THE BIRTH OF THE PROJECT

An attempt to recreate the effect of depth prior to the Renaissance invention of graphic perspective.

 

The project is the final product of an architect's work. The realm in which the architect operates comprises, to put it simply, the conception of ideas, and the creation of documentation with enough information to translate these ideas into the physical world. The final built form is, however, rarely produced by architects. It is done by builders, carpenters, electricians, and a wide array of different professionals. Buildings are created with the information provided by the architect, through the use different representational devices. Or, as written by Alberto Pérez-Gómez in "Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge" (1997) "the architect has made the mediating artifacts that make significant buildings possible". There lies the importance of architectural representation: it is the tool for architects to communicate their intentions and ideas.

According to Pérez-Gómez, it is rare to find examples of architectural drawings prior to the renaissance. Gothic architecture, for instance, was produced mainly by constructive practices applied directly on site. There was no project for a final whole building, only construction methods that were a direct translation of the constructive tradition of the people involved in that particular building's construction. It was only during the renaissance, that architecture began to be conceived by the use of two-dimensional, orthogonal drawings.

Filippo Brunelleschi was the first to attempt to systemize the composition of graphical perspective, based on the classical studies of optics. Because of this achievement, he is usually attributed as the creator of perspective. Even though many attempts were being made since Ancient Greece. The foreshortening effect of objects related to their distance to the viewer had been long observed and discussed. It is easy to find many examples of paintings made during the Middle Ages, trying to depicting this optical effect of depth. These attempts are, however, clearly unsystematized.
Because of this, one can say that it was only since renaissance, that the architectural practice as we know today took its shape. I believe that from this point on, a building began to not only be planned before its construction, through the use of drawing and perspective, but also to be informed and conceived after them, as a reflex of the way architecture was being thought. The ability of precisely depicting perspective gave the architects the possibility of thinking and testing architecture in three dimensions, allowing for the exploration of architectural composition.