As they fill their sketchbooks with both texts and images, architects capture initial reactions to sites; record impressions and make drawings as they travel; organise work to be done; articulate design concepts and pose solutions; draft essays, lectures, and letters; write research notes; and copy inspirational passages from their readings. The Architect’s Sketchbook: Current Practice explores the ways in which contemporary architects use the blank book as a tool in the process of thinking about and making architecture. It presents the work of ten international contemporary architects, including Frank Gehry, Hans Hollein, Aldo Rossi, Steven Holl, Franklin D. Israel, Carlos Jiménez, Mark Mack, Enrique Norten, Antoine Predock, and Harry C. Wolf.

More than one hundred sketchbooks, journals, and architectural sketches have been assembled for the exhibition, borrowed from both the resource collections of the Getty Center and from the architects’ studios.

Organized by the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, Santa Monica. Curated by Carol McMichael Reese, Getty Center, with Howard Schubert, CCA.