This seminar examines the synthesis of architectural
and representational space achieved during the Baroque period. In addition to the vanishing point and view point previously defined by perspective drawing, painterarchitects, such as Andrea Pozzo, introduced a third point into their constructions, a station point occupied by the viewer, which for the first time synthesized building and drawing. Despite its popularity, architectural trompe l’oeil has been discounted since Pozzo’s own time as a visual trick that collapses when viewed from multiple points. Technologically, its effects pale in comparison to the illusive power of contemporary media, but this seminar posits that trompe l’oeil has renewed relevance today amid revived interest in representation and its potential to create multiplicitous and ambiguous legibility. After establishing a conceptual foundation addressing both Western and non-Western modes of drawing, students develop a trompe l’oeil case study, speculating on the multiple implied volumes their precedent suggests and testing the threshold between representational and physical space.