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Christian Dagg

Christian Dagg, MA, BSA

Head of School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture

CV.pdf

I have been pursuing several lines of research using the tools of drawing to advance an understanding of a site-specific architectural response to the cultural context of the South. One avenue for this research has been through my own personal creative work. The finished works exist as buildings and residences that meet architectural requirements, built to a standard that addresses material properties, weathering and durability. Another aspect of the work is concerned with the imagery of historic building typologies integrated with a contemporary sensibility of space, volume and sequence. It has been through the use of very specific drawing techniques that these aspects of the work can be studied and critiqued.

I have studied the representational opportunities of very specific drawing types; the analytique, the axonometric drawing, and orthographic projections. A common technique in French schools of architecture in the 17th century was to create compositions on a single sheet of paper that represented the proposed building through multiple drawings at a variety of scales. As French trained architects began to practice in the United States this type of drawing, the analytique, became a well utilized format for publishing the work of architects, especially before the development of architectural photography. In the 1960s, the perspective drawing and its central role in the analytique began to give way to the more abstract representation of space and sequence that one can identify in axonometric and orthographic projections. These drawings are one method that the ideas in the built work can be reflected upon. There is the use of many different drawing types, compositions across the space of the page, and the use of computer modeling to develop views that are complex. The hope is that each drawing can convey a very specific intention for each of the projects included. These drawings should be seen as a continuation and homage to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Wasmuth Portfolio, James Stirling’s isometric drawings and Machado and Silvetti’s “Green Book”.

These architectural projects have been completed in collaboration with David Hinson, with the both of us as principals of Hinson + Dagg Architects LLC. The drawings were completed as a part of submittals to design award programs for the American Institute of Architects- Alabama Chapter. The following individuals assisted in the development of the projects; Claire Kubilins, John Sydnor, Sarah Wahlgren, Matthew Stagg, Amanesi Ozako, Brittany Noe.

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