Architecture as an Instruction-Based Art

Farshid Moussavi

Architecture as an Instruction-Based Art argues that architecture is the grandest of the instruction-based arts: unlike the painter or sculptor, the architect produces a set of instructions through which a building is realized by others, and it is precisely this condition that makes architecture an art of extraordinary complexity and consequence. Featuring 90 construction coordination drawings from architectural practices around the world, the book traces how the construction coordination drawing, the layered digital model through which design is developed in collaboration with specialist consultants, became the primary instrument of contemporary architectural practice, and argues that what makes architecture an art rather than a technical discipline is the architect’s capacity to translate the negotiation of constraints into spatial and experiential possibilities that shape how people perceive, inhabit, and participate in the world.

Architecture as an Instruction-Based Art serves as a continuation of Farshid Moussavi’s exploration into construction coordination drawings, which began with exhibitions of the same name that she curated at the Royal Academy in 2017 and the Harvard GSD’s Druker Design Gallery in 2024, as well as a special feature in Harvard Design Magazine no. 52: “Instruments of Service.”

Forthcoming from Harvard Design Press Summer 2027