I have no interest or intention of reopening old discussions of the pros and cons of hand versus computer drawings—they simply go nowhere. I’m willing to grant, for the sake of exploration, that one day a computer will be able to draw exactly like Masahiko Yendo. I repeat, exactly, with all the infinitely varied tonality and all the nuance of texture, shading, and illusion of light and darkness. For that to happen, of course, the pixels of the computer drawing would have to be infinitely small, creating the actual spatial continuity of the hand drawing. Assuming that this technological feat could be achieved, what difference would there be between the hand and the computer drawing?
Absolutely none—if we consider only the drawing itself, as a product, as an object, which—in our present society—is our habitual way of perceiving not only drawings, but also the buildings they describe.
I repeat: absolutely none. IF, however, we think of drawings—even the most seductively product-like ones shown here—as evidence of a process of thinking and making, the difference is vast. Indeed, there is no way to close the gap between them. In the hand-drawn image, every mark is a decision made by the architect, an act of analysis followed by an act of synthesis, as the marks are built up, one by one. In the computer-drawn image, every mark is likewise a decision, but one made by the software, the computer program—it happens in the machine, the computer, and does not involve the architect directly. In short, in the latter case, the architect remains only a witness to the results of a process the computer controls, learning only in terms of results. In the former case, the architect learns not only the method of making, but also the intimate connections between making and results, a knowledge that is essential to the conscious development of both.
