early architectural heroes

Yesterday, I came across “The History ofthe Future in Ten Images” on the BBC website. Featured fifth was “Antonio Sant'Elia's futuristic cities” and featured one of the influential Italian architect Sant’Elia’s seminal, iconic architectural perspectives (left hand drawing above) which he drew for a futurist “Citta Nuova”. It might seem strange but, throughout my career, this image was a huge influence in my architectural thinking and development – not that I ever fancied designing entire cities! Somewhat frightening (for me), as I read the article, I realised the drawing was produced very nearly a HUNDRED years ago (1914)… amazing.

I’ve always held the view (and I appreciate that, these days, this is probably a minority opinion!) that architects SHOULD BE ABLE TO DRAW… and, perhaps somewhat strangely (in the eyes of many), I still maintain this view – even in this wonderful age of computer technology.
I produced a large number of architectural perspectives during the course of my architectural career – although I now probably only have records of one or two fairly insignificant ones (a cause of some regret).
Seeing the Sant’Elia (1888-1916) drawing reminded me of my other architectural perspectivist hero, Helmut Jacoby (1926-2005).
I used to get his books out of the library on an incredibly regular basis (I think our local library stocked just two of them… and that I was the only person who ever booked them out!). A typical illustration of his is shown on the right hand side of the above image.
I just googled the name and see that I could buy a used copy of “Helmut Jacoby: Master of Architectural Drawing” for a mere £1,226.29!
We all need heroes… and these were two of my mine.