Contemporary British Architectural Drawing

The innovative, vigorous and avant-garde work of the recent British architectural drawing tradition is the subject of this book. It presents the work of 72 contemporary British architects. Peter Wilson contributes an introduction, discussing the nature of architectural drawing and setting the works presented in context, and Fumio Shimizu provides a discussion of the ideas, theories and relevance of recent developments. There are also biographies for all the architects represented. 1960s-London, the cradle of Pop Art and the mass media culture, provided the birth place for this new era in British architectural drawing. The Archigram movement, the scourge of the architectural establishment, developed architectural drawing as an independent form of expression with its own significance. The Architectural Association has continued to play a seminal role in the process. What has emerged from this is a form of drawing which extends beyond the conventional canons of architecture to overlap with other cultural fields, with fashion illustration and science fiction. British architectural drawing has moved a long way from Lutyen's letter to the builder. Now it is seen as ideological expression and critique. Concept and idea are paramount.