Handwritings of Architects. The Verbal-Iconic Alliance

Abstract

The critical analysis of the architects' handwriting has never received the in-depth analysis it deserved. For an architect, the act of handwriting can have two outcomes: a text without images, transcription of a verbal thought; a text that accompanies the images, integrates them and expands their meaning. In the first case, the analysis of writing falls within the scope of graphology. This discipline, despite the existence of historically consolidated schools (such as the Italian one, which refers to the work of Girolamo Moretti), is not considered scientific, as the validity of the methods of analysis used is not demonstrable. In any case, the method proposed by Moretti does not specifically address the characteristics of the architect's handwriting; he associates it with that of other visual artists or with that of the engineer. In the latter, the handwriting is integrated into the image and its analysis is fully part of the iconographic studies. We will indicate these forms of handwriting-drawing with the term ‘graphism’. First, it is necessary to distinguish ‘autographic’ graphisms from ‘allographic’ graphisms. The first are addressed to the author himself; the latter, although made freehand, are intended for an external audience. Therefore, they have a more explicitly declaratory value. Regarding the function of handwriting in relation to freehand drawing we can distinguish: ‘didactic’ functions (handwriting adds information to an already completed drawing); ‘integrative’ functions (handwriting adds information that the drawing cannot provide); ‘rhetorical’ functions (handwriting emphasizes an author's judgment in relation to the drawing or highlights a particular quality). A particular case of graphism is the calligram, in which the image and the handwriting are so intimately connected as to constitute an inseparable sinol. Through this essay we will try to suggest a method for a first systematization of the handwriting accompanying the freehand architectural drawing, to subsequently be able to develop appropriate analyses depending on the type of graphism examined.