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Exhibition Reviews
"David Macaulay: The Art of Drawing Architecture." National Building Museum, Washington, D.C. http://www.nbm.org/.
Temporary exhibition, June 23, 2007–May 4, 2008. 3,000 sq. ft. Kathleen Franz, guest curator; Chrysanthe Broikos, coordinating curator; Deborah Moore Sorensen, curatorial associate.
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| The exhibition "David Macaulay: The Art of Drawing Architecture" at the National Building Museum proved as interdisciplinary as its subject: the author, illustrator, and educator David Macaulay. By presenting a cross-section of his architectural drawings, from preliminary sketches to final drafts, the exhibition explored Macaulay's process for creating hand-drawn images of complex built structures. The guest curator Kathleen Franz, an assistant professor at American University, and Chrysanthe Broikos and Deborah Moore Sorensen of the National Building Museum suggested that Macaulay's method of "visual archeology" serves as both a visual excavation and a re-creation of historically significant archaeological sites. While Macaulay's work concentrates more on things than people, the curators created an inviting and hands-on space that involved audiences, young and old, in Macaulay's project of using drawing to ask questions about the past. |
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Macaulay studied architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design and in the early 1970s began creating books of stories and drawings about the built environment, ranging from construction in Egypt (Pyramid, 1975) to the deconstruction of the Empire State Building (Unbuilding, 1980). In his drawings, Macaulay peels back the layers of buildings to reveal the hidden structural components. Many people are familiar with his exploration of machines in The Way Things Work (1988), but equally elaborate less-known volumes explore cities, animals, and books in addition to buildings. Meticulously researched and intensely creative, Macaulay's work appeals to children and adults. Historians, architects, and archaeologists take delight in his approach to exploring the past. |
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The National Building Museum's exhibition differed from other gallery shows of Macaulay's work, including the Norman Rockwell Museum's current traveling Macau–lay retrospective, in its emphasis on his creative process in addition to the value of his drawings as art. "David Macaulay" filled several rooms on the National Building Museum's second floor. Drawings, writings, videos, photographs, and three-dimensional models covered the walls, and sometimes the floors and ceilings. Malcolm Grear Designers created an attractive and easily navigable space that enveloped viewers without overwhelming them. With only a few lengthy labels at the start of each section, the minimal text informed the viewer while letting the work speak for itself. Last-minute doodles that Macaulay drew on the walls, props built by the design team, such as a model bridge, and areas for sketching and reading about the subjects of the drawings complemented the featured work. Distinctive wall colors helped differentiate the introductory area and each of the subsequent sections of the exhibition: "Mosque: A Study in Visual Archeology," "Playing with Perspective," "Revealing Structure," and "Inspiring Imagination." By starting with his most recently published drawings and working backward chronologically, the layout and content of the exhibit reflected Macaulay's deconstructionist process. |
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