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  • Niki Kubaczek, Monika Mokre (Hg.)

    Die Stadt als Stätte der Solidarität

  • Floris Alkemade, Michiel van Iersel,…

    REWRITING ARCHITECTURE. 10+1 Actions. Tabula Scripta

  • Manuel de la Pena Suarez

    Structuralism and Experimentation in the Architecture of…

  • Anaïs Wiedenhöfer & Lena Wolfart

    Everyday Urban Design 4. Genossenschaftliche…

  • A & P Smithson Hexenhaus-Archiv,…

    Alison & Peter Smithson. Hexenhaus. A House for a Man…

  • Emmanuelle Chiappone-Piriou (Ed.)

    Superstudio Migrazioni

  • Tim Ingold

    Eine kurze Geschichte der Linien

  • Renate Boere

    Beyond Design. Making Socially Relevant Projects Successful

  • Christoph Herndler, Florian Neuner (Hg.)

    Der unfassbare Klang. Notationskonzepte heute

  • Fredric Jameson

    The Benjamin Files

  • Adam Štěch

    Modern Architecture and Interiors

  • Gabrielle Kenndy (Hg)

    In/Search Re/Search. Imagining Scenarios Through Art and…

  • Diedrich Diederichsen, Oier Etxeberria…

    Cybernetics of the Poor

  • Paul Hegarty

    Annihilating Noise

  • John Beck

    Landscape as Weapon. Cultures of Exhaustion and Refusal

  • Axel Sowa, Ela Kacel (eds.)

    Candide. Journal for Architectural Knowledge / No. 12

  • Douglas Spencer

    Critique of Architecture: Essays on Theory, Autonomy, and…

  • Hansuli Matter, Björn Franke (eds.)

    Not at Your Service. Manifestos for Design

  • Brandon LaBelle

    Acoustic Justice: Listening, Performativity, and the Work…

  • Precarity Lab

    Technoprecarious

  • Céline Condorelli

    Céline Condorelli. Zanzibar

  • Annette Maechtel

    Das Temporäre politisch denken. Raumproduktionen im Berlin…

  • Cornelia Sollfrank, Felix Stalder,…

    Aesthetics of the Commons

  • Mark Wigley

    Konrad Wachsmann’s Television. Post-architectural…

  • Hans-Rudolf Meier

    Spolien. Phänomene der Wiederverwendung in der Architektur

  • Erich Hörl, Nelly Y. Pinkrah, Lotte…

    Critique and the Digital

  • Bradley Quinn

    The Fashion of Architecture

  • Florian Rötzer

    Sein und Wohnen. Philosophische Streifzüge zur Geschichte…

  • Philipp Stamm

    Schrifttypen – Verstehen Kombinieren Schriftmischung als…

  • Gemma Villegas

    Fanzine GRRRLS. The DIY Revolution in Female Self-Publishing

  • Andreas H. Apelt, Ron Jagers

    Hinter der Stille. Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg 1979-1989

  • Giseke, Löw, Million, Misselwitz,…

    Urban Design Methods

  • Kengo Kuma

    Kengo Kuma. My Life as an Architect in Tokyo

  • Elske Rosenfeld, Suza Husse (Hg.)

    wildes wiederholen. material von unten. Dissidente…

  • Lukas Feireiss, Tatjana Schneider,…

    Living the City. Of Cities, People and Stories

  • Stefan Rettich, Sabine Tastel (Hg.)

    Die Bodenfrage. Klima, Ökonomie, Gemeinwohl

  • Caspar Stracke (Ed.)

