We Fight the Battle with the Drawings on the Wall

BACKGROUND: 'Drawing Ambience' is the catalogue of the exhibition of the same name, which features formative drawings by prominent architects from the private collection of Alvin Boyarsky. The exhibition was initiated in 2014 and has since then been traveling to Canada, Europe, the US and Australia. The catalogue is a combination of critical texts and close-up reproductions of prints, drawings, and a limited edition AA Folio series, exploring both the techniques and the imaginative spirit of drawing practices that permeated this time of change and experimentation in architecture worldwide. Nicholas Boyarsky - who designed the exhibition installation and, Alvin Boyarsky's son - contributed the essay 'We fight the battle with the drawings on the wall.' CONTRIBUTION: Nicholas' essay positions drawing as a polemic in architecture. Focusing on a few key architects - Zaha Hadid, Peter Wilson and Peter Salter - and their individualised drawing techniques, Nicholas discusses how their drawings were not representational, but rather, expressed ideas of architecture. Nicholas has been working on the Alvin Boyarsky archive since 2012; this essay is part of his ongoing research into the complexity of Alvin's pedagogical approach and radicalisation of architectural practice. This essay alludes to how Nicholas uses the exhibition and its catalogue as a way to revive and give new life to Alvin's archive, contributing more broadly to the dissemination of his legacy to architectural practice and thinking. SIGNIFICANCE: The 160-page fully-illustrated exhibition catalogue was published by Kemper Art Museum (Chicago, Illinois) and distributed by the University of Chicago. Nicholas also designed the exhibition installation with curators Igor Marjanovic and Jan Howard. The exhibition project has received extensive reviews since 2014. According to the Guardian, it 'upends familiar ideas about progression, succession and antecedence.' (Amelia Stein, May 2015)