D-Ark Lab: Paperwork – What drawings do

Drawings are the architect’s means for thinking and communicating. They are an important tool in the design and construction process, but they are also expressions of the visual culture of their time. As architecture and society change, drawings too change.

Paperwork explores original architectural drawings from the collection of the Architecture and Design Museum. It asks: What do drawings tell us about the fundamental questions of architecture, and what is their role in architecture and culture overall?

The drawing exhibition and texts were produced by a group of art history students as part of a course at the University of Helsinki. During weekly workshops held in spring 2024, the students went through the Architecture and Design Museum's architectural collections and studied basic questions related to both drawings and exhibitions. This exhibition sums up and displays their discussions and the discoveries made during the course.