Jan Kaplicky Drawings

Ivan Margolius is an architect and the author of a number of articles and books on architecture and design.

Drawings are an architects essential tools of expression: a way of communicating, of formulating ideas, of connecting the hand, the mind and the eye to the sheet of paper. Jan Kaplický (1937-2009) was a visionary architect with a passion for drawing. It was his way of discovering, describing and constructing; and through drawing he presented beguiling architectural imagery of the highest order. Many of his sketches, cutaway drawings and photomontages are brought together and celebrated in Jan Kaplický Drawings. These drawings date from the early years of his independent practice, Future Systems, in the 1970s, to his final ink drawings, executed in the mid-1990s. Featured projects range from design studies for the International Space Station, undertaken with NASA, to the Media Centre at Lords Cricket Ground in London, winner of the 1999 Stirling Prize. Kaplický was one of the worlds last great architect-poet-draughtsmen, upholding a heritage that has its roots in the early Renaissance and has since all but vanished with the advent of computer-aided design. If this book has one central message for architects, it is that drawing as an art and a discipline must not be forgotten.