At once sign and signifier, drawings are to architecture and building culture what words and syntax are to literature. Representing worlds, spaces, edifices, temples, techniques and procedures, drawings depict, indicate, measure and specify. As such drawings are an essential device for sharing knowledge. A Longstanding tool in architectural treatises, architectural illustration is understood and used by architects and builders to speak skillfully about construction.
R. Scott Burn’s treatise «Building Construction; Showing the employment of Timber, Lead, and Iron Work in the Practical Construction of Buildings» published in 1877 used drawings to elucidate strategies that could readily be applied to any building type. The timber details specifically, showcased a relatively recent building system, that would transform building culture. Complex notches, joinery and woodworking were being replaced by nailing and years of carpentry training could be supplanted by a good set of drawings depicting a number of important structural details and nailing principles. Based on the machine operated saw-mill and nail cutters the use of mass-produced nails and timber sticks simplified skeletal construction. Heavy timber box frames evolved into lightweight versions with corresponding composing parts spaced closely for bearing walls (studs), floors (joists) and roofs (rafters and purlins). These main constituting parts transformed construction and a nation’s landscape.
The balloon frame would be shared by drawings in architecture, building and agricultural journals and would altogether reform industrialized building culture. Clear and concise instructions for joining, cutting and matching expounded a Do-It-Yourself culture for housing. Drawings and their subsequent open sharing allowed anyone with access to timber, nails and a saw to become a builder. Craft was in a sense replaced or perhaps more correctly usurped by drawings. There are numerous examples of balloon frame drawings in trade journals or catalogues. The balloon frame’s and subsequently the platform frame’s (a-one story variation, attributed to William J Levitt) circulation gained popularity in mass literature. “Raising Walls on a Slab Floor” published in the August 1946 issue of Popular Science exemplified this. The article’s beginner's illustration described the manageable construction of a timber framed walls. These drawing types are an integral part of balloon frame history and D-I-Y culture in construction.
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| Burn's treatise (left) - Popular Science - August 1946 (right) |
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