    Godard Boomerang. Artists on Godardian Conceptualism

  • Kai van Eikels

    Synchronisieren. Ein Essay zur Materialität des Kollektiven

  • Johnny Golding, Martin Reinhart, Mattia…

    Data Loam. Sometimes Hard, Usually Soft. On the Future of…

  • Hendrik Weber

    Italic. What gives Typography Its emphasis

  • Tibor Joanelly

    Shinoharistics. An Essay About a House

  • Thomas Moynihan

    X-Risk. How Humanity Discovered Its Own Extinction

  • Bert Rebhandl

    Jean-Luc Godard. Der permanente Revolutionär

  • Heide Schlüpmann

    Raumgeben - der Film dem Kino

  • Antonio Lucci, Esther Schomacher, Jan…

    Italian Theory

  • Harun Farocki

    HaFI 013: Zur Geschichte der Arbeit. Dokument, Material…

  • Rebekka Ladewig, Angelika Seppi

    Milieu Fragmente. Technologische und ästhetische…

  • Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung

    In a While or Two We Will Find the Tone

  • Michelle Christensen, Jesko Fezer,…

    Lechts und Rinks. Auseinandersetzungen mit dem Design der…

  • Jesko Fezer, Anita Kaspar, Andreas…

    Displaying Political and Cultural Concerns. Kooperative für…

  • IDEA Magazine

    IDEA 392. Type Design Now Experimental Type Designers and…

  • Francois Laruelle

    The Last Humanity. The New Ecological Science

  • Jessica Morgan, Dorothea von Hantelmann…

    Resource Hungry. Our Cultured Landscape and its Ecological…

  • Kathrin Röggla

    Bauernkriegspanorama

  • Andreas Malm

    Wie man eine Pipeline in die Luft jagt. Kämpfen lernen in…

  • Murray Shanahan

    Die technologische Singularität

  • Nicolas Bourriaud

    Exform

  • Philip Kurz (Hg.)

    Meisterhaus Kandinsky Klee. Die Geschichte einer…

  • Beatrice von Bismarck, Benjamin Meyer-…

    Curatorial Thing (Cultures of the Curatorial 4)

  • Louise Michel

    Die Pariser Commune

  • Xiaowen Zhu

    Oriental Silk

  • Sebastian Schipper, Lisa Vollmer (Hg.)

    Wohnungsforschung. Ein Reader

  • Sally Stein, Ina Steiner (eds.)

    Allan Sekula, Art Isn't Fair: Further Essays on the…

  • Tim Jordan

    The Digital Economy

  • Juliane Rebentisch

    Camp Materialism

  • Andrea Büttner

    Shame

  • Amelie Von Wulffen

    Collected Comics 2010-2020

  • Benjamin Fellmann, Bettina Steinbrügge…

    Klassenverhältnisse. Phantoms of Perception

  • Itohan Osayimwese

    Colonialism and Modern Architecture in Germany

  • Sharon Zukin

    The Innovation Complex. Cities, Tech, and the New Economy

  • Sebastian Strombach

    Verrückt. Der Comic zum Berliner Schloss

  • Hg von Erika Thümmel, FH JOANNEUM…

    Die Sprache der Räume. Eine Geschichte der Szenografie

  • Stephan Trüby

    Rechte Räume: Politische Essays und Gespräche (Bauwelt…

  • Malcolm James

    Sonic Intimacy. Reggae Sound Systems, Jungle Pirate Radio…

  • AAPK – Suyoung Ko, Yeon Joo Oh, Soonam…

    Architecture as Fabulated Reality

  • Anna Bokov

    Avant-Garde as Method. Vkhutemas and the Pedagogy of Space…

  • Günter Karl Bose

    Elementum. Über Typografie, Bücher und Buchstaben

  • Lorenzo Marsili

    Planetary Politics. A Manifesto

  • Miriam Rasch (ed.)

    Let’s Get Physical: A Sample of INC Longforms, 2015-2020

  • Cache

    Gegen|Wissen. Cache 01

  • Angelika Fitz, Karoline Mayer,…

    Boden für Alle

  • Baukultur NRW, Christoph Grafe, Tim…

    Umbaukultur. Für eine Architektur des Veränderns

  • Silvia Benedito

    Atmosphere Anatomies. On Design, Weather, and Sensation

  • Jan Reetze

    Times & Sounds. Germany's Journey from Jazz and…

  • Frieder Butzmann

    Wunderschöne Rückkopplungen

  • Ludger Hovestadt, Urs Hirschberg,…

    Atlas of Digital Architecture.Terminology, Concepts,…

  • Kristin Feireiss, Hans-Jürgen Commerell…

    The Songyang Story. Architectural Acupuncture as Driver for…

  • Zairong Xiang (Hg.)

    minor cosmopolitan. Thinking Art, Politics, and the…

  • Bruce Clarke

    Gaian System. Lynn Margulis, Neocybernetics, and the End of…

  • Oliver Fahle

    Theorien des Dokumentarfilms zur Einführung

  • Vincent Liegey, Anitra Nelson

    Exploring Degrowth. A Critical Guide

  • Michael Youngblood, Benjamin Chesluk

    Rethinking Users. The Design Guide to User Ecosystem…

  • Manfred Sommer

    Stift, Blatt und Kant. Philosophie des Graphismus

  • Aino Laberenz (Hg.)

