You have never been to Winnipeg ?
One of Peter’s projects over the years was drawing axonometric projection maps of cities. The roots of axonometric projection drawings go back many centuries, possibly beginning in China. They became popular with architects in the 1920’s as a way to illustrated proposed buildings for clients. These drawings can best be described as the view you would see if you were up in a hot-air balloon floating above a city, and looking down. Peter, as far as I know, never went up in a balloon, but he was able to create the view in his mind and then transfer that vision to paper.
He began with a street map of the downtown area of a city. Then he would gather photographs of important buildings and street scenes, all taken at ground eye level. Peter knew that I was working on a database of information on American hotels, so he would send my photocopies of hotels he found, and I would send him photos of hotels he wanted. By counting the number of floors shown in a building’s photograph he could calculate its height. Once he gathered the photographs and information he needed he would mentally create the image he wanted to draw. He then began the process of transferring his mental image to paper using a fine-line ink drafting pen. It took multiple images to cover the entire downtown area he wanted to show. Some drawings have a scale of 1” equaling 400’. Others used 1” equalling 250’, for more of a close-up view.
Back in 2006, Carroll and I were planning a trip by rail across Canada. Because we were going to be on the train for several days, we wanted to get of at some point and spend a couple days in some Canadian city. Peter suggested Winnipeg, and sent us a collection of thirteen of his drawings of Winnipeg, along with suggestions of places of interest. We took his suggestion and made Winnipeg our stopover point. We used Peter’s maps as our guide as we walked around the city. Our Canadian rail trip ended in Vancouver. We then continued down to Portland, Oregon where we visited Peter. We told him how much we enjoyed Winnipeg. Then I asked him how he liked Winnipeg. His reply was “I have never been to Winnipeg”. “You have never been to Winnipeg.Then how did you know so much about it ?” I asked. He explained that he learned about this city by doing the research for his drawings.
