ructural requirements. In all the Dharmala building is a convincing testament to Rudolph’s life-time work and a confident reaffirmation of the design principles which he evolved and always held so dear.
The architectural drawing techniques developed by Paul Rudolph are unique, vibrant in their manual execution and a trademark for which he is now justly famous. They concentrate on the sequence of producing presentation drawings; from conception to sketch to final design with drawings that encompass plans, elevations and, particularly, sections that bring a quality of three-dimensional representation to the design process. His single-point perspectives imposed on an accurately drawn section are an immaculate way of portraying the internal space and character of a building at these formative stages. By illustrating the scheme realistically with as much detail, texture and shadows as possible, his techniques attempt to bring the building prematurely to life, to assist both the designer and the client to visualize the building while it is still only a drawing. Rudolph describes these intricate graphical illustrations in the introduction to the book which features only the presentational drawings of his designs, Paul Rudolph, Architectural Drawings.
Rudolph explains the complex interaction between sketches, renderings and the design process: ‘Buildings which have been designed but were never built still exist for me, if for no one else’. (14) Sketches, he said, were the most direct line between the architect’s imagination and the tangible. Renderings are prepared when the ideas have become crystallized and because the clients’ insatiable desire to ‘see what the building looks like’ must be met. He was alive, however, to the limitations of these illustrations, pointing out that they only show the building from one view and at one point in time. Design drawings have a life of their own, he said. In explaining his presentation techniques in this manner Rudolph displays a Beaux Arts approach to the process, where the design drawing was considered to be an end in itself where the two-dimensional work of art became detached from the three- dimensional architecture for which it was created. However, its artistry was a potential danger for Rudolph, too, and for any other talented presentation artist. The sheer quality of the presentation could seduce the creator into believing that the final building would be equally sensitive and captivating. This may, for instance, have sadly held true in cases where he applied his graphical dexterity to illustrate concrete and other tactile textures, when the material in practice could not be used with the same elegance and human feeling which went into the drawing.
Rudolph’s presentation techniques were incredibly detailed, notable for their precision and accuracy, and reminiscent in some respects of Victorian etchings. Every element in the building was illustrated, including furniture, landscaping and people, everything which was to be designed and part of the composition was depicted to allow the viewer to visualize the total effect of the newly designed environment. The texture, materials and finishes were also graphically represented, sometimes stylized, but included to give as realistic a feeling of the grain or the nature of the finishes as possible as these were, of course, very important to the characteristics of the building.
The technique of rendering appropriate to illustrate Rudolph’s designs also helped in his choice of material for the building. It was interesting that he drew the vertical grooved concrete finish on his 1970s buildings and explained that it looked right on the drawings. He used concrete and explored its different finishes, precast and in-situ with different exposed aggregate and shutter-board textures because he felt that it was a modern material and its plasticity gave him infinite flexibility in his dynamic designs. He said that he considered brick an alien material in the twentieth century (in spite of Wright’s extensive use of brick in most of his famous projects