Upon first look over the minute details of One Drawing Challenge Student Winner Victoria Wong‘s award-winning triptych appears to revel in the medium itself. A drawing that harnesses the powers of digital processes, it certainly requires close looking to grasp the changing perspectives, intertwining scenes and layers of time that are compounded in each of the three scenes. One would be forgiven for assuming that the University of Michigan student set out to explore the aesthetic possibilities of digital sketching, 3D modeling and the various uses of other graphic software.

Yet, while Victoria demonstrates mastery of these techniques, they only tell one part of the story behind the drawing. At a fundamental level, before the composition and execution of these ideas, Victoria set out to explore the boundaries between designing, modeling and post-production. In this way, she approaches her subject matter, the site of Hiroshima, through a kaleidoscopic lens that incorporates Japanese aesthetic theory, contemporary music, and photographing imperfections in daily life. In this sense, the end goal was actually to overcome the hurdles of focusing on the technicalities of the design itself to instead foreground the emotive dimensions of a place, unlocking creative possibilities.

“Suggested by Lebbeus Woods, architecture is essentially an internalization of society yet an externalization of ourselves,” Victoria explained. “Through investigating the decay and death of artifacts and events, Into the Void illustrates the new collisions of regrowth and reshaping our relationship with different agencies.”

Architizer’s Architecture Editor invited Victoria to expand on conceptualization of her winning triptych. In the conversation that follows, the designer, who will be starting at Perkins&Will‘s Dallas studio this May, offers insights into her creative process and the underlying themes of her thesis project.

Hannah Feniak: Congratulations on your success with the One Drawing Challenge! What sparked your interest in entering the competition and what does this accolade mean to you?

Victoria Wong: Thank you, Hannah and your team, for hosting and curating! Also, congratulations to all the winners. I came across the One Drawing Challenge several years ago and appreciated Architizer showcasing a wide variety of entries so the public can appreciate those drawings. The simplicity of one image accompanied by storytelling has also been compelling. Regarding this accolade, it’s an honor to conclude my time as a student by sharing my thesis with the architecture community.

POSSIBILITIES.

Photo Study: The starting point of Victoria’s winning entry was idea curation. To this end, she sought to understand her subject matter through taking photos and analyzing music. 

HF: What were the primary challenges of conceiving your work, from forming the idea to the physical process of creation? 

VW: The triptych serves as the final scenes of my thesis, “Into the Void: Fragment Time, Space, Memory, and Decay in Hiroshima.” It was about a six-month study of various Japanese aesthetic theories of imperfections, including life and death, decay and rebirth, shadow and lights, etc. Since the topic is very conceptual, I took a non-traditional route to build my understanding of the matter by photographing the imperfections in daily observance and analyzing contemporary music after the first round of research. 

The major challenge was translating multiple layers of Hiroshima’s research and new information into the final scenes while acknowledging the historical, cultural and natural aspects of the site. There is a delicate balance in respecting the gravity of the past while proposing a parallel timescape that accepts and appreciates imperfections and the scarring. Another challenge was to showcase the idea through an appropriate medium; in this case, the stages are oversaturated yet harmonizing to counter argue our understanding and concept of “void.” 

The final production was relatively short once I decided what to highlight and how to narrate my thesis. All elements in the triptych were modeled digitally, thus requiring very little post-production work. I specifically enjoyed the production process of this triptych; it was an experiment in challenging how much the post-production process can be minimized. The boundary between designing, modeling and post-production is blurred. The strategy of ‘manipulating’ the illustrations fulfilled my curiosity in examining if the creation of an image can be as interesting as the design and the story behind it. 

Photo Study: A zoomed-in showing one of the panoramic views that was described in the text that Victoria was working with.  

HF: Could you describe why you gravitated towards these specific illustration techniques? 

VW: I usually gravitate towards two types of illustrations: imaginative and informative. The creative illustration reveals how the space feels instead of the technicality of the design, i.e. the mood palette, while the informative illustration showcases relationships in all scales, from connectivities of agencies to architectural detailing to a building’s contextual relationship with its site or cityscape on a larger scale. This triptych lays between the two categories. It is a relatively new way of seeing illustrations for myself, but it seemed fitting for this theme. 

