Before the advent of AutoCAD and other drafting softwares, the engineering drawings were made on sheet of papers using drawing boards. Many equipments were required to complete a given drawing such as drawing board, different grade pencils, Erasers T-squares, Set square etc. — vintag.es
Check out this fun collection of photographs from the pre-CAD era...
And no women! Amirite, fellas? /snark
All 17 Comments
I love these pictures, and they make me all sorts of nostalgic. Come at me with your criticisms, my traditional architecture friends, and I'll admit there may be some hypocrisy going on with me because yes, I love these!
I used to wear these wonderful cuff covers that protected my rolled up (usually white) shirtsleeves from getting all black with lead. Super stylish, and functional!
I still feel a sensual thrill rolling a 2H lead along a straightedge to keep the point sharp. Mmmmmm.
I'm certain that a large part of why I think of architecture as a material process is because I learned to build a drawing with lead and vellum and all the accoutrements one needed to make that physical object as well-crafted as possible.
No hypocrisy what so ever. Hand drafting is a pleasure. Line weights, accents, even smudges can add such depth and humanity to any drawing, regardless of style. I don't think one has the same attachment and satisfaction of producing a beautiful hand drawing as compared to pressing print. And see the reaction of people studying an excellent sketch-up model with a hand drawing. I'm always amazed to see how a few artistically placed strokes can activate the imagination as compared to a realistically computer rendering . It's tough on your back, but as I get older, it seems life is tough on your back.
I love it too. I love how all the work is visible, it's right there, not stored as a digital file somewhere hidden.
And no women! Amirite, fellas? /snark
h (half a laugh)
Exactly. I must have come along at the perfect time when we learned both to draw, use vellum, straightedge table and then add on AutoCAD as the next step (drawing giant plans seems like a waste of time!). I'm not sure if this is still how its taught, but it works well for me.
Chemex … you forgot about the "Drafting Machine" … after the straight edge … before AutoCAD
Back in the day when people spent their time thinking about what they were drawing, not how to draw.
There is something very important in the connection of eye:hand:pencil:paper that a computer cannot replace.
If there any computer-generated drawing/plan you would want to frame and hang on your wall?
Actually Volunteer, this drawing was part of an exhibition in an art gallery in Amsterdam:
It's a drawing of the BIM model of the Groniger Forum by NL Architects and it's amazing.
Not bad but I don't know if I would want to frame it. The smudges and wrinkles of the Tahoe rendering are part of its attraction, not to mention the Groniger looks like it might have come from a computer (or an exceptionally anal architect), the Tahoe pretty much seems human-generated. What happens if the computers start to generate the Tahoe-like renderings and the humans do the Gronigers?
It's funny how those smudges and wrinkles are errors that we used to try to prevent but now have become part of it's appeal, I'm sure there's a photoshop filter for that. Here NL's slideshow of the project by the way: http://www.nlarchitects.nl/slideshow/19/ I like how the old street pattern of Groningen somehow became the void of the building and how the windows resemble old punch cards and I believe the building is even clad in classical travertine marble.
OMG That drawing is freaking amazing. It's beautiful. But as with all of my experience with BIM the line weights are wrong.
Donna, you're absolutely right. There's no current way to adjust lineweights in certain types of views based on what's hitting the "air" (so to speak). It's based on layers of stuff or manually generated in detail components, which means it's difficult to make drawings have great clarity. And if you want to manually override lines to the degree required for it, you may as well light your fee on fire. Wish they would fix it.
Smudges and wrinkles are the romance of drawing. They allow the client to use their imagination to fill in the blanks. Great as a sales tool, eliminated by photorealistic renderings where every tiny detail is subject to scrutiny and *nothing* is left to the imagination.
And I have yet to see any CAD drawings that are as clear and easy to read as any reasonably done hand-drafted set.
Well, it is also about the amount of information a drawing these days HAS to have. It's easy to say a hand drafted drawing can be read easier when back in the day it didn't have to have all the stuff and info drawn in as is required these days. Try doing a large public building by hand with all that in there and you end up with a black sheet.
These photos make my back and neck hurt and my carpal tunnel is acting up as well.
Remember spilling something (coffee, blood, etc.) on your drawing? The agony.
The pitched tabletop giveth, and taketh away....
I remember starting a new job many years ago. First day, and I walked up to a guy's desk to introduce myself. And I knocked over his Diet Coke, and flooded a whole sheet of hand-drawn elevations. I made a nice impression.
At least it was graphite, not Ink on vellum.
At least it was Diet Coke, not The Real Thing.
It was ink. :(
That was you!? What a way to start off =o/ It sounds like something I would do.
I didn't think Diet Coke was contemporary with ink on vellum. Must have been an old timer.
The title of this article is extremely puzzling because AutoCAD was not the first computer aided design software used by architects. I think the author of this article should probably become more familiar with the history of CAD as it relates to architecture.
what are you selling?
I'm not selling anything. Long before AutoCAD was released, I used Prime Medusa, AutoTrol, and a few others on mainframes, minis, and PC's for architectural CAD.
I was using mini/mainframe-based CAD in the late 70's and early 80's and wasn't working for a large corporate firm. It was done on mainframes using timesharing.
been there for quite a while; ahh, descriptive geometry
had to be an artist and engineer at the same time
then ACAD came on two 5 1/4" floppy disks of 360kB each
just a bit younger dinosaur than drafting boards :)
wasn't much faster but didn't have to calculate points for dimensioning
… can't say they were the "Good Ole Days" … I'd never want to go back.
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.