
Many of the buildings that populate London are works of art if you ask us. But what if you turn those pieces of art into pieces of art themselves? (Insert galaxy brain meme here.)
That's what architect Christian Coop does, by painting stunning watercolours of some beautiful buildings, which you might not have noticed otherwise.

Coop says that "understanding buildings has always been important" to him. Their "materiality, proportion and detail" are vital parts of his day job. So he began drawing and painting them — as a way to remember the buildings, and allowing him to better understand the city and inform his own architecture.

Each pencil and watercolour piece takes about six hours on average from start to finish. That sounds about right considering they manage to look both wickedly intricate and incredibly rushed in their composition.

On his popular Instagram account @freehandlines, he doesn't just present the buildings on their own. In the caption there's a brief history of the structure to quench viewers' intellectual thirst. Coop says every "building has a narrative which forms it", and it's these stories that attract him to buildings. That's because it's the stories that creates a city, rather than just the brick and mortar that inhabits it.

Take a look below at some more of Coop's work.


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You can follow Coop's work on Instagram here.