For example, the middle panel conveys the “void in culture” by depicting an afternoon at Yagenbori, previously known as one of the largest red-light districts in Japan. It is currently at its sunset stage and losing its identity as the cradle of Geisha. To capture its story and depict the diversity of the area, I chose to collapse multiple perspectives and timescapes into a one-point perspective allowing time and space to condense into one scene where layers of imagination coexist. The duo-perspective illustrates different timelines in the scene. When the panel is viewed ‘top-down,’ it tells the story of the current days; when it is viewed ‘forward,’ it illustrates the past events. Other floating devices and elements demonstrate futuristic connections bridging the two. The timeline, scale, and space are distorted in ways where elements from different eras are reorganized and coexist in the same world. 

Mini Prints of Testing Images

HF: Your piece explores Japanese aesthetic theories through the city of Hiroshima’s past, presents and future. Do you have other drawings that are as conceptual as this? In terms of format, have you explored the narrative potential of the triptych format in the past?

VW: This is my first time creating a triptych, but I have always gravitated towards illustrations with a sense of humor and leaving room for imagination. The project started with a trio of panoramic collages using historic photos from WWII to re-visualize the same three Hiroshima sites shown in the triptych. They depict a parallel timeline in which human and non-human agencies got to reclaim the ruins and transform them into their habitat instead of reconstructing how the sites were before they were annihilated. In terms of format, I am currently researching a couple of other sites that follow the same trail of investigation and presentation format besides Hiroshima. They both have their challenges – historically, environmentally, culturally, and politically– and I’m excited to see where this way of investigation will affect our views towards scarring that are shared between generations and to inform architects of alternative possibilities.

HF: How did the process and workflow of creating your drawing compare to traditional architectural drafting?

VW: While technology certainly helps people visualize and communicate ideas, I’m attracted to the simplicity of pen and paper when thinking through ideas. During covid, when our mobility was primarily restricted, I started exploring digital sketching. The medium is different, but the general technique remains unchanged. While my ideas begin with analog and digital sketching, 3D modeling and other graphic software are productions and experimental tools that elevate my understanding of design. On the one hand, I enjoy how forgiving digital platforms are, yet making mistakes is the best part of experimenting. 

Detail of the final product: 1/3 of the triptych. 

HF: What one tip would you give other students looking to win next year’s One Drawing Challenge?

VW: Go wild and explore your imagination. There is no right or wrong answer to creating an excellent image as long as the message is conveyed. I’m excited to see how people depict their logic and systematically translate it into a visually pleasing drawing. Have fun, and enjoy the process! 

Thank you, Hannah and your team, for hosting and curating! Also, congratulations to all the winners. I came across the One Drawing Challenge several years ago and appreciated Architizer showcasing a wide variety of entries so the public can appreciate those drawings. The simplicity of one image accompanied by storytelling has also been compelling. Regarding this accolade, it’s an honor to conclude my time as a student by sharing my thesis with the architecture community.

Interested in seeing more work by Victoria Wong? Peruse her portfolio and connect:

> https://www.linkedin.com/in/vwongwt/ 
> https://www.instagram.com/vw.archive/ 

Judging is now underway for the Architizer Vision Awards. Do you want first access to the Winner’s Announcement, information about our Architecture Film Fest, special print publication and more? Sign up to receive key program updates >  

The post This Epic Architectural Triptych Depicts the Complexities of Hiroshima’s Past, Present and Future appeared first on Journal.

Judging is now underway for the Architizer Vision Awards. Do you want first access to the Winner’s Announcement, information about our Architecture Film Fest, special print publication and more? Sign up to receive key program updates >  

Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities is officially more than 50 years old; yet, its enduring appeal is attested to by the special place reserved on most architect’s bookshelves for the Italian fables. For young architecture students and experienced practitioners alike, the book remains a source of inspiration and a constant reminder of the infinite possible experiences inherent to any place. This year’s One Drawing Challenge Non-Student Winner, Thomas Schaller, is one of those architects.

