The Museum of Architectural Drawing

The Museum for Architectural Drawing in Berlin is designed by Russian Architects Sergei Tchoban and Sergei Kuznetsov. It is ironic that during our times, when the art of architectural drawing seems to be dying, at the same time it gets increasingly appreciated as an art form.

For centuries sketches were the only way in which architects could conceive their buildings. But now, in the age of digital design, the art of drawing is on the way down. But even if hand drawing plays only a minor role, it is still maintained by architects as a technique, whose speed and ease is impossible to beat even for the most sophisticated software.

In Berlin the new Museum for Architectural Drawing is dedicated to this increasingly rare art form. Designed and initiated by the Berlin-based architect and collector of architectural drawings, Sergei Tchoban, a native of St. Petersburg, Russia, the building resembles a stack of cubes. The slender tower of the museum is situated at the Pfefferberg, a former brewery in Berlin's popular Prenzlauer Berg district. The Aedes Architecture Gallery is situated next door, creating a cultural campus. The Pfefferberg is named after Brewmaster Joseph Pfeffer, who started the business in 1841. Beer production ceased after World War I and the area fell dormant until the fall of the wall in 1989. It was then that the Pfefferberg transformed into a cultural district with restaurants, a hostel and the studios of famous artists such as Olafur Eliasson. four-story building represents a stack of solid cuboid volumes with a glass penthouse on top. Solid jutties loom at different angles from each of the four floors below spraying the building’s basic geometries.