Beautiful Mathematics: 20th Century Architectural Elevations

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Abel Faidy

Abel Faidy

May 16, 2003 – June 14, 2003

Before using computers, architects employed only two visual formats in drawing the design of a building, the plan and the elevation. Neither view is truly apparent in the completed structure, and thus remain conceptual artworks hidden forever in architectural files.

Twentieth Century designers used this mathematical format throughout the development of modern design, displaying graphic beauty in the pure logic of geometry.

ArchiTech has assembled a collection of stunning elevation drawings from school homework assignments to Loop skyscraper designs that demonstrate the power of this archaic format in reducing a building to its elemental lines.

Rare works by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Bruce Goff, and Alfonso Iannelli communicate how an architect thinks on paper and offer the collector a new way to appreciate the creation of a building.