ABSTRACT
Nowadays, the use of drawing in the engineering design process as a conceptual tool is barely residual. Drawing is mostly used on its technical part – plans, sections, details – in order to communicate a project, as a necessity. However, in the past, engineers used to rely heavily on drawing, on its multiple forms – sketching, hand-drawing, statics and technical representation – to design and detail any structure. Starting with the creation of the modern engineer at the École des Ponts et Chaussées, we analyze how drawing as tool for the engineer evolved until the end of the 19th century, focusing on the binary of visual representation and mathematical analysis. We found that the crescent focus on a mathematical approach was responsible for the decline of the classic visual representation tools and led to an excess of diagrammatic representations, which are abstractions of reality and impede engineers from achieving an effective dialogue between form and structure.
