Building Glances: the Drawing in the Works of Eduardo Souto de Moura

Abstract

This text integrates the studies of Núcleo de Apoio à Pesquisa em Estudos de Linguagem em Arquitetura e Cidade – N.ELAC – IAU.USP, densifying the amalgam created by the Acordo de Cooperação Internacional USP/UP, between the Instituto de Arquitetura e Urbanismo da Universidade de São Paulo (IAU.USP) and the Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto (FAUP).

Currently, the technological breakthrough brought new computational tools and, consequently, changes in respect of design methods. The role of free hand drawing is contested and its importance is discussed, however, the drawing shows symbiotic characteristics with the human thought, cognition and development of perception, which can not be detached from architectural projectual thinking.

In order to contribute to this debate, this paper aims to raise subsidies to urge this discussion, using a form of analysis that encompasses the understanding of the architect Eduardo Souto de Moura’s sketches. Iconographic sheets of his sketches were made as a way of cataloging and, after, graphical comments on the conceiving drawings of some selected works, which showed that the first ideas of the finished structure were already present in sketches. All the quantitative and analytical survey brings to nowadays that the sketch still contributes strongly to the architectural projective process.