Architects On Blueprints

ChristopherAlexander in Notes on the Synthesis of Form:

: These diagrams, which, in my more recent work, I have been calling patterns, are the key to the process of creating form. ... most of the power of what I had written lay in the power of these diagrams...

     . . .

: Henri Poincaré once said: 'Sociologists discuss sociological methods; physicists discuss physics.' I love this statement. Study of method by itself is always barren, and people who have treated [Notes on Synthesis] as if it were a book about 'design method' have almost always missed the point of the diagrams, and their great importance, because they have been obsessed with the details of the method I propose for getting at the diagrams.

Witold Rybczynski, The Most Beautiful House in the World, p. 121: Alberti's Law:

: "Here is another liability: beautiful drawings can become ends in themselves. Often, if the drawing deceives, it is not only the viewer who is enchanted but also the maker, who is the victim of his own artifice. Alberti understood this danger and pointed out that architects should not try to imitate painters and produce lifelike drawings. The purpose of architectural drawings, according to him, was merely to illustrate the relationship of the various parts... Alberti understood, as many architects of today do not, that the rules of drawing and the rules of building are not one and the same, and mastery of the former does not ensure success in the latter."