Publisher: Point Publishing 2019, ISBN: 9780473482596, Format: 20 x 24cm, 240pp
Leading New Zealand architect Pete Bossley headed overseas for a year as a young man, on a journey that took him to Japan, Europe and the United States. Travelling alone, with 10 ragtag sketchbooks in hand, Bossley drew the buildings he discovered, the places he visited and the people he encountered.
One Year Drawn is a unique chronicle of Bossley’s ‘Grand Tour,’ told through his vivid and compelling journal entries and drawings. Refreshingly honest and disarming, Bossley reflects on his younger self and transports readers to some of the world’s most celebrated architectural landmarks. This is armchair travel par excellence!
Blending memoir and travelogue, Bossley’s book cleverly captures a golden era – when correspondence happened via Poste Restante, cameras had film and people wrote travel journals. This slower, more considered means of recording experiences prompted Bossley to experiment with different drawing techniques and styles in sketchbooks. These catalogue his dawning awareness of space and light — two of the most powerful materials he had at his disposal as an architect. This legacy is readily appreciated today, in his architecture and practice.
‘Computers offer no replacement for the immediacy and pleasure felt by the action and the love of drawing,’ says Bossley, whose enthusiasm for abstraction in form and colour has evolved from sketchbooks to paintings and new technologies explored alongside his award-winning architecture.