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