Great Drawings From the Collection of The Royal Institute of British Architects

The changing visions of architects were documented in a comprehensive exhibition entitled Great Drawings From the Collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects, which opened at The Drawing Center in 1983. The exhibition, which was held in conjunction with a city-wide festival of the arts, "Britain Salutes New York", contained masterpieces of English, French, Italian, American, and Indian architectural drawing. Of the 82 works in the exhibition, all were borrowed from the Royal Institute's collection in London, many of which were seen in the United States for the first time during their exhibition at The Drawing Center. Included were drawings by architects such as Andrea Palladio, Inigo Jones, Christopher Wren, Galli Bibiena, Robert Adam, Sir John Soane, Frank Lloyd Wright, and James Stirling. Pieces in the exhibition, which dated from the late 15th century to the 1980s, included working drawings for buildings actually realized, as well as conceptual studies, fantasies and other unexecuted designs in a dazzling variety of media and techniques.

Guest curator and catalogue author John Harris was the curator of the Royal Institute's Drawings collection at the time, an institution considered by many to be the greatest and most diverse collection of architectural drawings in the world. A series of lectures accompanied the exhibition and were planned for the spring. These included talks by eminent architects and historians including Sir Hugh Casson (April 25), Douglas Lewis (April 27), Damie Stillman (May 4), William Jordy (May 18), John Harris (June 8), and Reyner Banham (June 22).