), and then had the honesty to admit that this might be because he found it difficult to draw.
Central to Rudolph’s philosophy as it matured was the design of spatial arrangements with the natural light controlled by the solid enclosures and the open voids and glazing between them. Because of these design preferences it was important that he developed a presentation technique to enable him to study and express the concept of space within his buildings; so that he could illustrate his schemes accurately in three dimensions. The laborious task of producing plans, elevations and sections did not properly convey the spatial atmosphere of a building to enable this important design issue to be investigated properly.
Rudolph developed the use of the single-point perspective constructed on a cross-section through the building and drawn in black and white to a large scale is his trademark presentation technique, of which he has become an undoubted master, specifiable to study the spatial qualities of his designs. It is a unique way to examine and illustrate the interior of a building and exceptional for an architect to discover an accurate graphic system expressly for this purpose. The dynamic view of the internal space, its functions and activities inside a building showing its construction, services, furniture and people, all illustrated proportionally to scale and then amplified with light, shadows and texture is the most realistic way of portraying the three dimensions of a building in two dimensions. There is no other modern architect who has used this technique so successfully or achieved such a consistently high standard of presentation to illustrate the spatial qualities in his projects. The meticulous concentration on detail of these manually produced drawings is astounding and now, in the age of computerized images, it is unlikely to be emulated again in the future – nor indeed will it need to be. The fine artistry, which was achieved in Victorian etchings for reproduction purposes, was in some ways parallel with Rudolph’s techniques because the latter, too, were evolved in this form to enable his illustrations to be reduced or sometimes enlarged and then reproduced. They were never in color, always in black and white, and usually in different grades of pen and ink drawings. This graphic technique was particularly subtle and sensitive. It allowed various line thicknesses to reflect the profile, texture and content. By using a different intensity of line Rudolph was able to indicate the relative distances between buildings, outlining the nearest with a wide line and the farthest away in a thin line. This tonal difference was also applied in the graphics, to indicate texture, finishes and shadows while also emphasizing depth and distance in a presentation.
As the size of projects increased so it became necessary to increase the size of the presentation drawings, hence some of these schemes were far too large to be produced by just one person. A team of people was sometimes engaged on one design drawing, all working to a predetermined graphic language to achieve uniformity. It was amusing to see four designers each working on one corner of a huge drawing board on the same drawing with two of them producing their work upside down, all conforming to an agreed set system of graphics and each producing cross-hatched lines! Several copy-printing techniques were employed to avoid laboriously reproducing repetitive components of these large projects. The original design drawing illustrating the megastructure schemes, such as the Graphic Arts Center in New York, has groups of buildings photocopied and stuck in place to avoid redrawing each identical component. As these drawings were usually produced on white paper or card, which did not tolerate mistakes or changes, these large presentation drawings had amendments glued on the master copy in a manner which resembled a patchwork quilt, This did not, however, matter because this was only a stage in the process of illustrating these major projects. Once the final large drawing had be