Heretical language and architectural design

Representation as an inner quest for design

Abstract

In the apparent relationship between language and architectural design, the correspondence of convention emerges as an essential element in constructing a graphic design. Tradition translates into representation having the character of arbitrariness between the signifier and the meaning of visual symbols. The revealed truth of drawing can open the field to possible heresies, declaring belonging to the codified world of representation while departing from it and contradicting it to the extent that the model requires a new approach to a reality beyond its canonical abstract representation. Graphic heresies such as the tormented skies of the drawings by Etienne Llouis Boullè, the expressive chiaroscuro transition of the perspectives of the Danteum by Giuseppe Terragni and Pietro Lingeri as a means of revealing the narrative nature of the project, the exasperated symbolic graphism of the floor plans of Villa Planchart in Caracas as a means of investigating living, the search for the meaning of form in Aldo Rossi's drawings, the synthetic representation of the ruin in Kahn and Le Corbusier as design substance, and the exploratory nature of Gehry's sketches up to his avant-garde computer representation as a device for experimenting architectural space are some of the themes that this contribution seeks to address.