Drawing as Landscape Architectural Scholarship

Considering the vital role that drawing plays in conceiving buildings and landscapes, the question of “knowledge” in relation to visual representations becomes a matter of importance. The conventional view of drawing considers it a passive and neutral means to communicate mental concepts in visual form. The present study, however, views drawing as an essential vehicle that both enlists our critical reasoning faculties, as well as engages our senses and imagination in an integrated way to generate new knowledge. As a means to acquire architectural/landscape knowledge, drawing becomes an essential vehicle for scholarship in the field. Depending on the circumstances, drawing can capture or cast (or both). When the drawing is a recipient of the external world, it captures or catches the qualities of an actual place. When the drawing is of a space that perhaps will exist, it can bring out or cast ideas, thoughts, or sensations to an external world and eventually to that envisioned space. After a discussion of the commonalities of drawing in architecture and landscape architecture, the present study concentrates on areas that distinguish landscape drawing from architectural drawing. In the end, the personal experiences of the author, in which the drawing served both as capturing and casting mechanism, is briefly depicted.