The 2024 Christopher H. Browne Oxford Drawing Tour

The Christopher H. Browne Drawing Tours are a cornerstone of the ICAA’s annual education program. The program follows in the footsteps of architects journeying abroad, and at home, to study and document precedents for the purpose of informing the design of new buildings and places. Each iteration of the program explores the continuity and vitality of the classical tradition in a paradigmatic city or region that has been instrumental to its development. In 2024, the international iteration of the tour took place in Oxford, England, bringing participants behind the closed doors of the university’s colleges to study, measure, sketch, and paint remarkable structures by architects including Christopher Wren, Nicholas Hawksmoor, James Gibbs, James Wyatt, and Edwin Lutyens, among others.

This account is written by Taylor Stein, who served as a teaching assistant on the tour, accompanying instructors George Saumarez Smith and Martin Burns.

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For the 2024 installment of the Christopher H. Browne Drawing Tour, the ICAA led a group of architecture students, young designers, and industry professionals around the historic city of Oxford, England. With more than a thousand years of history to explore, the drawing tour participants engaged in a wide range of architectural styles and time periods by producing interior perspective sketches, measured drawings of architectural elements, and wash renderings of iconic urban spaces throughout this remarkable center of intellectual and academic tradition.

The tour began Saturday evening at Temple Moore’s 20th century Gothic Revival Pusey House, where instructors George Saurmarez Smith and Marty Burns set the stage for the locations to be visited and the drawing methods to be utilized over the course of the coming week. The itinerary would ultimately encompass examples of Early English Gothic, Decorated Gothic, Perpendicular Gothic, Georgian, English Baroque, Neoclassical, and Gothic Revival architecture.

On Sunday morning, the tour began with measured drawings in the cloister at New College - a 15th century exemplar of the Perpendicular Gothic style and master masonry that inspired subsequent designs at Oxford and beyond. In the afternoon, the classical library at Worcester college designed by George Clarke and Nicholas Hawskmoor served as the subject for elevation studies rendered in pencil.

Monday morning saw the group visit Merton College, where interior perspective sketches were produced beneath the elegant Decorated Gothic tracery of the chapel’s rose window, as well as within the dark paneling of the 14th century library that holds the claim for the longest continuously operating library at Oxford. These drawings - aimed at capturing both spatial quality and tonality of materials - would serve as the first of several interior drawings that would survey the spectrum of architectural history at this university.

In the afternoon, Campion Hall then generously opened their doors to the group, allowing participants to tour through the Lutyens’ designed Jesuit college from the 1930’s before spending the rest of the day drawing in the courtyard and completing measured drawings in the chapel. Monday’s incredible venues marked the oldest and newest buildings to be visited on the tour, offering a glimpse at the range of subjects to be drawn throughout the week.

After attending a lecture that evening given by George Saumarez Smith at Worcester College on his experience with field drawing as a practicing architect, the group enjoyed a welcome dinner together in the Old Common Room at Balliol College.

Tuesday began with an interior drawing at Christopher Wren’s English Baroque chapel at Trinity College. The richly carved oak altarpiece and dramatic black and white floor pattern made for a dynamic composition and an intriguing comparison to Monday’s sketches. A visit later in the day to the early 18th century St Giles House presented the chance to study the residential scale in perhaps the finest Georgian townhouse in Oxford. The group ventured throughout the house and produced measured drawings of panel mouldings, window shutters, fireplaces, stair balusters, floor patterns, and door surrounds.

On Wednesday, access was granted first thing in the morning to draw in the incredible Hawksmoor-designed library at All Souls College; a real treat considering the tour coincided with exams week at Oxford! The bright sunshine streaming through the monumental windows that morning only added to the experience of drawing the double-height, classically articulated library interior with doric and ionic book stacks rendered in deep olive green paint beneath a geometrically composed plaster ceiling.

That afternoon marked the half-way point of the drawing tour, and the group enjoyed the chance to put their pencils down and study a series of historical drawings from the archives of All Souls College and Worcester college. The drawings that were shared included analytical studies and design renderings from Wren, Hawksmoor, and Clarke, and were produced in pencil, ink, and wash with written notes in the margin providing an even more intimate glimpse into their work.

Drawing resumed early on Thursday morning at the Divinity School, with the doors being opened to the group for an hour before public tours began. The carved stone fan vaulting on the ceiling of this 15th century Perpendicular Gothic space was full of details and elements to be quickly studied and sketched. Later that morning, the Weston Library brought out from their archives, and assembled for the first time in 10 years, the model of Nicholas Hawksmoor’s design for the Radcliffe Camera. The chance to see this nearly 300 year old wooden model of the unbuilt design first-hand was truly special, not to mention the insight offered by architectural historian William Aslet who joined the group for this rare presentation.

Following a tour of the Bodleian Library, renowned architect Franics Terry gave a drawing and watercolor demonstration in the afternoon focused on the Radcliffe Camera, which was ultimately realized according to James Gibbs’ design. Between brief rain delays and an impromptu visit to the historic Oxford Union to wait out the showers, the group spread out around Radcliffe Square to render the iconic rotunda in pencil and watercolor.

Friday morning found the group at the Radcliffe Observatory - a late 18th century Henry Keene-designed structure featuring an homage to the ancient Tower of the Winds atop a Neoclassical round base. Some completed measured drawings within the domed observatory and around the three-storey cantilevered oval stone stair, while others produced pencil and watercolor sketches from the grounds surrounding the observatory. This unique building within the context of Oxford offered an in-depth chance to study proportion, plan layout, detailing, and building materials that contrasted in many ways with the prior visits on the tour.

Later that afternoon, the last of the tour’s formal drawing sessions focused on ink-wash renderings of the historic views from within the quads of Brasenose College - capriccio-like compositions of the 16th century Old Quad Tower backdropped by the dome of the Radcliffe Camera and the 13th century Gothic tower of the University Church.

With Saturday being the final day on schedule, the drawing tour convened at the Oxford Museum of Natural History for an open drawing session in the morning, where drawings from the week by each participant were then shared with the group. Following an afternoon at the Oxford Botanic Gardens, where participants had the chance to sketch and watercolor architecture within the context of organic forms, the group reflected on the inspiring places that were visited and the incredible work that was produced over a farewell dinner at the Malmaison in the Oxford Castle.

With yet another amazing chapter added to ICAA’s drawing tour series, the Oxford contingent was enthusiastic in their study of great architectural examples of the past - from small-scale details to the composition of buildings to urban-scale arrangements of spaces. The steady improvement and development of skills for each participant over the course of the week is a testament to the way that design can be translated and communicated through the facility of drawing.

Tags: Drawing Tour