History of Architectural Rendering

When we see these hyper realistic images of buildings, houses and places that haven’t even been built yet, they tend to take our breath away and catch our eyes almost immediately, because that’s what a rendering is supposed to do! But it wasn’t always like this.

Believe it or not, rendering is as old as architecture itself, but it wasn’t always about computer programs, fancy software and incredible realistic images, but about portraying the essence of the design intent, often times with an artistic flare and stylistic flavoring leaving much to the viewers interpretation.

That’s why today we’re going to take a trip down memory lane and learn about the history of rendering, and how it has evolved and changed throughout the years until becoming what it is today. Let’s begin!

What even is rendering?

If you’re not familiar with the graphic design world, or the architectural field, then the term rendering might sound strange to you, but the truth is, you see it everywhere in your regular life, you just don’t realize it.

You see rendering refers to the process of creating what appears to be three-dimensional images from either hard copies or digital versions drawings. In other words, graphic designers, architects and illustrators take graphic files that contain data regarding geometry, colors, materials, light and more, and transform that into realistic or stylized images portraying a specific design.

Those fancy images you see of brand-new cars that haven’t even been launched yet, those perfect videos and images of buildings and house that haven’t been built yet, those are images that were made from rendering… Even your all-time favorite animated Pixar movies for example are made from rendering! For the most part we will talk about computer generated photo-realistic renderings from here on, but stylized renderings are also generated through computer software. Whether it is computer generated or hand rendered, what really makes a great rendering is the artist who creates the rendering, computers and software are merely tools just like colored pencils and markers are.

So yes, even if you have never heard from this term before, it’s very like you have seen what rendering can do. But, how does this happen? How can these people create such realistic images? Well, it’s all thanks to computer programs and of course the artist who use them.

Through special, and very complex computer software, people are able to take data and transform into something that looks like a realistic image, and even create videos with this information (hence how they made Pixar animated movies!)

But like we said, this wasn’t always the case, and rendering has come a long way from what it used to be, especially in the architectural field. So, that being said, let’s take a look at how these two things have complemented each other through the years.

Architects and rendering

Throughout the years, architects have made drawings and sketches trying to bring their vision to life and give others an idea of how the final product was going to look like, and they used this visualization process in selling that vision.

You could say that this is where rendering actually started. These “visualizations” were almost like drawings, but much more specific, and made specifically to try to understand how a building will look like once it is done. Typically putting the design into ‘human perspective’ by displaying the design from eye level with the scene occupied by inhabitants characterizing it’s intended use. Of course, renderings aren’t limited to eye level, they can be birds eye level or aerials for example, all depending on what you need to convey or as supporting graphics.

Now, you might be wondering how can these “visualizations” be so different from regular drawings people have been making since the cave ages? Well, turns out these drawings were significantly more realistic than regular ones… Just like rendering is today!

It is important to understand the difference between these two, since rendering actually comes from a very famous ‘drawing’ made by Brunelleschi back in 1415, in which the painter reproduced another painting from the time, but from a perspective, creating a much more realistic reiteration of the image.

So, although rendering as we know it today has its beginning from an adaptation of a painting, it isn’t the same as regular drawings. Think about it like this: The history if rendering, from the very beginning, focuses on creating hyper realistic images, something that not all drawings necessarily strive to do!

It is from that moment on that architects have used extremely realistic drawings and images to show the public and third parties what their vision will look like once it is finished and finally built. However, the history of rendering is way too complicated to gloss over it like that, so let’s take a look at the different stages rendering has gone through during the years.

The early beginnings of rendering

Like we said, the history of perspective renderings takes us back as far as 1415, however, it wasn’t until 1830 that this painting style really picked up, all thanks to the incredible painting made by John Soane, in which he portrayed a hyper realistic version of the Bank of England. The trick is, he didn’t paint the bank as it looked right there and then, but his own rendition of how the bank would look like years and years into the future.

Here, we can start picking up on some of the main factors of rendering such as: Drawing something that hasn’t been created yet and doing so in a hyper realistic way to show others our vision of how that thing will look like.

This drawing style can be seen all the away from 1400 to 1900, when artists took a step forward from serious, hyper realistic paintings that represented their buildings (whether they were actually built or not), and began to play around with color, perspective, and even photography.

It wasn’t until the 60’s, however, that architects managed to actually have fun with their renditions and started mixing more elements into their regular drawings such as photography, collages and bold colors to accurately represent what they wanted to show the world.

Rendering nowadays

From 1960, to early 2000’s, rendering started to become what we know it today. Computer programs and fancy software started to appear (mostly used in the movie industry first) and architects began to explore their possibilities.

We weren’t talking about hyper realistic, extremely accurate representations anymore, because architects could now create and visualize their wildest dreams with the software, daring to create anything they’d like to bring to life.

Today, with such complex, powerful software, you could say this trend is still well and alive. Yes, the images we see are very realistic and look like photographs, but the designs behind it can be as wild and unique as the architect wants it to be.

Russell Thomas is the Founder and Creative Director at 3DAllusions Studio a subsidiary of 3DAllusions LLC which includes sites such as 3DAllusions and MrMaterials which are resources for the CG artist, helping them hone their craft.