The 100 days project

Day 47, Museum of Modern Literature by Chipperfield

After knowing about The Great Discontent's open call for participants on their 100 Day Project, the Spanish firm Estudio Extramuros decided to join it, and start experimenting with illustration from a familiar field: architecture. 100 days that began with a blank square canvas and the rules of starting and finishing an illustration in under 60 minutes. No architect had to be repeated. Apart from that, the architects had complete freedom of what to illustrate, who would be chosen, or what was going to be the focal point of the illustration without being tied to reality: they could re-imagine, decontextualize, remember or simplify a building.

”Sometimes we were so familiar with the project that we felt that they belonged to us and could do anything with them” says the architects. “And that was part of the fun, mixing references, throwing some winks to othes disciplines here and there, illustrating based on our mood, or welcoming some happy accidents into the illustrations. Not all the illustrations are great, we are our worst critics, but we knew we could always do better the following day. Shitty illustrations happen, and in 100 days we have illustrated a lot, but we have worked hard to do it. We had to remember some names that were buried very deep, discover new architects or re-discovered projects. And we had to commit and have a discipline to create.”