Copyright (0000) Eva-Marie Prineas

The Australian Financial Review Magazine. pp. 48-52.

October Magazine. Friday 27th October, 2013

Article: To Draw is to See

Drawing is a crucial tool in an architect’s kit, but it’s use goes way beyond drafting building plans. Six (prominent Australian) architects tell Katrina Strickland when and where they sketch – and how much it means to them.

One of the 6 Australian architects chosen to comment was Kytherian architect.....

Eva-Marie Prineas

Architect Prineas

Once I began studying architecture, the way I sketched changed. I sketch in the office and also try to sketch when we go away, although with two children aged three and five it is easier when I travel alone. I probably don’t sketch enough in meetings because l'm self-conscious. I’m not confident enough to sketch in front of a client when the idea is not yet fully formed. But I have seen how sketching can completely seduce a client - some architects are masters.

My father is from the Greek island of Kythera, which is south of the Peloponnese and north of Crete. When l was at university I started working on a conservation plan for our family house, which is at the top of the island in a village called Mitata.

When you go there it is like stepping back into the 1940’s. We got married there and until we had children, travelled there every summer. Our neighbour in Mitata, who is also an architect, organised a week of tango one summer. This sketch is of the master classes we would have in the morning in the old school house at the main square.

The image above is from the island of Naoshima in Japan, where there are a number of art museums including Chichu.

To enter one of the galleries here, you have to remove your shoes and put on little slippers. You go through a dark space first, then emerge into a diffusely lit white room. Three significant Monet paintings appear to float on each of the walls. I made this sketch from memory afterwards. I was taken by the small moves the architect made, which completely changed the way I perceived the paintings.