ABSTRACT
In today's practice of architecture the problem of drawing is the problem of building; both are perceived as final ends. Mistaking the temporal nature of architectural work as being eternally unchangeable they have become fixed models of their own image projecting onto each other an unchanging vision of reality. The ichnography's metaphoric transparency can be explained through a transforming of sight into gaze, darkness into light. The impenetrability of the printed surface is opened and becomes a locus of perception of invisible elements active within the real. The garland surrounding Alfarano's Veronica, possibly alludes to this traditional iconography and transforms the Holy Face in a medallion type portrait.37 The relationship between Veronica's medallion and basilica's plan in Alfarano's drawing appears analogous to the relationship between imago clipeata and Golgotha's cross in St. Stephen's. In contemporary practice architectural drawings no longer instruct how to construct in a descriptive way, but have become prescriptive.
