Concrete Poiētics: Entanglements between Drawing and Building

This paper reports on an experimental drawing installation that is part of a sequence of art works radicalising architectural drawing: Drawing in the Expanded Field. Concrete Drawing was shown at Adam Art Gallery | Te Pātaka Toi, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand (2015), and at Pallazo Mora, XV Venice Architecture Biennale, Venice, Italy (2016). The work explored architecture in the space between drawing and building and sought to capture a shared atmosphere, merging the implacable materiality of built space with the indeterminate, open poiēsis of a sketch. Concrete Drawing was a large 1:1 sketch of a single wall surface, cast in two tonnes of concrete and laid horizontally in the gallery. The work intensified many poiētic acts in drawing and recorded them in the wall’s surface, which then engaged viewers in the installation. Small scale wall elements swarmed over the larger surface, alluding to the act of turning a model in the hands while designing. These arrays of miniature walls prompted viewers to move around the installation and bodily repeat the performance, mapping the dynamic space of drawing with that of the built. The research draws from literature discussing the power of openness and indeterminacy in drawing, ideas on materiality, and the shared influence of human and non-human feedback. Concrete Drawing contributes to an expanded field of drawing through the pursuit of a sfumato architecture, where drawing and building are in subtle vibration. The research prompts questions about the finality and fixity of architecture, proposing it instead as an open, sketch-like phenomenon - a habitable drawing.