Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Hatching and Strippling

After my weekend trip to the National Building Museum, I am convinced some part of me was an architect in the 18th or 19th century. Their current exhibition, Tools of the Imagination, made my blood pressure rise, my eyeballs explode, and my latent kleptomania emerge. You can see some of the beautiful instruments as part of an exhibition flyer. Here are the tools I especially wanted to swipe:

1) Four-layer magazine case: Who doesn't want to keep all of their architectural implements in a nickel silver bound burr walnut case?


2) Beam compass: Or, in this case, a "microscopic" beam compass.


3) Ellipsograph, or trammel, if you will. If you get really skilled with it, you're even allowed to join the Elliptical Turning Association. No joke.



4) Perspectograph: Which can be used to make fancy perspective drawings of houses, such as this or this.


5) Volutor: That Andrew Kay is a genius.

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