Architects' Sketchbooks

A privileged view of the sketchbooks of over eighty architects and studios, showing how they use drawing to express their spatial ideas while revealing their individual methods

Architects' Sketchbooks shows what goes on in architects' minds as they envisage the built World and recast it through their imagination and visual skill.

This is the first survey to present the private sketchbooks of 85 architects, from such starchitects as Will Alsop, Shigeru Ban, Norman Foster and Eva Jiricna to rising talents from all over the world.

Will Jones's introduction explores the artistry behind the built world, and the importance of sketching as part of the design process; the sketches themselves range from simple pencil line drawings and clear perspectives to abstract compositions in pastel and collage, from quick freehand to measured mapping, from spontaneous squiggles on napkins to careful drawings on art paper.

Densely packed with over 750 illustrations, Architects' Sketchbooks is a celebration of how a sketch can become the start of a skyscraper.