10 Amazing Architectural Artists

Artwork has long been an integral part of the intellectual discourse of architecture, a way to quickly express and study ideas in a technical profession limited with expressional constraints- slow timeframes, client requirements, budgetary restrictions, and regulatory limitations.

As an architectural artist myself, I thought that I would share a few artists who have inspired me with their amazing artistic depictions of architectural themes.

Chankerk exposes the vibrant and messy reality of urban conditions with his stunningly distorted cityscapes and almost violent brushstrokes.

Yang Yongliang‘s incredible digital works evoke traditional Chinese landscape paintings while making a poignant statement about post-industrial urban conditions.

Steven Holl is an architect renowned for the incredible quality of light and space within his many buildings across the globe. His artwork, often used to study spacial conditions during schematic design phases, are no less stunning.

Tom Schaller is well known for his urban scenes, evoking the styles of traditional landscape painters but with a distinctly contemporary and architectural twist.

Stephen Whatley‘s use of vibrant colour and radical distortion provides a surreal quality to his architectural scenes.

Ulpiano Carrasco, whose work has been likened to that of Van Gogh, presents vibrant and colourful skylines with a distinctly surreal quality.

James McNabb creates stunning abstract sculptures out of scrap wood, evoking city skylines across the world with familiar yet unplaceable forms.

Before Zaha Hadid was famous for her incredible buildings, she was known for her large-format paintings which combine spacial investigations, context studies, and formal explorations into works that provide equal doses of theoretical discourse as visual impact.

Lebbeus Woods was a well known architectural theoretician, he only built a single actual project. But his work lives on through his evocative sketches and drawing, synthesizing deconstructionist theories with pure beauty. 

Robert Delaunay, a cubist painter active in the 1920’s, is known more for his portraiture than architectural artwork. But I love his Eiffel Tower series, which consists of a series of abstract compositional dissections of an architectural icon.

For more inspiring architectural artwork, check out my previous blog post or this awesome blog.

Which one do you like best, or who is YOUR favourite architectural artist?

All images are property of their respective artists.