An Illustrated World

Image via HUFFINGTON POST

In the world of Architecture there is an unrivalled need to communicate what we think and see.
We need to pass on our concepts and their virtues by all means necessary!
You can try and describe them, but words are ambiguous.
Graphs and data do give us the facts, but art cannot be reduced to numbers.
Photography does captivate our senses, but in captivating the moment in all it's perfection you cannot find the object's essence.
Reality doest not show the distortion that emotion brings to our sights.
And let us not forget sculptures and models... although their problem lies within the limitations of the materials and scale of it all. A rigorous model closes the door onto the imagination that a simple sketch brings.

Hence, it is ilustration, the visualization of our imaginations or graphical memory manifested onto reality, giving us a glimpse of the raw concept starting to take shape between the wings of life itself.

Architecture and Illustration have always shared their necessities and virtues, the communication and, sometimes, their rigorous edge.
All aspects of this relationship are needed to talk with the clients, owners, comitees and, even, coleagues.
Since time immemorial, drawings were the ultimate tool of the architect.
Only in recent times have the new tools of Photoshop and renderings been introduced to us.
Even if both of them seem distant from illustration, you can find their gap closing in, and a mixture of all three of them creating and recreating what soars through the mind of the artist.
As such, we introduce to you, our readers, some prime examples that have ilustrated those concepts perfectly, or left us marvel in the recesses of our mind.

We start with Adolf Hitler:
Aspiring painter, frustrated dictator!
Would this have been the colorful world we'd live in if he had chased his dream of ilustrating?

Image via WHITEHOT MAGAZINE

In less color and more detail, we also have the infamous but only subjectively harmful Viollet Le Duc, one of the forefathers of restoration and architectural theory across the world.
Most of his drawings were mere suggestions of unreal buildings, but nonetheless surreal in their quality.

Less known in the kingdom of architecture but equally, if not more, talented was the painter Canaletto and his untouchable, remarkable landscape depictions of the 18th century.
Proving to us that good illustration has been around for centuries! 

Although nowadays we also create our own little big wonders...
From Genesis Studios we were granted these fabulous aereal views with vibrant colors and life oozing out of each pixel, showing us a dream-like landscape ready to be brought upon the world!

Images via GENESIS STUDIOS

Whilst searching for life, we found a tiger...
We aren't talking about Calvin and Hobbes here, but more along the lines of Dennis Allain and his inovative illustrations.
For whom questions themselves about the way in which these works were made: his secret is in 3D modelling and his amazing skills in Photoshop.

Image via DENNIS ALLAIN

But these illustrations don't need to be about a single atrium, a canal, a street or panoramic view, it can include an entire city!
There are so many impressive illustrations that maps and urbanism in general have brought us that we basically had infinite pictures from which to choose from!

Image via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

When drawing you don't even have to draw about the present day.
Timewise, you are as free as a pirate!
As an example, you have the simple recreation of a fantasy past left behind, as Nigel Gilbet envisioned...

Image via SOCIETY OF ARCHITECTURAL ILLUSTRATION

We can even leave reality's constraints once and for all and find inspiration in the montages of Nils Ole Lund and his Architecture Hat.

Image via SOCKS STUDIO

Escaping reality into the rabbit hole and commiting to fantasy itself, we can find delight in Ana Aragão's charismatic child-like drawings!
Let it move you like it moved us.

Image via PUBLICO

Even more minimal is the also portuguese illustrator André Chiote and his outstanding posters.
With the tip of his fingers, Architecture gains publicity-like eye-catching properties.

Image via MMMINIMAL

The contrast between the diferent styles astonishes us as much as this work from Paul Davies.
The colors and contrast that shall always leave a mark in our hearts, in this world of illustration ready to find!

Image via 1STDIBS