American Perspectives

The exhibition presents the hand-drawn worlds of prominent American architects and architectural draftsmen of the 20th and 21st century. The art of architectural representation in the USA, particularly at the beginning of the 20th century, reached heights of originality and perfection which still stand out today. The diversity of techniques used by the American draftsmen is remarkable. Examples from competition entries and designs for realised buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra, Michael Graves, Schultze & Weaver and architectural fantasies by Hugh Ferriss and Achilles Rizzoli, show the influence which drawing style can have on formulating architectonic ideas and demonstrate the role which artistic expression plays on architectural presentation.

Architectural illustration has been particularly recognised from the 1980s to the present day in the United States: in the second half of the 1980s, leading architectural draftsmen founded the American Society of Architectural Perspectivists (today the American Society of Architectural Illustrators ASAI). The society runs the annual Hugh Ferriss Memorial Prize for Architectural Drawing. Now, the Tchoban Foundation presents exceptional works by contemporary architectural draftsmen, including Hugh Ferriss prize winners, Thomas Schaller, Paul Stevenson Oles and Gilbert Gorski. Also on view are works by Richard Ferrier, Steven Quevedo, James Wines, Scott Tulay, Gary Schuberth and Michael Sorkin, similarly renowned for their unmistakable drawing styles in the USA and beyond.

The exhibited works stem from private collections or are on loan from the artists themselves.