your i-phone (Androids rule). Apparently 80 years ago a WP = Water Proofed outlet is what we now call GFI or GFIC (Ground Fault Interrupter Circuit). Throwing a toaster in a bathtub never works out for the person in the bathtub.]
Boredom as a result of too much to do. Too much professional practice architecture. Too much reality. Lots of fiction and lots of history.
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Really nice post, Chris. The topic is so important, and the drawings you focus on are both excellent examples of working drawings, but also gorgeous works of art in their own right.
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Awesome post!
Really nice post, Chris. The topic is so important, and the drawings you focus on are both excellent examples of working drawings, but also gorgeous works of art in their own right.
"[Lawyers read and write, architects draw.]"
So, quite lengthy post, you a lawyer ;-)
Most architects tell nonarchitects what to draw in my experience. Nice post, keep 'em coming. When are you going for you bar exam?
They don't necessarily care about good drawings but only use the drawings to get to good architecture. They will express their design intent and others will have to figure it out according to the rules, regulations and within budget obviously. On some projects you don't even deliver drawings any more but a BIM model. Didn't know they had pub exams, only know of pub quizzes :)
That closing story about the super and his "security" is awesome, as the kids (used to) say.
These ink-on-linen drawings are nothing short of delicious, as anyone who's ever done a complete set by hand can tell you (even if only in graphite on vellum). I love the hand-lettered notes and precise dimension strings using arrowheads.
Doubly fun is the subject: one of those gorgeous, hulking Manhattan apartment houses where each unit is a few thousand square feet, complete with foyer, library, bed "chambers" bigger than modern studio apartments, and several (tiny) servants' quarters.
And who wants to wager that "B.F." is boiler flue, not boy friend?
so basic. but necessary in the digital age. to me, it is like a kid's book - learning how to read. hopefully, my team members will understand why I get so frustrated when they tell me "that's how the detail came up in revit" after I ask them about that abstract concept of line weights.
My first couple of sets of CD's were by hand (working for an older engineer) and I would do it again. It is so meditative - the artwork is. Not frustrating like CAD and the electronic lines, not so artful, just is.
Beautiful, dense drawings with gorgeous hand dating from a time when drawing was recognized as a craft in itself, when a draftsman was a craftsman.
Thanks, Chris -
Awesome post dude! Love looking at old drawings.
As an intern I spent quite a bit of time scanning old plans of existing buildings we were doing work on. It always amazed me that an entire school (for example) could have been built with only a few dozen sheets of drawings, yet to do that same building today we'd be producing well over a hundred architectural drawing sheets alone, then you'd add structural, landscape, MEP, etc. Plus, throw in well over a thousand sheets of specifications, agreements, general conditions, instructions to bidders, etc. It's amazing anyone can make sense of our projects today. Or maybe the point is that no one can make sense of our projects today. I've seen a lot of RFIs lately that would support that.
I think about this every day. During my first internship, I had the plans for a 10 story building - one of the finest - built in the 1910's on my desk. It was only a few sheets. Then there are the drawing sets that are over 1/2" thick of stacked paper, plus a thousand page manual. And that's just getting us started. What is up with that.
To me, this unfortunate state dramatically illustrates two things.
1) The decline in number of qualified builders and tradesmen.
2) The steep rise in number of lawyers.
One of my favorite drawing sheets ever has a floor plan at 1/8"=1'-0" of a 4-story science building built in the 1920s on a local college campus. Good workaday plan, not terribly elaborate but nicely drawn, dimensioned, and noted. The only other item was a half-scale (6"=1'-0") detail... of a door jamb, I think.
So on this single sheet was a small scale representation of the whole building next to a hugely scaled representation of one tiny component of the building. Just those two graphic items.
For some reason, that juxtaposition blew my mind a little.
4 stories and 1 plan? nice.
LOL. One of four plan sheets.
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