Borromini’s Dust

Borromini’s Dust focuses on the potential significance of the interplay between drawing techniques and building technologies for the final architectural expression; an aspect we are at risk of losing due to the digital design processes in use today.

The Baroque era is traditionally seen as a period primarily occupied with form. And Francesco Borromini is considered the foremost exponent of this focus. The aim of the project Borromini’s Dust is to challenge this one-sided perception and examine the connection between form and materials in the work of architects by investigating the connection between Borromini’s graphite drawings and the construction technique he used.

The project highlights and examines Borromini’s drawings by hand, not only as a tool for creating and representing form but in particular as media and techniques that themselves contain a special materiality and value; characteristics that resemble the building materials he worked with in those of his works that were realised.

That Borromini invented the use of graphite, then a completely new material, as a tool for drawing on rugged, structured paper, instead of ink or coal, testifies to his interest in materials. Graphite can be used to create sharp, precisely defined lines; you can also work with it and smudge it with your fingers or tools to create a both visually and concretely dusty and modelled atmosphere in drawings. To Borromini, graphite was apparently a critical, multi-sensory tool involving sight and touch. The residue and smudges left by the graphite on the rough paper were not unwanted mistakes: they were invaluable predictions and identifications of the material and formal experiences he wanted to make part of his works.

Borromini’s Dust is primarily an archival study and a text-based study that not only examines and analyses the original drawings as material and form in their own right but also relates them to our knowledge of contemporary construction techniques. Borromini’s buildings are only part of the study to a lesser extent as references to and verifications of the deductions we can make based on the analyses of drawings.

The project aims to demonstrate the existence of a strong connection between Borromini’s drawing technique, his construction technique, and his in-depth knowledge of building materials and techniques. He constructed his drawings layer by layer and smudged the lines in the same way you gradually build up a building with brickwork and model details and profiles. In his buildings, he reused bricks that could be modelled and carved the same way as natural stone before plastering on profiles and details using many layers of Stucco Romano.

This research project is a part of Research Lab 2.