Architectural drawings have long used geometrical tricks to convey scale, depth, distance and other three-dimensional aspects of realities on two-dimensional surfaces. In a two-vanishing-point drawing, the artist aligns their ruler with a point on one side or the other and draws a line along the edge (or employs another modular straight-edging tool).

The same came be accomplished much more quickly, however, using this simple technique: pin a flexible string to both points along the horizon line and slide a hook along the center. The results will naturally be a bit less than precisely linear, but for many architectural artists a wavy line is typical or even desired (it gives the piece a less rigorously complete look).

Of course, it will only work for a traditional two-point perspective – in cases where the artist wants to include a third vanishing point (for instance, to emphasize verticals in looking up at a skyscraper or create a fish-eye effect) a straight-edge is still required. That, or a free-handed approach based on a picture, presumably the basis of the drawing above.

A long-standing design proposal from Foster + Partners has been scrapped by developers in favor of a new scheme from BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) that presents a different face to viewers depending on their approach or view within the city, rejecting conventional skyscraper typology and cultivating visual transitions between neighborhoods on all sides.

As the last project slated to be built on the World Trade Center site, the would-be 2 WTC skyscraper is a critical piece of the Lower Manhattan landscape, but its future tenants wanted something that stood apart from the more straightforward tall buildings associated with finance and Wall Street.

The prior scheme, shown above, featured four connected verticals, each terminating in an angled plane at the top, essentially a tower with slots centrally located along each face. The new scheme, endorsed by occupants including 21st Century Fox and News Corp and shown below, intentionally shies away from the skyscraper aesthetic and creates space for greenery on a series of platforms created by recessed sections of structure.

Its facade shows off a slim and modest structure when viewed from the memorial site on one side below but creates a stacked-box effect when seen from adjacent lower-rise parts of the city above like Tribeca: “From Tribeca, it will appear like a vertical village of singular buildings each tailored to their individual activities stacked on top of each other, forming parks and plazas in the sky.”

By keeping larger boxes at the base and similar overall square footage (nearly 3,000,000 square feet), the building also is designed to accommodate sizable studio spaces for the aforementioned media companies. Lower levels will be occupied by these giants while upper floors will be rented out to smaller commercial clients. Set alongside One, Three and Four World Trade Center, this structure will stand apart, its broken-down scale visually bridging the gap between the southern tip of the island and the rest of the city to the north.

Our minds are addicted to making order out of chaos and finding patterns in noise. This stunning perspectival art project takes the wonderfully windy streets of São Paulo, Brazil and layers a new level of meaning on their walls.

Boa Mistura is a Spanish art collective that engaged the community around this intervention. Helped by local families – children in particular – they painted words of hope and inspiration (including terms that translate as beauty, pride and love) that the observer must shift to see.

Each piece involves a single bold-colored backdrop on which one capital-lettered word stands out – in the photos, it almost looks unreal.

These 3D illusions break apart from anything but the perfect view, but in their deconstruction are also strangely beautiful and eye-catching – another dynamic element and splash of color in the complex streets and alleys of the city.

“The work of Boa Mistura is all about the love of graffiti, colour and life. This group of 5 Spanish artists is, as the name says, a good mixture. Arkoh, Derko, Pahg, Purone and Rdick have developed their work in different fields, applying both a diversity of styles and the different views of each member.”

“Boa Mistura represents a mixture of perspectives which complement, influence and mix themselves together in order to create something better. From graffiti and mural painting, to graphic design and illustration, Boa Mistrua want to give the world its colour back. 5 heads, 10 hands, just one heart.

On their harried way through the Toronto subway, commuters passing through the new Bayview/Sheppard station might glance at what looks like a scribbled mess of black paint on the floor and walls and wonder if it was the work of some vision-challenged vandal. But turn a corner and see those sketches from just the right angle, and suddenly playful shapes like umbrellas and clocks appear to be floating in mid-air.

Each of these 24 hand-drawn images are part of an installation by contemporary Canadian artist Panya Clark Espinal, optical illusions that require the viewer to stand in once precise location in order to see the object depicted.

“These images act as beacons, drawing the viewers along various paths of movement,” the artist writes on her website. “Depicting everyday objects and simple geometric shapes, the images are rendered in an uncommonly large scale and in unusual orientations, allowing one to interact playfully with them as one moves through the space.”

