Abstract

This study presents a statement about the importance of thinking through the potential expression of the body’s action. In this regard, despite the diminishing attention to empirical drawing in architectural teaching, which has been replaced by the emergence of computers and AI, we underline that the process of shape thinking can be improved when it is developed in response to the body’s sensitivities. Thus, it will be argued that empirical drawing, using the hand and its gestures, activates several synergies that nurture and stimulate thought about and through shapes. The result is an expressive way of thinking, and also a means of creating a wider consciousness, a humanized creation, and a more profound self-consciousness. Thus, if a subject, and in particular one who develops a thought about and through shapes—as the architect—uses empirical drawing, it will increase his sense of thinking, reunifying it with the body’s sensitivity and aesthetic sensitivity: in order to create a better external reality and, in the meantime, a deeper inner reality.

Keywords

thought, body, action, drawing, expression, architectural design