Facade Articulation in Barcelona: "Why Not?"

The city of Barcelona is known for taking liberal risks with their buildings and facades, which luckily often pays off in new and interesting ways for the city. Along our bike tour we encountered many such examples, and in turn attempted to gain the essence of each in drawing as few lines as possible while still representing the value of each. The first we were asked to represent was the Illa de la Llum, by architects Lluis Collet and Ignacio, a building whose balconies and floor slabs are treated in a way so that the façade starts to deconstruct and resemble an unfinished building. When attempting to draw the façade, the trouble comes in representing a complex system of moveable panels through a restricted amount of lines. Thus, by drawing its two roofs and slightly offsetting the connecting vertical line the façade’s character is hinted at, though ultimately required more than three lines to become thoroughly coherent. A second façade we were asked to study actually consisted of two buildings, and their combined effect on one another. The two buildings were Torre Diagonal by EMBA and the Barcelona Forum by Herzog and De Muron, and both served to symbiotically heighten the transparency and effect of each other.  In my drawing, I attempt to convey the overlap that occurs not just between the building profiles, but also the fenestration and shading systems of both.  The Torre Diagonal acts as a continuation not only of what is happening at the Forum, but also a reflection of the sky and clouds so that it becomes an articulation of the existing site instead of an object in its own right. 

San Antoni Library, Barcelona's premiere coffin for books

In your estimation, does your drawing represent the form and materiality of the San Antoni Library?  Elaborate on why or why not? 

The drawing I had made of the San Antoni Library is successful in some respects and short in others, though I partially blame the poor weather for some of its shortcomings. The drawing portrays well two important aspects of the building’s form, that of its proportion and its recessive volumes. In relation to its neighboring buildings, the library takes cue of the existing vertical rhythm to create its volume, as well as void and openings. Within this void the recessive volume becomes important through its relation between the front and back facades, as well as how it serves to connect its flanking volumes. More abstract is the representation of the materials, especially in the case of this particular library. The black, reflective metal of the building serves to provide an intangible quality to the architecture through reflection, much in the way a monument would. (e.g. the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C.) In the drawing I attempt to approach this by showing the physical, vertical lines of the material on the façade, as well as the stratified shadows created by the recessed volume. However, perhaps due to the cloudy weather and lack of light, the building’s reflection was not strikingly clear and hence fairly difficult to put onto paper with pencil alone. Perhaps through another medium, such as watercolor or something similarly transparent, the building’s reflective qualities would have been made more obvious through the drawing.