Architectural Design Techniques of Urban Buildings in the Late 19th and Early 20th Century

I'm very excited to present a new paper I've written titled:

Architectural Design Techniques of Urban Buildings in the Late 19th and Early 20th Century

This illustrated essay explores specific physical design techniques employed by architects during this golden period of city-building to achieve their remarkable results.

It has just been published by Periodica Polytechnica Architecture (a peer reviewed scientific journal published by the Faculty of Architecture of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics).

[Click HERE to access the full essay in free pdf form]

Urban buildings constructed in historic city centers of Europe and America in the late 19th and early 20th Century demonstrate a remarkable consistency of architectural excellence and harmony which can be observed from the large urban forms down to minute details. 

The comprehensive system of design principles employed by architects of the time in the creation of these buildings has resulted in urban environments that achieve a very high degree of functionality as well as adaptability to the evolving needs of their modern populations.

(Note: For those who are interested in delving even deeper, Section 3 of the essay focuses on the rediscovery of lost classic architectural design instructional texts and contains a recommended reading list). 

Towncrafting Workout 02 - Watercolor Elm Tree

Would you like to improve the landscape elements in your illustrations? Join me for this quick "how-to" workout to practice a step-by-step process for painting an elm tree in watercolor!

Watercolor is a great medium for quickly capturing accurate form, evocative color and lighting effects.  Grab your painting materials and let’s get started!

MATERIALS:
You'll need a few simple supplies to follow along with me. Here's a materials list (along with links if you'd like to buy them online).

Paper:

I’m working on a 90lb cold press watercolor paper by Fabriano.

Cold press means the paper has a medium texture - not too smooth and not too rough. 90lb is a fairly thin watercolor paper. I use it because it will go through a photocopier, which is often useful if I need to quickly transfer a line drawing onto my paper before painting. (In this exercise we’ll be blocking out our drawing directly on the paper though, so a thicker paper like 140lb would work great too).

Paints:

I’m using Windsor and Newton professional artists colors. For this painting I’m using a fairly limited palette of just 6 colors.  The first three are primary colors (yellow, red and blue) that mix well together.  The last three colors are extras that are useful for occasionally accenting and/or darkening mixtures as needed. 

1. Yellow Ochre - a warm, earthy yellow.
2. Permanent Alizarin Crimson - a slightly purplish red. 
3. French Ultramarine - a deep, intense blue.
4. Permanent Sap Green - a strong, slightly olive green.
5. Antwerp Blue - a bright, smooth blue that goes down with a minimum of graininess.
6. Neutral Tint - a beautiful grey that mixes well with all the other colors to reduce the value and saturation of a mixture when I want to achieve a really dark color.

I like to use tube colors because they make it easy to mix up a large enough quantity of paint for my bigger wet-on-wet washes.  (You could do this painting workout with dry pan watercolors too, but you'll just need to spend a bit more time mixing up your paints).

You can buy the watercolors in individual tubes (the small 5ml ones last a long time - the colors I've highlighted are the individual tube colors I could find available online at Amazon), or Windsor and Newton makes a great set available for purchase online with all these colors or pretty close equivalents that should work just fine:

Brush:

A high quality watercolor brush is critical. A good brush will hold a substantial amount of paint which allows you to block in shapes quickly and will also come to a sharp point when it’s wet to allow you to paint small details. For this painting, I’m using just a single “round” shaped sable watercolor brush by Princeton. The size I’m using is a #12.

Watercolor Mixing Palette:

I like to use a palette with separate small wells on the left for squeezing out a pea-sized bit of paint straight from each of my tubes (a little bit goes a long way).  My palette also has larger wells on the right.  I put a tiny splash of water in each of the larger wells and use them to mix the colors to be used in the actual washes on my painting.

I'm using a small plastic palette in the video.  I also like to use this slightly larger plastic watercolor mixing palette made by Jack Richeson.

Water Cup:

You’ll need a container to hold water for mixing your paints and cleaning your brushes.  (Be sure to use a container that you won't be drinking from - some watercolor paints can contain ingredients that are toxic to ingest).


Paper Towels:

These are useful for dabbing off extra paint from the brush if you’ve picked up more than you intended (and also great for cleaning up)! Any brand will do.

BOOK:

The book I'm referencing in this workout is:

How to Draw Trees (by Frank M. Rines)

This brief, wonderfully condensed book discusses key form and compositional aspects of many species of trees from an artistic viewpoint. 

It also breaks down a great sequence for rendering trees from the initial block-in, through more detailed attention to silhouettes, to planning of shades and shadows, and then steps for finalizing the illustration.

It's a great resource for any artist interested in capturing the specific character of various species of trees.

Connecting Passengers To Their Train Platform Seamlessly: Vienna's Hauptbahnhof Station

This past weekend, I visited Vienna with my wife and kids. We traveled by train and arrived at the new Hauptbahnhof train station (image from Wikipedia):

The sleek, bustling new central station, conveniently surrounded by a cluster of new transit oriented development, consolidates boarding to international trains traveling north, south east and west from the city. It also connects directly to Vienna's metro, streetcar, bus, bikeway and pedestrian systems:

One of the details that I was particularly impressed with was the well-thought-out access for passengers to the station's 6 train platforms that run parallel to one another.

Typically in such arrangements, there is a lower pedestrian access passageway that links the platforms; but often this passageway can be dark, unattractive and occasionally unsafe-feeling if there is a lack of natural surveillance.

The designers of Vienna's Hauptbahnhof train station solved this issue by converting the lower passageway into a bright, airy multi-level shopping hall. Stores and cafes line the sides, making the space feel lively while providing travelers with useful goods and services and a great diversion to pass the time while waiting for one's train departure time.

