ABSTRACT
On a certain day during my college years, one of my architecture teachers
showed us an amazing document: Building Footprints, a portfolio of plans of
notable buildings prepared by Eduardo Sacriste.1 We were told to carefully
examine each of the plans-all drawn to the same scale-to understand the
logic that underlay the design of these structures, and to comprehend the
relationships of their parts. The drawings were magnificent, each of them
beautifully rendered in ink [7-1]. The outlines and hatching were consistent;
the identifying text was not found on the portfolio plates, but in an accom-
panying book. My fellow students and I spent hours looking at these drawings,
marveling at the elegance of Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1938 Johnson’s Wax office
building, or being amazed at just how small Le Corbusier’s 1952 chapel at
Ronchamp was when compared to Notre Dame de Paris or even the Pantheon.
The lessons taught by that portfolio of plans were indelible, and from that