Circles & Squares: Recto Verso

Recto Verso is an architectural concept that depends on the three-dimensional two-sidedness of paper. While this seems obvious, in contemporary architectural drawing, this idea is quickly forgotten because of a dominant computer-based drawing medium that mainly facilitates a two-dimensional experience on-screen. In the traditional sense, recto verso drawings emerged firsthand out of necessity — the conservation of valuable drawing material by using both sides of the paper. However, over time the ancients developed a refined technique of representation that could incorporate elevation on the recto aligned with section on the verso, for example. The effect of this technique alters and heightens one’s consciousness of the space that is observed, creating a total front-to-back understanding of the space in the observer. This three-dimensional spatial sense — looking forward and backward simultaneously — is the essence of recto verso thinking and can be analogized with the mythological characteristics of Janus, Roman god of gates and doors, beginnings and endings whose two faces look into the past and future simultaneously.

Janusian thinking (same as recto verso thinking) is a more widely known concept that can be attributed to many creative fields, particularly architecture. It is especially important for the architect who uses this mode of thinking to visualize complex spaces. However, the drawing technique is mainly forgotten, a result of paper in plenty. To quote Marco Frascari, from his blog Zibaldone:

In architectural drawing the verso/recto approach usher us into different realms from which we are to take back mysteries to our particular realm. The magic of a recto verso conceiving is to alter someone's consciousness. The alterity of the recto verso architectural conjuring up is essential for the making of a proper architecture responding to the unknown other.

Contemporary examples of recto verso drawings are hard to come by, as this technique has long since evolved from its simple origin. Current practices naturally require more sophisticated methods of representing a building and its components than simply imitating its sectional form on the verso. Applications of the idea however are expressed in many surprising ways. The best example is not under architecture at all, but of photography and the work of Robert Heinecken.

From Heinecken's website: "The Recto/Verso photograms were made without the use of camera or film. A single page from a mass-circulation magazine was placed in direct contact with color photographic paper and exposed to light. The resulting image superimposes the visual and verbal information from the front and back of the magazine page. No collage, manipulation, or other handwork was employed."