End of an Architectural Era

One architect I know, who started out in the 1980s at the very end of the era of hand-drafting, just yesterday cleared out his office desk drawer: home went the drafting lead holders, the lead pointer, the French curves, the circle and bathroom fixture templates, and all the triangles but one.

He hadn't used them in the last fifteen years.

He needed the drawer space.

Computer drafting is a cool invention with a lot of capabilities that can't be matched by drawing on paper, especially as 3D systems like Revit become the newest standard, but it is nostalgically sad to see the retirement of a hand skill that has existed more or less unchanged since Imhotep sketched up the world's first pyramid.

The architect/doctor/god Imhotep, public domain photo courtesy of Wikipedia

For those Readers in the DFW area, the Kimbell Art Museum has an even more beautiful statue of an almost-as-ancient architect/god, Senmut.  Worth a visit.

Personally, I think it's cool that my profession has actual, official gods.  I mean, shouldn't every job?  Or at least a patron saint, as St. Clare is for television.  (She was sick in bed and had to miss Mass, but saw visions... like wifi TV evangelism, but without the technology.)  But who is the patron saint or god of theater set design?  I'm going to have to mull over that...