Anthropomorphic Resources in Contemporary Architectural Drawing

Anthropomorphism has long served as a metaphor for understanding architecture and its components. Artists and architects have used it as a measurement standard and allegorical attribute in relation to philosophy and religion. This analogy, as a resource for graphic communication in architecture, has enabled the understanding of complex concepts through familiar elements of nature. While its usage declined from the 17th to 19th centuries, the shift towards modernity led to its formal and metrical reinterpretation. This text explores various contemporary interpretations of anthropomorphism as a graphic resource, considering its geometric and symbolic aspects. Over the past 70 years, architectural drawing has exhibited diverse forms, encompassing educational drawings by Fritz Kahn and the Vienna Circle, as well as the utilitarian metrics of Neufert and Le Corbusier. Other architects, such as O. M. Ungers with city metaphors, Tschumi, Thom Mayne, and recent projects like Urban CT-Scan or Philippe Rahm’s proposals, have also embraced the communicative possibilities of anthropomorphism.