the secret laboratory - the paul clarke prize for best sketchbook

[click to enlarge]

As a child I was always interested in drawing. I used to keep all kinds of notebooks that I drew in and stuck pictures in cut from magazines. When I started architecture school there was little in the way of computers (not that long ago!) and everything was hand drawn. The sketches, the carefully drawn lines, the complex projections and the incredible renderings we all did, told a story of the hand and eye which was part of the pleasure –and at times pain- of training to becoming an architect.

I was lucky enough to gain travelling scholarships abroad in which the sketchbook became your constant companion. Before setting out on one of these I arranged to view the sketchbooks of Charles Rennie Mackintosh held in the Hunterian Gallery at the University of Glasgow. This was something of a revelation for me and the sketchbooks had a profound effect. What Macintosh observed found its way directly into his remarkable buildings and designs. The range of his visual ‘net’ moved from a door lock, to a flower, to the most intricate of vernacular building studies. Often he would layer these drawings over one another showing shifts in perception, scale and patterns of changing contours.

I like many architects have kept all kinds of sketchbooks over the years and I have been interested in what people observe and record in their notebooks and sketches. It seemed right to me that if I was to give a prize in our new school of architecture and design, that that prize should be for the best sketchbook.

I confess amidst the busy time of the end of the year, with all the exams and exhibitions, the time I take to go round and view the sketchbooks in the portfolios is one of real pleasure. It is inspiring to see the workings of design thinking laid out. But still sketchbooks need to be valued more in our digital age. There is a need for things to be seen and thought in a reflective way, that is uniquely possible in the creative space of the sketchbook, as well as the laptop.

Paul Clarke- lecturer in architecture - University of Ulster

Past Winners of the Paul Clarke prize for the Best Sketchbook

2007 Bronagh Gordon

2008 Maeve Leanord

2009 Daniel Magowan

[home]