40. Drawing as the Adoration of Landscape with Frits Palmbloom

““It’s about wonder.””

Today we examine the sketchbooks of Dutch architect and urban designer Frits Palmboom and understand drawing as a kind of quasi spiritual adoration of the landscape. We also discuss the role of tracing and errors in design thinking, as also the differences between the Indian, European and American city.

Timestamp Outline

1:03 Sketchbook: Moleskine’s Frits Palmboom: Inspiration and Process in Architecture
4:37 Page 37: “I follow the lines with my eyes and draw them with my hands.”
8:48 On drawing as reenacting landscape
10:48 Retracing as a critical design practice: to understand and to enjoy
11:50 “For me the most important thing is to understand the character or identity of the site, of the place that I am in. The design is only incident...Wondering about all these things that exist, and that you exist, and that you can enjoy it in a way that can be so overwhelming: it’s about wonder.”
13:02 Drawing as adoration, wonderment
13:44 Drawing as a way to grasp a vast landscape into a little line into a little sketchbook on your knee
15:35 Einfühlung in German: a kind of bodily and spatial empathy
17:27 Tracing, retracing, errors, and the emergence of something new and abstract through layers of trace paper
23:16 How did you start drawing?
24:12 Cycling in the Netherlands as a child with his father whistling Mozart symphonies
26:07 Precise military topographic maps to plan bike rides to follow paths with views
27:27 “The fractal order of an Indian city” vs America’s “strict and elaborate buildings”
30:14 US buildings before the modern movement: granite facades, repetitive order of windows, buildings that don’t specifically welcome you
33:03 Relationship between American landscape and American architecture
35:01 Corbusier’s drawings of the Chandigarh: a promise of modern architecture that is not sterile
40:10 Chandigarh as the future city: fractal order and linear city intertwined
44:00 The grid and capitol as part of a larger pattern in the larger area
44:54 Green spaces within Chandigarh of extreme value for the future
45:37 Places of quietness where time comes to a standstill: temples, mosques, pools, etc.
47:21 Leisure Valley in Chandigarh