Everyone sees the world as a 3 (or more) point perspective.
Glance over at the table or chair nearest you: you’ll see edges leading to the
horizon to the left and right, but the verticals will be converging toward the
center of the earth.
Look over at the corner of your room, up where the ceiling
meets the walls: again, convergence in 3 directions.
One point perspective is ancient, and is a relatively easy
thing to produce by hand. Two point perspective is a product of the
Renaissance, and, although harder than one point, is nevertheless a skill that
is easily learned. On the other hand, three point perspective has limited uses,
and is difficult to lay out by hand. Indeed, 3 point perspective has been a
trick used only on special occasions. At least that was the situation before
CAD came into general use (but more on that shortly).
So three point perspective is both familiar and, in terms of
hand layout, rare. The basics of 3 point are easy to explain. Just pick a spot
between 3 equally spaced vanishing points, and draw (we’re not dealing with
accuracy here). To approximate a perfect cube, imagine a ball floating inside
the cube but touching all edges. The ball will look perfectly round from any
angle, so you can draw each of the outside edges touching the circle.
You can use the simple cube to draw more complex shapes,
such as a cylinder.
Going from the simple to the complex is hard, and I have no
interest in explaining it. This example of a tipped over stool from Die malerische Perspektive by Hauck (1882),
gives me a head ache.
That is not to say that I never created a 3 Point
perspective by hand. This layout of a highrise in Manhattan may look like a
simple 2 point, but on closer inspection you will notice a slight convergence
in the vertical lines (the two red lines are parallel to the picture frame). The
reason I went to the trouble of drawing the vertical convergence was to limit
the natural distortion at the top of a tall building. It was relatively easy to
do because I ignored the shortening of the floor heights approaching the top of
the building. Luckily you can get away with cheating on such a drawing (there
is very little shortening with a distant vanishing point).
When architectural illustrators could do CAD “wireframe” layouts
on their desktop computers, 3 point perspective became all too easy. Buildings
that weren’t distorted, like the example above, got treated in the same way as
very tall towers.
Interiors, like this view of the Whitehall Terminal
proposal, perhaps needed the extra vanishing point to be able to describe the
shape of the ceiling arch…
…but others did not have a distortion problem. This view of
a small theatre space would have worked as well using two point perspective.
It’s not that the layout was wrong, it’s just that it was unnecessary.
Of course 3 point perspective can create some eye-catching
effects. Lebbeus Woods was a brilliant perspectivist who could work outside the
rectilinear world, as well as think/draw in 3 point. The above drawing is from Radical Reconstruction (page 74) by
Lebbeus Woods, 1997.
Once CAD modeling became a viable tool for architects and
artists, all sorts of fantastic viewpoints became possible. Long ago I painted
a street view of the EMC building in Des Moines, Iowa. Not long after I created this aerial night
view. The street view was impressively dignified, but this 3 point aerial
caught everyone’s eye.
Computer modeling also allowed for easier photomontage work.
The view above of the observation tower at Niagara Falls, is a mixture of a
photo and a model rendered in Accurender.
This “bat’s eye view” of a church sanctuary would have been
difficult done by hand, but was almost an afterthought of a church design that
I accomplished using computer modeling. One of the joys of modern design is the
ability to jump from hand sketches to CAD modeling and back (sounds like another
subject for posting).
The ability to design and build complex nonlinear spaces has
led to exciting spaces seen in exciting ways. This view of the Glass Hall of
the Tokyo International Forum is strictly 3 point, but only suggests vanishing
points in the floor grids.
Sometimes having the flexibility of CAD modeling is a
disadvantage. This layout of the retail area of the Petronas Towers in Kuala
Lumpur, Maylasia (Suria KLCC) used a rather extreme convergence to be able to
see all 88 floors of the towers. In the final painting the towers were reduced
to a background silhouette, but the tilting walls remained.
So what’s my take on 3 point perspective?
It has its uses. You can moderate distortion in tall
buildings. You can get a better view of a high interior space. You can exactly
match a photo when doing photo montage.
But perhaps the most lasting use of 3 point is its ability
to give an unusual viewpoint; to make a so-so building look new and wild. This
has its place in architectural illustration, but it also has its drawbacks. Too
much of it will deaden the effect: already the movie industry is straining to
outdo the last over-the-top computer-generated imagery (CGI). In this area I
can’t give reliable advice; you will have to keep watching the graphic horizon
and trying out new ideas.
Other posts on Perspective:
Perspective - Two Point Perspective -
Distortions & Complications
Perspective - Three Point Perspective- Hand & CAD
Perspective - Three Point Perspective- Hand & CAD
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