Running down the center of the shopping hall are a series of glass elevators and escalators marked with the numbers of the various train platforms. When it is time to board a train, one need only go up a level, and then walk out right onto the platform:

This seamless connection for passengers to the train platform is a wonderful innovation that helps keep every step of travel by train to Vienna a high quality experience:

The Vienna Hauptbahnhof train station's website has a cool 3D image tour of the construction process. (click here to take the tour)

"The Sense of Proportion is the Chief Artistic Sense"

Proportional study sketches from master drawings, paintings and built works of architecture are some of the best possible exercises for one's sense of proportion.  I try to do them whenever I can.  

Simple tools - just a pencil and sketchbook are all that is needed.  Here are some examples from my travels:

Proportional study sketch by James Dougherty from the painting Portrait of a Young Man – by Hans Holbein the Younger in the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Julien Guadet (1834-1908), the esteemed French architect, theoretician and Professor at the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris writes in his four volume masterwork Éléments et Théorie de l'Architecture:

"The sense of proportion is the chief artistic sense.  Proportions are infinite and delicate in art and are still more so in nature.  

How do you recognize a friend among all the people you see, even though you see millions pass?  A question of proportions alone.  But proportions are so infinite and variable, that among millions of heads no two are exactly alike.  

Nothing develops a sense of proportion like practice in drawing.  To draw is to perceive and then express those specific proportions that distinguish and identify the model.  The best draftsman is the most sensitive to proportions."

Proportional study sketch by James Dougherty from the sculpture Theseus Battling the Centaur - by Antoine-Louis Barye in the High Museum of Art, Atlanta GA

Proportional plein air study sketch by James Dougherty of Budapest's Chain Bridge - designed by William Tierney Clark

Proportional study sketch by James Dougherty from the sculpture Nymph of the Fields - by Carlo Pittaluga in the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Amazon: Éléments et Théorie de l'Architecture

Teaching Architecture to Newborns - by Jason King

[The following guest post is authored by Jason King, Project Director at Dover, Kohl & Partners town planning jking@doverkohl.com]

I came across a facial recognition test for newborns in the book Be Prepared: A Practical Handbook for New Dads (2004). Sure enough, my boy, Owen, who is twelve weeks old fixated on the image in the test of the recognizable human face with its symmetry and natural order (see below). I was actually shocked. When I covered up the face on the right Owen really didn't seem to know what to look at. I repeated the test with my wife as witness. This second test was less conclusive but there was a moment when we think Owen actually smiled at the face on the right.

Do people naturally prefer the principles of composition present in the human body to be present in architecture? We commonly talk about buildings having "a face" but is there a human connotation to this?  Do we prefer contrast, proportion, scale, balance, rhythm, and unity over disorder, irregularity, proportional illogic, and dissimilarity? Perhaps the failure of architecture in our time to create congenial environments is a failure to appreciate the psychological search images we have as children. Or maybe the reverse is true and our sense of beauty can be actively shaped. Perhaps culture tells us what to assign value to and what to like. The answer is probably a little of both.   

Do you see what I see? If so, does it effect your appreciation of the building? Which do you prefer?

I wrote a novel called New Town St. Jerome which features a character, an architect, who has a definite opinion on the topic. According to Leo Dana, "Buildings are people. The facade is a face and the proportions should be the same as a face – broadly considered. Sometimes it is many faces but you cannot confuse them. Sometimes a building is many people with every part reflective of the proportions of the human body. And when there are many people there must be a leader. A hierarchy."

"Architectural debate," says Leo, "is often framed as traditional-versus-modernist but the debate is really humanist architecture versus technological architecture." Leo recognizes that modern architecture can be humanist but is prepared to fire his avante-garde client before inflicting what Leo calls, "that buildings are machines crap" on people. In this time in history it's no wonder that Leo's peers give him the nickname "Loco."

I don't actually advise trying to teach architecture to newborns but I do hope Owen gets to think enough about architecture one day to be able to articulate his own opinion. But I can't help but wonder if when Owen is older he will still have the same opinion that I think I may be seeing now.

Jason King is the author of New Town St. Jerome which is available at Amazon: New Town St Jerome

Drawing Composition - Spokewheeling

I'm co-teaching the 1st Year Drawing Course this semester at the University of Miami School of Architecture in Coral Gables, FL.  Today our class began exploring perspective drawing.  I always find it refreshing and energizing for my own work to think about how to articulate the fundamentals of drawing composition to others!

"Spokewheeling" is one such fundamental drawing composition principle.  The term was coined by James Gurney in his book Imaginative Realism, How to Paint What Doesn't Exist in 2009, though the principle has been used by artists for centuries.  Gurney explains that "lines that converge to a single point of a picture are like spokes around the hub of a wheel.  They pull the eye toward the center point."

Here's a watercolor drawing I completed in 2007 for a project called Hudson that I helped design with Dover, Kohl and Partners in Montgomery, Alabama.  The drawing makes use of Spokewheeling.  The eave lines of the houses on the right, the curb lines, and even the landscape forms on the left all form lines leading the viewer's eye to the little red chapel.  Spokewheeling of composition lines helps to give this modest little structure a feeling of increased stature and civic importance in the neighborhood.

I was honored to receive an Award of Excellence for this image from the American Society of Architectural Illustrators in their 24th annual juried Architecture in Perspective exhibition.  The entire exhibition catalog can be viewed online here.

Amazon: Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn't Exist (James Gurney Art)