Teaching Drawing, Painting and Sculpture at the Faculty of Architecture of the Warsaw University of Technology, classics and modernity

Teaching art disciplines at architectural universities goes back to the nineteenth-century academic art of Art schools. This also applies to the Faculty of Architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology. The fact of establishing a research and a teaching team teaching arts disciplines at WAPW, simultaneously with the University's establishment, is important for the identity of the Warsaw School of Architecture. Teaching the drawing and artistic disciplines underwent further changes from 1915 to the present. At that time, the school acquired a specific character; it became recognizable thanks to the elaboration of its own unique style of the architectural drawing and views expressed by its representatives regarding drawing and teaching of architecture. From the very beginning, the school appealed to the classics and for many years preserved traditional didactic methods. Moved to the present day, artistic academicism has undergone a thorough transformation in recent years thanks to a change in the approach to didactics and redefining of the understanding of the most important feature of the drawing. The change of understanding of the meaning of drawing in the educational process from primary school to academic level requires teachers and students to change the perception of the essence of a drawing activity. This is not an easy process because the common understanding of drawing reduces it to the area of aesthetics. Meanwhile, a freehand drawing made by the nature fulfills a fundamental role in the process of developing and shaping an independent creative personality. It is probably the most important skill alongside reading and writing. Acquainting and promoting the meaning of a freehand drawing is a task and a challenge for the current School of Drawing at WAPW. An indication of the essence of a drawing activity as a method that harnesses the processes of reasoning and information processing of an independent drawing record seems to be an innovative look at the drawing and its role in creating culture and civilization. We are therefore facing the task of defining drawing anew and rebuilding of proper artistic education based on a hand drawing from the nature.