It is telling that Part I of this book is called "Watercolor",
subtitled "Rendering Expresses Design". Imber notes, "While
looking at the practice of architecture and the act of creating
buildings, drawing has always been a part of its creation…
Therefore, it comes as no surprise that with the loss of 'drawing
as the language
of building' we
have also lost our
tradition of creating
beautiful buildings.
If we are to continue
the time-honored
El Jardin
method of creating
beautiful architecture as an art, and not simply as a vocation,
then we must celebrate drawing as part of the process. To be
a traditional architect, to practice within the classical idiom,
to create buildings of timeless beauty that connect to our
humanity, we must be fluent in the traditional language of
architecture—drawing."
Amen. Imber's statement, which rises to the level of manifesto,
and his watercolors themselves, remind me of another
architect whose work bears little stylistic similarity to Imber's
but which was grounded in the same artistic conviction and
practice—namely Charles Rennie Mackintosh, who, after his
Glasgow architectural career dwindled, ended his life painting
landscapes and flowers in the south of France. Sometimes
all that remains of a building is the original rendering of it; and
some buildings, many of Boullee's and LeDoux' for instance,
HYLAND
