The Art of Architecture
By Juan De La Peña
Back in the days of my time at university I had the fortune of being taught by an incredibly talented, charismatic, passionate, and well-informed architect. He was one of a kind. His knowledge of architecture, both theoretical and practical, was immense. He was in his seventies when he taught us. His charismatic personality was complemented by experiences of his youth that were quite extraordinary. He had travelled extensively in Europe for long periods of time exploring the architecture and urban realm of European cultures, meeting people and understanding the “genius loci” of places and towns. Amongst his “adventures” he boasted the fact that he had a couple of encounters with a Swiss architect with the name of Pierre Jeanneret, aka Le Corbusier, and with Frank Lloyd Wright in the US. Naturally, we, as his students, were completely captivated and in awe of those connections. His teachings have always followed me during my practice as an architect.
It was this professor who once told us that he could not believe an architect could be regarded as such unless he/she was capable of free-hand drawing. He told us that unless we could represent our thoughts and ideas in 3D we would not be able produce buildings and urban spaces with any significant value. His words still resonate in my mind. I therefore started to concentrate on understanding perspective and spent a great deal of time capturing buildings and townscapes. Over the years I developed a taste for sketching and painting in water colours.
From my university years to the present time I have dabbled off-and-on with painting using water colours as my means of expression. The journey has been both challenging and exciting. Painting, like many things, is an exercise in that the more you do it the more you improve and the higher the level of satisfaction you achieve. Over the last five years or so I have concentrated on developing this interest of mine. The results have been varied but I’m pleased to say that overall I feel my work has improved. BLOCK NINE ARCHITECTS have kindly given me the chance to share my thoughts in this blog and the opportunity to show some of my recent work. I hope you enjoy it!
