Joseph M. Madda

In September, 1972, I bought drafting supplies, including this orange triangle, at a store in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  I was starting my graduate architectural studies.  In those days, designs were all hand drawn.  So I needed the right tools, from pens and pencils to a plethora of rulers, templates and triangles of various sizes.  From initial dorm room to one abode after another, from Boston to Chicago to Los Angeles, and now in Glencoe, certain tools of the trade have accompanied me.

Drawing is my calling.  From childhood, I enjoyed sketching.  I would create in pencil whatever struck my fancy, pets to places to spaceships.  Later on, I became a very good draftsman, fast,  accurate.  For me, well-drawn working drawings are a pleasure. 

From school through many years of architectural practice, I kept this little isosceles right triangle by my side.  It was my go-to help for detail drawing.  But, I did not use it just to draw.  It’s an excellent object to twirl and help me think.  I revolve it with a finger or two as I contemplate a tough problem.  A talisman of sorts.

The times moved on.  Through the 1980s and ‘90s, the computer revolution struck design and construction.  I helped two different firms transition from hand work to CADD (computer aided design and drafting).  It was bloody!  In the end, was it more efficient?  Yes.  Able to visualize better?  Yes.  The way architects and other creative people worked took a quantum leap. 

And yet...something was lost.  Describing objects by drawing with my hands was, and still is, a special experience for me.  My “tai chi of design.”  It’s not the same as staring at an electronic screen.  So I sit here typing for you, alternately twirling my bright orange, plastic pal as I imagine my next words.  What a long, strange trip it’s been.  Some objects simply encapsulate the journey.