Session Information
17 SES 04, School Architecture
Paper Session
Contribution
In the seminal text ‘Figures, doors, passages’ of 1978 the architectural historian Robin Evans confronts us with the fundamental difficulty to read or interpret architectural drawings.
’If anything is described by an architectural plan’, he argues, ’it is the nature of human relationships, since the elements whose trace it records – walls doors, windows, stairs – are employed first to divide and the selectively to re-unite inhabited space.’ What is absent even in the most elaborated architectural drawings however, is the way human figures will occupy the space. Architectural drawings mainly describe the precise geometry of the architectural artifact. They show how the space is divided or organized. How the furniture furnishes the space. But in these drawings the human figure itself remains absent.To overcome this problem Evans developed an alternative research method. He suggested to confront the architectural production (ground plans, sections, façade drawings) with material beyond architectural drawings itself (especially paintings and other visual sources).
In this presentation I would like to elaborate on this method developed by Robin Evans, and test it on a body of architectural drawings produced at the end of the nineteenth century by the Belgian architect Jean-Lambert Blandot (1935-1885).
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
- Evans Robin (1978) 'Figures, doors, passages' in: Evans (1997) Translations from Drawing to Building and Other Essays. London: AAdocuments - Lambert Blandot (1864) Maisons et écoles communales de la Belgique / dessinées et mesurées par Blandot, et accompagnées d’un texte descriptif et explicatif. Paris / Liège: Noblet et Baudry; 5, 120p - Ministère de l’Intérieur, Charles Rogier, W. Janssens (1852) Instructions ministérielles concernant la construction des maisons d’écoles primaires communales suivies d’une instruction spéciale sur le chauffage et la ventilation des salles d’école et d’une série de plans modèles, avec devis et texte explicatif des planches. Bruxelles: Imprimerie et Lithographie de J. Herger; - Ministère de l’Intérieur, Lambert Blandot-Grayet (1875) Instructions concernant la construction et l’ameublement des maisons d’école suivies de plans et de devis types. Huy: Degrâce - F. Narjoux (1878) Les écoles publiques. Construction et installation en Belgique et en Hollande: Documents officiels, services intérieurs et extérieurs, Bâtiments scolaires, mobilier scolaire, services annexes. Paris: Ve A. Morel et Cie, Libraires-Éditeurs, 253p.;
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