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The drawing “(Re)membering the See Monster” by Eldry John Infante, an ink on paper/Adobe Photoshop hybrid, is the Overall Winner of the 2023 edition of The Architecture Drawing Prize. This annual initiative, organized by the Sir John Soane’s Museum in collaboration with architecture practice Make Architects and the World Architecture Festival, seeks to celebrate the art of drawing and exhibit the genius of artists linked to the architecture world.
Sponsored by international high-end ceramic surfaces manufacturer Iris Ceramica Group, the contest courts entrants in three categories: Hand-drawn Category, Digital Category, for drawings developed with digital technologies, and Hybrid Category, dedicated to mixed works. This prize’s seventh edition’s jury selected three category winners that showed the extent to which the drawing makes a proposition about the possibilities of architecture, as well as technical skill and originality of approach.
Rendering the transformation of a decommissioned North Sea oil rig into the See Monster - a public installation promoting sustainability, regeneration and creativity - Infante’s drawing expresses the project’s readaptation story and resulting public perceptions, while welcoming discussions that go beyond a structure’s physicality and exploring the theme of reuse in the built environment. The structure’s narrative is conveyed through frames composed of lines and parts of the initial manual drawing.
The act of image creation with Adobe Photoshop is intended to mirror the project’s adaptation method and story. The jury praised his digital manipulation of the initial drawing to create a dynamic and varied composition, as well as the final image’s cinematic narrative and imaginative collage-like play with different representational conventions in a way that deftly contributes to its storytelling.
Building sustainably and preserving the environment is a commitment that concerns all aspects of the building industry. Innovation, creativity and experimentation in this sense can help all involved actors to approach a project with these values in mind. This perspective was expressed at best in the drawing by Eldry John Infante, an illustrator, architect and designer based in the Philippines, where he is a founding partner and principal of Mede, an interdisciplinary architecture and design firm. Through his architectural drawing practice, blending observation, documentation and collaboration, he highlights narrative, material composition and the development of line work.
Infante was awarded during the opening of the exhibition dedicated to both winning and shortlisted drawings at the Sir John Soane’s Museum (open until March 17, 2024).
Cover: Cropped from the original; (Re)membering the See Monster by Eldry John Infante
All images courtesy of The Architecture Drawing Prize
