peter magyar

The book is the recording of the interactive genesis of the poetic and the factual in architecture, generated by targeted intuition, so the tangible, materially manifestable result would be really the testimony of its opposite, the ephemeral, infinite space. This genesis is easily readable in the book, even if instead of words, spontaneous or weighted line drawings communicate nonverbal thoughts. The aspects of the Vitruvian ’firmitas’ and ’utilitas’ have to be also developed the same way, but only ’venustas’ awakes awe and delight in our spirit and that is the quality, what these drawn notes are aiming at.

Seven examples are narrated in it, one of the twenty-something similar books by the author, with thousands of nonverbal words and sentences in them. His hope is, to legitimize the cognitive and poetic nature of architecture, as well as the method of thinking and communicating with ’written-drawings’. This is the only way, how one can tap into the inexhaustible well of racial memory. Author’s ability to produce correctly drawn instantaneous 3D images directly with ink, could be compared only to a musician, with perfect pitch hearing.

Design is a mentally and corporally experienced process, which step-by-step evokes the mythology of building, due to the application of the genetic memory of our physical body. Accordingly, architecture, through drawings, in fortuitous cases, through the constructed form, realizes and embodies a philosophy, provided, it investigates the basic questions of knowledge, reality and existence. These are exactly the notions, as the Oxford English Dictionary defines philosophy, and no architect can avoid to give some answers to them during the course of a design. However, by the knowledge of the author - fed by more than fifty years dealing with different aspects of the profession, and being an avid reader - there are no other books, which come even close to the meticulous recording of the creation of our built environment!

As a non-fiction book, the general validity of the thoughts contained in it is unquestionable. The fact, that the two of the seven projects are among the other constructed buildings, and in some cases, large urban ensembles, designed by the author, reinforces the importance and applicability of the depicted method!

This book is not about architecture, but THIS BOOK IS ARCHITECTURE ITSELF!