600 word 

Drawing techniques construct a particular way of seeing as an artist convey their ideas through their practices. In this case, through John Hejduk's architectural drawing techniques, helps us to understand and appreciate the ideal city he designed. John Hejduk was inspired by dark, gothic themes, which can be depicted through his use of strange, unusual shapes and vectors. Hejduk's project, ’Victims and Monsters’ (1984) projected to build a memorial park over a former Gestapo headquarters that had a torture chamber during WWII. The site was to include sixty-seven structures including picnic tables, watch shops and other infrastructures that were signified with somewhat relevant and irrelevant names such as drawbridge man, peacock, the dead, poem. Some of these titles are represented as joyful features while others with darker names to reflect the site’s previous occupation such as death, exiles. 

The drawings are tiny, rough sketches of silhouettes and perspective of the infrastructure, while some are more detailed illustration with names, some are just an overall perspective of the site. Hejduk’s layout of different items allows us to deconstruct the construction site, allowing us to investigate his idea in-depth, rather than viewing it as a whole. This not only enables us to see individually but view in great depth as singular parts, unfolding different aspects of the site.

One of the most reoccurring themes in Hejduk’s is ‘Masques’, which is a variant spelling of ‘mask’. In which, Hejduk aims to bring out the stories and relationship of the place and tries to express them visually through architecture. In terms of Hedjuk’s drawings techniques, while some designs are portrayed accurately with linear, sharp edges, some of the lines are bluntly portrayed. Additonally, very thick line weights are evident throughout this project which reflect the heaviness of the topic of what was once a torture chamber during WWII, he carries this subtleness by using heavy, bulky lines. 

Through the icons and index, we are somewhat able to tell what objects' stories are. Though there’s no relation with the purpose and the names, the names are labelled with revenant and irrelevant names from peacock, a poem to the dead, nurse, child and many more. Some of these titles are represented as joyful features while others with darker names to reflect the site’s previous occupation such as death, exiles. Names that don’t match the icons make this work of Victim and Monster’s work exciting and forces us to guess on Hejduk's intentions. While using his distinctive linear lines for the aerial, silhouette view of the infrastructure, this portrays a different mood from the index form drawings. The stark contrast of the various drawings allows us to depict the differences such as setting and context. For example, if he used messy, blunt lines to draw a perspective view, it would be unclear and portrayed as unorganised and compacted. Additionally, if clean, detailed drawings were to replace the messy, gothic-styled drawings, the style and the mood of the whole drawings would drastically change and covey a different message. Hence, by using techniques such as varying weights of the line allows us to understand a particular idea or view of Hejduk's ideal design of the place.