A van delivers boxes of dyelines to the office. 100 plus A1 line drawings on tracing paper copied four times. They have to be sent out to contractors today. Each needs to be checked and collated into four piles, then folded three times so the bottom right hand corner showing the drawing number faces out as an A4 sheet. As the youngest in the office, it is my job to fold, count and pile. I like the strong smell of ammonia. It feels professional. This is architecture.

Fresh dyelines are crisp blue lines on an off-white background like negatives of the traditional blueprint. The drawing has to be made with ink on thick tracing paper or film to allow light to pass through onto photosensitive diazo paper. The blueish cast across the dyeline varies slightly with each batch, perhaps because of differences in paper thickness or the age of chemicals. But it doesn’t matter as the freshness will not last long. Old dyelines around the office are yellow-brown depending on age and the sharp lines have faded too like old tattoos. Paste-ups of labels or diagrams leave traces of the invisible tape holding them in position.

Folding a dyeline is a skill, more like the complex sequence of folding a map than simply into halves. The blue cast surface of a dyeline paper creates an extra-dry friction with the fingertips. Pleasant at first as it creases neatly, emitting a little heat with the final stroke of the back of the finger along the fold. Friction soon turns to mild abrasion but the light-headedness from ammonia eases the task. The blueprint is smell and friction more than it is it colour.

The first CAD station arrived that summer. I think I have not seen a new dyeline since, at least I have not folded one. Now there is no smell. There are no dyelines. There is no blue.

View the engineering drawings of Blue Mountain School’s staircase by Price & Myers for 6a architects.

 

Tom Emerson, Blue Revue, published by Blue Mountain School, 2018