TAG Talk Number 12 George Saumarez Smith & Charles Hind

In this talk jointly organised by INTBAU and TAG, Charles Hind and George Saumarez Smith discusses how architects have recorded buildings through measured drawings over the centuries, and how their sketchbooks have played an influential role in the history of design. Charles focuses particularly on architects whose work is represented in the RIBA drawings collection, and George discusses his own experience of keeping sketchbooks of measured drawings which have recently been published in a new book.

Charles Hind is Chief Curator and H J Heinz Curator of Drawings at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). Before joining the RIBA in 1996, he had previously worked at the British Library, Sotheby’s and the Macmillan Dictionary of Art. He is also an architectural historian with a particular interest in Andrea Palladio, 18th-19th century British architecture and the history of collecting architectural drawings since the Renaissance. With two colleagues, he is presently working on a book about architectural drawings from the 15th century to the present day, drawing on the collection of the RIBA.

George Saumarez Smith, a director of ADAM Architecture, is celebrated for the elegance of his work as one of Britain’s foremost classical architects. As a student at Edinburgh University, he belonged to the last year group to be taught the skill of measured drawing as part of the core syllabus and it would become a passion for him. Sketchbooks: Collected Measured Drawings and Architectural Sketches presents a selection of the drawings that he has made in the last twenty-five years in a series of sketchbooks.

This event has now ended and the link to the recording is available here.