Sam Jacob explores architectural representation through drawing at Sir John Soane's Museum

Sam Jacob led a drawing workshop at the Soane Museum in London, using the historic house-museum as a site to investigate the relationship between architecture and representation. The event involved students engaging with the museum's collection and spaces, which include antiquities, architectural models, and artworks like a Canaletto painting of Venice. Jacob highlighted how Sir John Soane designed the building as both a home and a pedagogical tool, blurring lines between real architecture and its depictions. Examples included a cupola that was repurposed from a model and a strategically placed painting to create illusions. The workshop drew on drawing philosophies from Soane, John Ruskin, and Wassily Kandinsky, exploring different approaches to depicting space and shadow. Jacob contrasted these historical methods with contemporary CGI in architecture, noting its photorealistic tendencies and potential limitations. He argued that digital tools offer untapped possibilities for architectural representation beyond default algorithms. The article originally appeared in ArtReview's October 2015 issue.