Known as ‘anamorphosis’, this type of art has been around since at least Leonardo da Vinci’s time, when he created a work called ‘Leonardo’s Eye’. Hans Holbein the Younger incorporated the technique into his painting The Ambassadors, which features an anamorph skull in the foreground that looks like some kind of unidentified hovering object until viewed from an acute angle.

Of course, the most famous contemporary version of anamorphic art is the sidewalk illusions of chalk artists like Julian Beever, who masterfully trick our eyes into seeing things that aren’t really there.

Hyper-realistic paintings and drawings can make us pause and wonder whether they’re real, but there’s another, even more deceptive, form of super-realistic art that’s been in use since ancient times. Trompe l’oeil means “trick of the eye” in French, and this type of painting definitely lives up to its name. With examples that date as far back as ancient Greece and Pompeii, this deceptively realistic art form features pictures that seem to jump out at the viewer, drawing them into a mysterious, often whimsical world.

(images via: Brown)

The oldest report of a trompe l’oeil painting dates back to ancient Greece. Zeuxis, a very talented painter, challenged Parrhasius to a contest: the artist who painted the more realistic painting would win. Zeuxis’ still-life painting was so realistic that birds came down from the sky to peck at the grapes on the canvas. Satisfied with his obvious victory, Zeuxis told Parrhasius to pull aside a pair of tattered curtains so that Zeuxis could see his rival’s painting behind them. But Parrhasius’ painting wasn’t behind the curtains – it was the curtains. The original piece has been lost to time, but the above trompe l’oeil paintings by Gerard Houckgeest and Adriaen van Der Spelt/Frans van Mieris pay homage to Parrhasius’ deception.

While it sounds very similar to photorealistic painting, trompe l’oeil is slightly different in that it strives to look like an actual three-dimensional object or scene, and photorealistic paintings strive to look like a photograph of an object or scene. Classic trompe l’oeil paintings often took on the form of a hallway, an archway, or an extension of a room. Or, like this public mural from South Carolina artist Blue Sky, they can aim to completely transform an architectural object (here, the side of a building).

In fact, such murals have been used in buildings for thousands of years to give rooms an illusion of more space. Many anecdotes have been told of the hapless visitor who walked into a wall or tried to touch an object, only to find that he was the victim of a trompe l’oeil mural. The incredible piece above, by John Pugh, seems to give a view into another room, complete with a stairway and a woman quietly reading. But in fact, the entire scene is an amazingly realistic painting.

A specific type of trompe l’oeil mural that was very popular during the Renaissance was the ceiling mural. Murals painted in this fashion appeared to greatly increase the area of the room – sometimes even adding artificial architectural elements like domes – while depicting a beautiful religious scene above. The two examples above were both painted by Andrea Pozzo in the 17th century in St. Ignatius’ Church, Rome. Religious ceiling frescoes can still be seen today in many ancient churches in Europe, and contemporary versions can be spotted in some American government buildings, theaters and other public places.

Today, illusion paintings don’t have the same artistic admiration they once did, mostly due to our being able to create extremely realistic art through other means. But illusion painting does require a great deal of artistic skill, and some artists are trying to bring the art form back. Some of the most popular modern-day trompe l’oeil pieces are public art, like the amazing 3D chalk pieces seen in streets around the world from artists like Kurt Wenner and Julian Beever.

Trompe l’oeil paintings can also be seen both inside and outside buildings, such as Paris’ Saint-Georges Theatre, above, which was completely transformed by mural painter Dominique Antony. This particular illusion is so masterful that, without a “before” picture, it’s very difficult to tell exactly what the painted elements are. Antony blended artificial architecture into the building’s facade to make it appear newer, brighter and more welcoming.

This mural on the side of a shopping mall in Niagara Falls, New York, is a well-known trompe l’oeil piece that has been fascinating tourists since its creation. The mural, by Eric Grohe, depicts an extremely realistic scene of tourists at Niagara Falls. The illusion leads the eye to believe that it’s not just a flat wall, but an actual walkway out to a viewing platform.

John Pugh is a well-known contemporary American trompe l’oeil artist. This mural resides on the side of a building in Honolulu and depicts Queen Lili’uokalani, the last reigning monarch of Hawaii. The giant wave, Queen’s face and surfer are spectacular, but the most amazing part of the painting is evident in a story told by the building’s owner. As the mural was nearing completion, the owner arrived at his building one day to find a group of firemen standing under the painting and laughing. They’d been driving by and stopped to rescue the children on the wall, thinking they’d gotten stuck up there. The children were, of course, part of the mural. This type of trick is a classic part of the playful trompe l’oeil style.