Saturday 12 April 2014

The Sci-Fi Drawings of Lebbeus Woods

On Thursday Lebbeus Woods, Architect is opening at the Drawing Center. I'll post about the show next week, but in anticipation of the exhibition I pulled out a book from 1983 that features illustrations by Woods:



The book collects a number of Arthur C. Clarke's short stories that are accompanied by Woods's illustrations. A number of the drawings, including the cover, are clearly the Woods most architects know and love:




Yet some of the drawings are more firmly rooted in the sci-fi narratives and therefore eschew the settings in favor of the characters:




The book was published well before Woods became a household name both for his illustrations and  the environments he imagined. To the same effect, this biography at the back of The Sentinel is much different than ones that might accompany The New City (1992), War and Architecture (1993), and later books:



While the last sentence indicates he might have done more illustrations for sci-fi books, I think this was the only one. If I'm wrong, please comment. I'd be curious about how Woods lent his hand to other stories.

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