A Technical Drawing Is a Language for Things That Do Not Yet Exist
Before an object can be built, its structure may already have to exist in a form another mind can reconstruct. A technical drawing can describe something that does not exist. No building has been constructed. No component has been manufactured. No machine has been assembled. There may be nothing in physical reality that we can point to and say: There it is. And yet another person can look at a structured collection of lines, dimensions, symbols and views — and begin preparing to make the object real. This is one of the most remarkable properties of technical representation. A drawing does not need to copy an existing object. Sometimes it comes first. INTENTION ↓ TECHNICAL REPRESENTATION ↓ RECONSTRUCTION BY ANOTHER MIND ↓ PHYSICAL OBJECT The representation becomes a bridge between something imagined and something that may eventually exist. That makes technical drawing more than drawing. It makes it a form of language. A technical drawing does not merely show an object. It allows structu...