Francisco Cabrero and Plastic Teaching. Plan on the Analysis of Architectural Shapes

Taking as a starting point the document prepared by Francisco de Asís Cabrero for the public competitive examination to the Chair of Analysis of Architectural Shapes, held in 1973 at the Madrid Higher Technical School of Architecture and which was won by Javier Seguí, we show his proposal of the teaching of drawing and its relationship with training in the architectural design. Following the structure of the paper, we start from the concept of the subject and his definition of the values of the work of art and the architectural shape; the senses and their relationship with other arts from the creation and the perception which is established in 3 categories: ideography, ornament and architecture. We study in depth the method of plastic creativity and the procedural techniques to arrive at the theoretical and practical program of the subject, analyzing its content critically. A final section shows the influences of the Bauhaus, especially the theories of Wassily Kandinsky and Max Bill. We also investigate the applications and development of his plastic ideas in his work and in his Four Books of Architecture (Cabrero 1992), in the chapters of Book I relating to visual art, in Book III relative to European vanguards and the Bauhaus and in Book 1 V, to the theory of shape and graphic science.