Narrare con testi e immagini: ragioni del disegno e della rappresentazione digitale. A Tale by Images and Texts: Reasons for Drawings and Digital Representation

At first glance the “expository writing” by images seems a particular feature coming from movie’s techniques, nowadays suitable for everybody thanks a wide spread of digital technologies. The usage availability of “series of images” in order to describe a procedure, to illustrate complex objects or different views connoting an architectural building, refers to a “narrative assembly” that is deeply rooted over time, displaying in various fields. Dealing with an extended background including handbook tradition, history of art, as well as expository techniques regarding architectural design, references are manifold and relate different knowledge fields: from Sigfried Giedion’s interpretation in Space Time Architecture (1941), to Roland Barthes’ essay about the Enciclopédie plates (1970) as well Ernst Gombrich’s essays collection The Uses of Images. Studies in the Social Function of Art and Visual Communication (1999), to several contributions about the figurative and architectural issue of Le Corbusier’s promenade architecturale. This paper intends to select and analyse some meaningful examples of “expository writing” by images, aiming to highlight and compare the more relevant descriptive features, extracting those elements leading to define their representation. Furthermore, it will be taken into account short texts often annotating or matching a tale by images, focusing on their role and function on respect of figurative matter. Therefore, the more general purpose of this paper deals with a comparison, as regards “series of narratives”, among the digital technologies today available, in order to check similarities and potentialities, innovation and viability, specifically in the field of architectural representation and design