While at first glance, the city in his painting appears to be reflecting on a body of water, longer gazing reveals that the buildings grow both up and down. As the fine artist explains, “This drawing tells the story of Octavia, a city suspended above the Earth by a spider’s web of cables and wires. Interpretations are limitless, but in my interpretation, the inhabitants of Octavia depict the central truth about humanity – connections are profound – but tenuous, just as is our grasp on life itself.” The razor’s edge distinction between precarity and strength is at the core of the urban experience.

Expertly oscillating between the precision of fine lines, seen in details like the bridge and cables, and the more atmospheric and reflective qualities of diffused pigments, the image is mind-bending: not only in terms of subject matter but also in terms of technique. Schaller’s use of his medium, therefore, amplifies the thematic subject matter at the heart of the image.

To learn more about his conceptual and creative processes, Architizer’s Architecture Editor, Hannah Feniak, was delighted to chat with Thomas, who delved into topics such as the relationship between architecture and fine art, and the inspiration for his winning entry. Keep scrolling to see process sketches by the award-winning architectural artist!

Hannah Feniak: Congratulations on your success with the One Drawing Challenge! What sparked your interest in entering the competition, and what does this accolade mean to you?

Thomas Schaller: First, I want to say a very big “Thank You” to everyone at Architizer who designed and hosted this competition and exhibition. It is a great honor for me to even be included. I appreciate all your hard work. And I am in awe of the incredible work entered. Congratulations to all.

From the time I could see, drawing has been fundamental to who I am. As a child, I drew to try to make sense of the worlds I saw both around me and within my imagination. To this day, I am never without a sketchbook and a pocket full of sketch pencils in order to keep a kind of “visual diary” of the ideas in my head as well as to record my impressions of the world we all inhabit. And so, I am thrilled that this competition even exists.

It is my belief that drawing is the most effective and direct connection between the visual image and the human need to record, express, and create. While I rely on traditional pencil and paper, I have no opposition whatsoever to any means, method, or technological tool anyone uses to draw. But for the human mind to open the windows upon the landscapes of perception, creativity, and imagination, drawing is the most effective, enjoyable and expressive way to do so.

HF: What were the primary challenges of conceiving your work, from forming the idea to the creation process?

TS: Like many, I worship the iconic work, Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. It was written in the early 1970s but its themes of exploration, the clash of the real and the imagined, the built and the unbuilt, the plausible and the impossible, dreams, memories and the human condition are simply timeless. The book’s protagonist — an adventurous interpretation of Marco Polo — travels a dreamscape of a world visiting cities built of memory and dreams and offers endless insights into the nature of cities and the very fabric of human life here on Earth.

One of the cities visited is Octavia, described in the book as suspended high above the Earth between two rocky mountain peaks by a tenuous spider’s web of cables and wires. Countless metaphors and analogies can be drawn. One of course is the dependence of any city on a healthy infrastructure of roads, bridges and lines of communication, etc. But another more broad theme is the “infrastructure” of humanity itself. Our very real need to congregate, to form groups for safety, sanity and survival was, for me, the takeaway and the theme of my drawing.

Especially after coming through two years of pandemic, the themes of human interaction and the need for interconnectivity were at the forefront of my mind as I designed this work. We can take our society’s survival for granted, but if we fail to care for and nurture one another, as well as the very planet upon which all societies depend, we can learn just how frail and fragile our infrastructure may truly be.

Preliminary sketch for the winner entry courtesy of the artist

HF: You trained as an architect but now have a successful international career as an architectural watercolor artist and author. How do you think the medium itself contributes to the scenes that you depict — in particular, in your winning entry?

TS: In my earlier days, I felt that I had to choose between my wish to become a visual artist and my desire to become an architect. In time, I became both, but my career interests operated on separate tracks, divided by an arbitrary and faulty belief that each had separate aims. It has taken many years for me to understand that these interests,  as well as many others, could be successfully merged into a single creative energy. The key to this for me was in realizing that all things — all ideas, all people, all places, all atmosphere and negative space itself has a kind of architecture. There is a shape and a volume to everything seen and unseen, real or simply imagined. And so anything can be studied, modeled and drawn. If I concentrate on drawing what I “see” rather than what I “look at” — drawing genuine emotional experiences rather than simple visual observations, the landscapes for creativity become boundless.

