Looking at one of his sculptures from a single perspective, it would be easy to mistake them for 2D drawings on a flat surface. After all, architects have a tendency to layer lines as they solve design problems in realtime, resulting in a sketchy quality in their “working” drawings. They often also sketch buildings with overlapping lines, leaving structural intersections seeming fluid and unfinished.

Spanish artist David Moreno sculpts along similar lines, using thin strands to model out architectural creations that appear almost like two-dimensional art on a page.

Strung together with slim piano wire, he builds up his pieces from steel rods that form outlines of buildings as well as architectural details.

There is rarely a clear starting point, and one could imagine any of these constructions being half-finished or, conversely, well past their natural end point.

In the end, there is a kind of gestural quality and uncertainty to each piece, something that architect’s often intentionally cultivate — by creating overlaps and ambiguities, they can allow observers (and clients) to read their own vision into it.

Moreno has created and iterated on these kinds of three-dimensional sketch sculptures for a long time, but has also worked on large-scale installations and furniture-based works. You can see more, too, on his Behance page.

Seeming like a ghostly image of structures long gone overlaid onto the current reality, these wire mesh architectural creations arch over 75,000 square feet of event space in Abu Dhabi. The way the mesh shifts between transparency and opacity depending on how it’s layered, paired with its grid pattern, gives it the look of a light-based projection, yet it’s physical and three-dimensional, crafted in full-scale skeletal form to suggest structures rather than bring them to fruition.

Artist Edoardo Tresoldi previously resurrected an ancient church in Puglia, Italy that had been destroyed by earthquakes in the 13th century right where it once stood, allowing visitors to get a sense of how the structure interacts with the site before and after its demise. This time, Tresoldi sculpts a whole series of architectural sculptures, along with flying birds and cubes that hang suspended in midair.

The Abu Dhabi installation acts as a decorative tableau for a royal event attended by 1,900 guests from all over the Middle East, and took three months to complete, representing the artist’s first time creating a large installation for an indoor space. After the event, some of the structures will be moved and reassembled in public places across the UAE capital, including museums, parks and universities.

Many of these forms are reminiscent of previous Tresoldi works, including an archway used on a fashion runway, and a caged bird. Tresoldi creates figurative wire mesh sculptures, as well. You can see the evolution of his process at his Behance profile.

Photographing real people in actual places, Serge Najjar manages to make the mundane seem strange and fantastical, highlighting the intersection of humans and the architectural spaces they inhabit.

His planned-looking portraits of people in urban environments are surprisingly spontaneous, appearing staged but usually featuring strangers he has never met and captured as he wanders cities.

Technically, Najjar, a lawyer by trade in Beirut, Lebanon, is not even a professional photographer, though the beauty and popularity of his work would suggest otherwise.

His work, which spans from his home city to Rome and Berlin, features both generic architecture and famous places, all with his eye for making the familiar stream foreign and fresh.

While there are common threads, themes and angles to much of his photography, it is impossible to describe the commonality strictly in terms of perspective, as various works break the very conventions he generally follows.

This year alone we have learned that a Frank Lloyd Wright house must be moved 1,000 miles to protect it from floodwater, a Le Corbusier chapel has been vandalized and a seminal structure by Micheal Graves may be razed. In a remarkable turnaround, the MoMA has also recently decided to save the entire facade of the American Folk Art Museum, but by dismantling and storing it indefinitely. There is nothing like the threat of utter annihilation to make one wonder: how do we choose what building we preserve, restore and ultimately save? Here are five hot-button buildings generating serious buzz, raising questions both within and beyond the architectural design community.

Frank Lloyd Wright House to be Moved & Reconstructed

First to Frank Lloyd Wright, whose work invariably makes headlines whenever it is at risk of destruction. Thanks to the intervention of the Crystal Bridges Museum (images by Tarantino Studio) in Arkansas, the Bachman Wilson House will be transported from its original location in New Jersey to a site on their campus.

Its owners, Lawrence and Sharon Tarantino, put it on the market hoping for just such a buyer and after spending years restoring the home themselves. This remarkable move will save the structure itself by carefully deconstructing it, transporting its parts then rebuilding piece by piece in a new place.

However, the process  is inevitably partial  and one has to wonder: how will relocating it change the nature of a home designed around a specific site many states away? Is regional architecture truly as portable as this solution implies, and what does it lose forever when taken out of its context?

Le Corbusier Chapel Broken Into, Robbed & Vandalized

An unusual work by one of the world’s most famous architects, the Chapel of Ronchamp by Le Corbusier was reported vandalized earlier. Amid other damage and theft, the destruction of stained glass window drawn (and reportedly signed) by Corbu himself was deemed a “priceless” loss, the colored glazing irreparable.

The building is a destination for tens of thousands of annual tourists. Its sculptural form reflects the architect’s philosophy that while Modernism may be appropriate for most architecture, spiritual structures are an exception.

The shocking break-in leaves open questions: how does one replace an irreplaceable window – with a copy of the original, something commemorating its loss or a new work entirely? And how does one protect against future defacement, particularly in a structure so often open to the public?

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5 Preservation Puzzles Famous Architecture Facing Threats

A quick doodle drawn in the heat of the moment on a napkin at an architectural cocktail party is more likely to be a concept diagram than a phone number. There is nothing architects love more than a sexy drawing with dotted lines, curvy arrows and a few key color accents.

Josh Lewandowski is a Minnesotan architect who is taking things to the extreme, producing a new diagrammatic sketch daily … with a catch: they do not represent anything and are ends unto themselves. The series is dubbed simply Pointless Diagrams.

Of his work, Josh writes: “I started this blog because for as long as I can remember I’ve always drawn and doodled 3d sketches that have an unapologetic dearth of meaning.” He draws his “inspiration from architecture, furniture, engineering, geometry, cereal boxes, Lego instructions, and Etch A Sketch memories. I always use pen and ink because erasing is for wimps.”

The works are populated with walkways, bridges, staircases, pools, trees and more, yet a whole never really emerges from the parts except when the viewer’s imagination takes part. Thus the mysterious and subjective side of the equation.

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Pointless Diagrams Daily Architectural Nonsense Drawings