    Christoph Schlingensiefs Operndorf Afrika

  • Thomas Keenan, Eyal Weizman

    Mengeles Schädel. Kurze Geschichte der forensischen Ästhetik

  • R. A. Judy

    Sentient Flesh Thinking in Disorder, Poiesis in Black

  • Anne Waldschmidt

    Disability Studies zur Einführung

  • Ulrich Pfisterer

    Kunstgeschichte zur Einführung

IDEA 405. Sneaking a Look. Cross Sections, Floor Plans & Exploded Diagrams: Visualizing the Invisible

Direction by Idea 
Design by LABORATORIES (Kensaku Kato, Sae Kamata)

Visual representations depicting the inside of cities and structures that human eyes cannot normally see have a mysterious allure that captures the imagination of the viewer, including structural drawings and floor plans depicting the framework of buildings, cross- sectional views of subways and sewers crawling underground in huge cities, and bird’s-eye views of production lines inside closed factories. The illustrations in thepicture books, which depict exploded views of vehicles and machines, human anatomy, and the contents of vegetables and plants, attract many children. Bird’s eye views of the city and house floor plans also serve as visual devices that engage adults’ memories and imaginations.
 
Seeing or drawing invisible objects is one of the fundamental human desires. When and how did illustrations, such as cross sections and bird’s eye views, come into existence? Its origins can be traced, for example, to the cave paintings left by Aborigines in prehistoric Australia (known as “x-rays,” paintings of animals and fish with transparent bones and organs). As time progressed, many cross- sectional representations were used in medicine and engineering to explain the inner workings. Some of them, such as Leonardo da Vinci’s anatomical drawings of the human anatomy, went beyond their original use and reached the realm of art. Furthermore, from the latter half of the 19th century to the 20th century, with the spread of printing technology, people in Europe and the United States became familiar with cutaway or cross-section illustrations for newspapers and magazines. During the Great War in the 20th century, many cutaway illustrations of modern fighter jets, tanks, and battleships were drawn in Japanese children’s science magazines and comics.
 
In Japanese visual culture, which has a long history of grasping space with a perspective that differs from the realistic pictorial representation of the West, such as suiboku-ga (ink painting) and ukiyo-e (Japanese woodblock prints), illustration seems to be familiar as a method of expressing lyricism and ambiguity rather than a functional one. We might say it is an intermediate expression, neither written nor painted. This may be due in part to the influence of the“Heta-uma” illustrations (designating a work poorly drawn, but with an aesthetically conscious quality)by artists such as Teruhiko Yumura and Kotobuki Shiriagari, which became popular in the field of commercial illustration in the 1980s.
 
On the other hand, “infographics” and “data visualization” in the field of graphic design play a functional role in explaining things through diagrams, a role that illustration has not played in Japanese visual culture. But we have a concern that the rise of computer graphics and the tendency of people to place an excessive priority on “comprehensibility” in recent years have led to the uniformity of expressions. What kind of expression is it that sublimates the rich expression that illustration has fostered and connects both illustration and design?
 
In this special issue, we explore the “visual representation,” that is graphics, regardless of field. The eight artists of all times and places we feature in this special issue are from different backgrounds, some as illustrators and others as architects and game-graphers. They all focus on depicting the “inside of things” and continue to produce eye- catching works using expressions such as cross-sectional drawings and floor plans. We will also introduce the work of authors who are fascinated by drawing the invisible, such as spatial expressions in picture books and illustrations in the areas of maps and architecture in our contributions and small features in the latter half of the special issue. We hope that many readers will encounter new discoveries and excitement through their perspective.


IDEA Magazine
IDEA 405. Sneaking a Look. Cross Sections, Floor Plans & Exploded Diagrams: Visualizing the Invisible
Seibundo Shinkosha, 2024, IDEA395 2024.03