Architectural Visualization Was Rather Flat: Then We Invented Perspective

2024-10-23T12:32:00-04:00

Before the invention of architectural perspective, architects and artists faced significant challenges in visualizing and communicating architectural space. Without a systematic way to represent depth and spatial relationships, architectural drawings were often symbolic, schematic, or abstract rather than realistic.

From ancient times through the Middle Ages, the ability to convey three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional medium, representing space in a manner satisfactory to the human eye, eluded even the most advanced societies and civilizations — at least, as far as historians know.

Then, in Renaissance Italy, a solution emerged that would change the field of architectural visualization, and of architecture, forever.

This article is part of the Archinect In-Depth: Visualization series.

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Architectural Visualization Was Rather Flat: Then We Invented Perspective