Recently Luke ran a workshop introducing the use of 3D modelling to a group of Art Historian students at the Courtauld Institute of Art. The workshop was part of a series organised by the Digital Art History Research Group led by Dr Fern Insh.
Firstly the workshop covered the use and production of scale drawings and methods of surveying buildings before getting the students to model the Dulwich Picture Gallery by John Soane using Google SketchUp. Dulwich Picture Gallery was chosen as a building of huge historical significance both in architectural and art history and also for its simple geometric forms.
Soane conceived of the primary spaces within the Dulwich Picture Gallery as a series of top lit cubes using Elizabethan Long Galleries and Vanbrugh’s top lit great kitchen at St James Palace as models for his design. This simple repeated form allowed the students to quickly develop a model that could easily be identified as the Gallery whilst also allowing the more advanced students a chance to start adding more details.
By the end of the workshop the students had built a massing model of the gallery, applied materials to the surfaces, geo-located the model within its terrain, learnt how to share the files and how it might be 3D printed. Some students were even able to start work on modelling the interiors and learnt how accurate scale objects could be made to represent paintings and statues that could be moved around in the space which would be a useful tool for curators.
For more information on he DAHRG at the Courtuald Institute of Art visit:
