If we consider the culture of building, measured drawings are not the norm. Most structures, especially vernacular ones, are the work of builders—masons, bricklayers, and craftspeople, among others—who construct spaces without recourse to drawings. However, drawing is a multifaceted concept, and one could argue that such builders’ use of strings to straighten wooden planks or determine levels and their tracing of ornamental lines onto stones are all forms of drawing. Yet, beginning with the European Renaissance, drawing with pencil and paper was most closely associated with the formation of architecture as distinct from building. In Asia, Africa, and the Americas, the practice of drawing spaces and buildings has a longer history that is not tied to European definitions of architect and architecture. In these cases, drawing and building were often not discrete practices, such that the outlining of a boundary or the paint on an adobe wall could be both...
University of California Press