The Architecture Drawing Prize to be displayed at Sir John Soane’s Museum

Opening on 21 February in the Sir John Soane Museum’s Foyle Space, this exhibition represents the culmination of the inaugural The Architecture Drawing Prize which launched in Summer 2017.

The prize celebrates drawing’s significance as a tool in capturing and communicating ideas, recognising the continuing importance of hand drawing, but also embracing the creative use of digitally produced renderings. The entries were evaluated on the basis of their technical skill, originality in approach, and ability to convey an architectural idea, whether for a conceptual or actual building project. This is in the spirit of many great architects of the past such as Palladio, Le Corbusier, Cedric Price and Sir John Soane, who all developed the device of drawing in different ways to advance the art of architecture.

The exhibition will showcase the winning entry as well as a selection of those shortlisted, announced at the World Architecture Festival in Berlin in November 2017. Momento Mori: a Peckham Hospice Care Home by Jerome Xin Hao Ng, was selected as the overall winning drawing, and was taken from the category for Hybrid images. His work depicts a facility that provides all the necessary apparatus while providing comfort to patients. As Jerome describes the image ‘The architectural design furnishings of this place provide a learning platform for the celebration and appreciation of the gift of life.’

Jeremy Melvin, Curator of World Architecture Festival (WAF), heralded the drawing as “a superbly conceived and executed perspectival view looking down through the building from roof level, praised for its technical skill and the sensitivity with which it depicted the spaces found in such institutions as settings for multi-generation social interaction.” It was produced as part of Ng’s final diploma project at The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London.

Christopher Wijatno’s Deepwater Purgatory and Dimitris Grozopoulos’ Scenarios for a Post- Crisis Landscape won in the categories of Digital and Hand-drawn. Wijatno depicted a prison moored like an oil rig in deep water, which judges felt evoked Piranesi and Dante. Grozopoulos’ drawing was commended by judges as having a haunting quality beyond that of most images of post-industrial landscapes, portrayed with an extraordinary control of line.

With over 166 entries from students, architects and designers from 26 different countries, this exhibition will feature the three winning entries, plus the 10 commended entries.

The Architecture Drawing Prize at the Soane continues the Museum’s exploration of the role of architecture both in classical and contemporary culture.

Owen Hopkins, Senior Curator of Exhibitions and Education at Sir John Soane’s Museum says: “Drawing is the driving force of architecture, a statement that’s as true today as it was for Sir John Soane when he created his house-museum and its collection of over 30,000 drawings nearly 200 years ago. Drawing acts as a way of thinking and observing, as a design tool, as a means of visualising ideas, of developing and communicating them, and as field for the speculation and imagination, where alternate futures and architectural realities can be brought into existence. The works on show in the exhibition reflect this extraordinary diversity of approaches to and uses of architectural drawing, demonstrating that the art of architectural drawing is well and truly alive.”

Ken Shuttleworth, Founder of Make, says: “Drawing has always been a passion of mine, I imagine it is for most architects. So few drawings are realised as actual buildings, but this is a chance to celebrate the drawing as its own creation, its own piece of art. We hope that this exhibition will provide an exciting snapshot of creative thinking and excellence in drawing from around the world.”