HF: Your winning entry was inspired by Italo Calvino’s classic, Invisible Cities. Are your other architectural paintings and drawings as conceptual as “Octavia – Suspended City”?

TS: Repeat readings of Invisible Cities helped me to form the cornerstone of what would become my “artistic voice”. I am more aware of contrasts than anything else as I move through the world. By that I mean of course the clash of dark and light, but also ideas about what is real or simply imagined, the man-made and the natural environments, warm and cool tonalities, vertical, horizontal, and diagonal energies, and thoughts about time — what is past, present, or yet to be.

As polarities meet and find some kind of resolution — or not — this is what my work is always about, trying to find a resolution on paper of two or more things in opposition. And so yes, such conceptual work is exactly what I have been long most interested in exploring.

HF: What first drew you to watercolor as a medium for depicting the built environment?

TS: As a choice of medium, watercolor is a perfect fit for me. It has the ability to be either very precise or completely abstract, controlled or wild. The use of watercolor is a study in edges: hard and explicit, or soft and ephemeral. Watercolors can at once be subtle and suggestive or bold and explicit.

I think of watercolor too as a “subtractive” process in that we begin with a piece of white paper, 100% in light. And we proceed to subtract away some of this light as we go. The transparent nature of watercolor enhances our potential to study light. And in the end, the parts of our work that are not painted can be as powerful and full of meaning as those which are painted.

And the connection to drawing itself cannot be ignored. I actually consider what I do with watercolor as drawing, but I draw with shapes of value and tone rather than with lines.

Planning the concept and colors for the winner entry, image courtesy of the artist

HF: My next question is somewhat related to the preceding one: How did the process and workflow of creating your drawing compare to traditional architectural drafting?

TS: As stated, watercolor is a form of drawing to me. But rather than depicting ideas of space and form with a line, we do so by using shapes of tone and value, shadow and light, and color. But line-based sketching and more precise architectural drawing are always an element in what I do as well. These are time-honored and beautiful means of expression which I hope never to abandon. In my work, I try to merge the precise with the suggested, the implied with the stated, and so while I wander quite far from my more precise architectural roots, they are always there as a kind of north star shading any wild flights of fancy with at least a note of plausibility.

HF: What one tip would you give the other participants looking to win next year’s One Drawing Challenge?

TS: Oh my … “ advice”. I always say that the best advice I have is to take very little advice. This is a glib non-answer I realize but there’s something in it. What I mean is that as we all try to improve and advance in our careers and our own sense of achievement, it becomes all-too easy to compare our work or measure ourselves against our colleagues or others whose work we admire. This is natural, but should be avoided as much as possible.

I am nowhere near the artist I hope to be some day, but I only started to make noticeable improvements when I trained my ego to be a bit more self-reliant and less “noisy”. It’s too easy to live on social media and if we succumb to the flattery or the uninformed critiques we hear online, we are doomed. I think we should take any feedback onboard, process it quickly and move past it.

Genuinely, I celebrate the accomplishments of my colleagues. But I understand that another’s win does not equal my loss. And anything I might achieve does not diminish any other’s work. While you can never draw or paint like anyone else, neither can anyone else draw or paint like you.

And so rather than by seeing the world always by looking outward, spend as much time exploring the worlds you see by looking inward. And listen. There is your voice telling you what you need to do and where you need to go. We already have within us all we need to do most anything we wish to do. So if we trust that voice and learn to hear it more clearly, it will lead us in the direction we should be traveling.

Interested in seeing more work by Thomas Schaller Fine Art? Peruse his portfolio and connect with the artist through your preferred channel:

> www.thomaswschaller.com
> www.facebook.com/thomaswschaller
> www.twitter.com/twschaller
> www.instagram.com/thomaswschaller

Judging is now underway for the Architizer Vision Awards. Do you want first access to the Winner’s Announcement, information about our Architecture Film Fest, special print publication and more? Sign up to receive key program updates >  

The post One Drawing Challenge Winner Explores Enduring Truths at the Heart of a Classic Book Beloved by Architects Worldwide appeared first on Journal.