![#](https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F10%2FPB-Bloomberg-SPACE_Installation-view_07-scaled.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=141&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=210&s=c4f93fe5ba3c87dd1c078c74dd8ebd85 210w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F10%2FPB-Bloomberg-SPACE_Installation-view_07-scaled.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=283&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=420&s=94c9abbb42963f7856c2957e75bdfc7c 420w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F10%2FPB-Bloomberg-SPACE_Installation-view_07-scaled.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=517&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=768&s=884c7865a175c9c6b46038359d9366ee 768w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F10%2FPB-Bloomberg-SPACE_Installation-view_07-scaled.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=689&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=1024&s=5f9c40f0c7f65ae6c0d8e253f26ffd0f 1024w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F10%2FPB-Bloomberg-SPACE_Installation-view_07-scaled.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=942&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=1400&s=67dd64a600f6e091fdd48b77075030c8 1400w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F10%2FPB-Bloomberg-SPACE_Installation-view_07-scaled.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=1077&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=1600&s=9e3172463fb4ee96223a0fee46ce065e 1600w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F10%2FPB-Bloomberg-SPACE_Installation-view_07-scaled.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=1292&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=1920&s=20e3981fcc982f022385bd86304addc1 1920w)
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But, although he had clearly looked long and hard at architectural drawings from the Mannerist hands of Sebastiano Serlio to Jim Stirling’s late-flowering Post-Modern acrobatics, and though he had studied every last detail of inks, types of nibs, washes and the order in which they were applied, Bronstein couldn’t help “liking buildings that want to seem better than they are”. While there might be “no shame, no wrong” in the Baroque, the buildings themselves shone. Bronstein found himself revelling, a little perversely, in Post-Modernism, a form of “Cheapo Baroque” through which buildings that might otherwise be ignored were “glammed up, trying to be desirable. They represent human frailty. I had no love for Po-Mo per se, but liked its provocation.”
![#](https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F10%2FRelocation-of-Temple-Bar-HS5-PB1923D-scaled.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=144&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=210&s=4c8e1af99dfddabc515eaef4759ea6b4 210w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F10%2FRelocation-of-Temple-Bar-HS5-PB1923D-scaled.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=289&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=420&s=1a7451e981f3d8787a93060646f29042 420w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F10%2FRelocation-of-Temple-Bar-HS5-PB1923D-scaled.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=528&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=768&s=1f3cbe0d74b71408f38182e0f46711ca 768w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F10%2FRelocation-of-Temple-Bar-HS5-PB1923D-scaled.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=704&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=1024&s=9d2999d02ea5a95b5cdb1e9ba042d540 1024w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F10%2FRelocation-of-Temple-Bar-HS5-PB1923D-scaled.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=963&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=1400&s=ce4c8bdce80388600c0088d7c5d32d28 1400w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F10%2FRelocation-of-Temple-Bar-HS5-PB1923D-scaled.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=1100&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=1600&s=002aa0e894ba84b7e0e0b121b9b2efe4 1600w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F10%2FRelocation-of-Temple-Bar-HS5-PB1923D-scaled.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=1320&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=1920&s=cd8bc97725f473af9b3217ed148e47ed 1920w)
The Relocation of Temple Bar, 2009, Pablo Bronstein.
Photo by Andy Keate.
Both styles were unfashionable when Bronstein left art college. Both, though were concerned with creative play, and through reams of engaging ink and gouache drawings, set in equally playful frames, Bronstein has toyed with Baroque and Post-Modernism. Because he understands different architectural styles well – “when you draw, you think them” – he has the knack of creating witty, bizarre and provocative images of buildings or moments in imaginary architectural history that, at first glance, can seem quite real.
The Tate owns Bronstein’s Erecting the Paternoster Square Column (2008) depicting the raising of an improbably tall Corinthian column with ropes, winch and timber scaffolding as bystanders posture. The scene is set some three hundred years before the building of Paternoster Square itself, a Post-Modern farrago gift-wrapped around two sides of St Paul’s Cathedral. The drawing is exquisitely realised in ink, watercolour and graphite and finished with a faded yellow wash and patches of gum and resin to make it look very much older than it is.
It is a conceit, and this is Bronstein’s point. To him, the Paternoster Square project is “vacuum-moulded sort-of Baroque” and, all things considered, “a bit of a mess”. The artist’s drawing suggests what Paternoster Square would like to be. Piazza del Popolo it is not.
Bronstein’s drawings have stretched happily into set design, performance art and architectural follies including a beach hut “in the style of Hawksmoor”. Some of his drawing, meanwhile, are as wilfully funny as they are finely rendered like the voluptuously absurd Design for a Cake Basket and two Muffineers en-suite (2017) showing hugely exaggerated Baroque tea things sat like Humpty Dumpty on a Baroque bridge in some great Baroque square.
![#](https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F10%2FDesign-for-a-cake-basket-and-two-muffineers-en-suite-II-scaled.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=164&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=210&s=3561850b9d685b228e8783fb84248285 210w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F10%2FDesign-for-a-cake-basket-and-two-muffineers-en-suite-II-scaled.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=328&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=420&s=7c5f4c57b66ef637fe0fda5a8aa2ca1d 420w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F10%2FDesign-for-a-cake-basket-and-two-muffineers-en-suite-II-scaled.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=600&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=768&s=df2ce3c62318bf9bf083e143ece01840 768w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F10%2FDesign-for-a-cake-basket-and-two-muffineers-en-suite-II-scaled.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=800&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=1024&s=4e1c3ce7ac9cd10b3adb40633fd05add 1024w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F10%2FDesign-for-a-cake-basket-and-two-muffineers-en-suite-II-scaled.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=1094&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=1400&s=1a05d881ae3543032aa4f8226e03cc23 1400w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F10%2FDesign-for-a-cake-basket-and-two-muffineers-en-suite-II-scaled.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=1251&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=1600&s=2d4d70b98d7280836cdf31b9e2b6ea69 1600w,https://make-arch.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.makearchitects.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F10%2FDesign-for-a-cake-basket-and-two-muffineers-en-suite-II-scaled.jpg?auto=format&crop=center&fit=crop&h=1501&ixlib=php-1.2.1&w=1920&s=bb6e51f7c75ec36db82605f6d118586b 1920w)
Design for a cake basket and two muffineers en-suite, Pablo Bronstein.
Courtesy Pablo Bronstein and Cristea Roberts Gallery, London.
Bronstein’s are ways of making artist and viewer think about the history and vanities of architecture as well as its pleasures and play. He reminds us of how architects of the calibre of Filippo Juvarra and Inigo Jones drew for the stage, for masques and operas, as well for memorable buildings in real streets and squares. These resourceful talents played the “high game” of architecture, a form of fecund play witnessed in designs as theatrical as Juvarra’s Baroque basilica, La Superga, on a hilltop outside Turin, Jones’s Tuscan-style “actors’” church in Covent Garden or, indeed, Pablo Bronstein’s Design for a Cake Basket and two Muffineers en-suite, which the artist’s grandmother would surely have loved.
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Designs for the Ornamentation of Middle Class Houses, 2011, Pablo Bronstein.
Photo by Andy Keate.
This post forms part of our series on The Architecture Drawing Prize: an open drawing competition curated by Make, WAF and Sir John Soane’s Museum to highlight the importance of drawing in architecture. The deadline for entries for 2020 has been extended to 16 October.