When computers started to appear I felt that they would ruin me and that I’d lose something. I was simply enraged that on the basis of the CAD models computers could churn out hundreds of perspectives that I would only be able to do after days of suffering. I didn’t regard myself as a particularly clever person – I don’t write, I don’t want to influence other people –; so it was through drawing that I was able to express my thoughts.
For me a drawing is neither graphic art, nor a picture drawn in perspective nor a beautiful work of art. The depiction of a building is not the goal in drawing as it’s rather a tool to help me think. You can draw without a pencil. You can do it purely in your head. When we think we are actually talking without sound. In the same way, you can draw in your head without lines or a pencil. A painter still paints even if he has no commission. A sculptor constantly makes figurines even without having a commission for a public statue. There’s an inner urge that drives us. I am also driven by this same urge to design in my head. When I draw I understand whether what I planned in my head is good or not, and based on that I can control the proportions and the volumes.
When you’re drawing you draw what you would like to see. In contrast to this, a computer model mercilessly shows the spatial and proportional problems. Still, I can’t imagine planning without drawing. Computers are more part of feeding clients the line. That’s why they don’t kill drawing.
I can only feel sorry for those architects who don’t draw while they are thinking.