Drawing Ambience

Book excerpt: Drawing Ambience showcases a selection of drawings from the personal collection of the noted architectural educator Alvin Boyarsky (1928-1990). As chairman of the Architectural Association (AA) in London (1971-1990), Boyarsky accumulated an impressive collection of drawings at a time when the AA produced an extraordinary program of exhibitions and publications rooted in drawing not only as a representational medium but also a form of architecture in its own right. Boyarsky s drawing collection emerged at the confluence of modernism, postmodernism, and other cultural currents worldwide, capturing the work of artists and architects such as Alexander Brodsky and Ilya Utkin, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, John Hejduk, Daniel Libeskind, Mary Miss, OMA, Eduardo Paolozzi, Superstudio, Shin Takamatsu, Bernard Tschumi, and Peter Wilson. The publication features a full-length essay situating Boyarsky s collection in the emergence of architecture as a global discursive discipline as well as close analysis of fifty of the most imaginative, visionary drawings in it. Exquisite reproductions of each of the featured drawings and prints, along with portfolios of limited-edition publications from the AA, are supplemented by close-up and microscopic images, providing an unprecedented opportunity to explore the imaginative spirit of drawing practices central to the magnetic web of conversations in the architectural discourse, both historical and contemporary, including the discipline s renewed interest in the hand as it relates to drawing and making. "