Biography

Stephen Siegle has been a practicing architect and master planner for over thirty years, and during that time he simultaneously developed his facility for freehand sketching and painting architecture.  As an architect, he has focused primarily on residential and institutional planning and design.  His projects include new construction as well as historic preservation and adaptive reuse of existing buildings, and his planning and design work communicate an affinity for traditional architecture.  His master planning demonstrates a respectful attitude towards existing context and historic precedent.  The quality of his projects has been recognized by several building design industry and urban planning awards.

 

Stephen’s architectural sketching began in earnest during his time as a student in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Study Abroad Program at Versailles.  While traveling that year, primarily in France and Italy, he compiled sketchbooks of his visits to great buildings in the time-honored tradition of learning architectural design through plein air drawing.  Over the years, he continued to work in several traditional drawing media while practicing architecture and teaching, then accelerated his production of architectural sketches using watercolor during the Pandemic.  Having developed a portfolio of paintings of architectural landmarks, he now looks forward to working primarily as an artist while continuing to practice architecture and participate in architectural education. 

 

Steve received Bachelor and Master degrees in architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), and since then he has frequently worked to support architectural education.  At UIUC, he served as Visiting Professor at the School of Architecture’s Study Abroad Program at Versailles where he taught design studio and drawing.  Since then, he has taken UIUC students sketching in Greece, and he has led or assisted design studios at the Boston Architectural College and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  He is a Board Member Emeritus of the ACE Mentor Chicago program for high school students interested in careers in the building industry, and he has served on the Education Committee of the Chicago-Midwest Chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art.  

 

About

I became passionate about architecture as a student in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Study Abroad Program at Versailles, making pilgrimages to see and sketch great buildings and landscapes in France and Italy.   To this day I still find it exhilarating to visit a landmark that I have only known through drawings and photographs.  

 

I’m drawn to historic towns and traditionally-designed buildings because the best architecture of the past is built of earthier, richer materials, informed by timeless design principles, and built by people who intended to create an enduring legacy of faith or civic pride.  My keen interest in historic architecture has informed my work as an architect, master planner, and educator. It has also been the primary focus of thousands of travel photographs. 

 

Capturing monuments of design through drawing and painting is a means of committing that exceptional place to memory.  Rapidly and accurately depicting a work of architecture’s massing, proportions, materiality and color requires careful and lengthy observation.  It is joyful for me to linger over the details of a great building by drawing and painting them, and it is equally enjoyable to share the images I create with others. 

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Watercolors

At the onset of the Pandemic in 2020, several chapters of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art (ICAA) sponsored virtual sketch trips to landmarks around the world.  Participating in this experience renewed my passion for hand drawing and painting architecture.  I am particularly interested in freehand techniques that rapidly capture the impact of exceptional light on masterworks of building and landscape design.  My work is created in the field and in the studio.

 

The work herein exemplifies my approach to seeing and appreciating what elevates construction to architecture that moves us all and motivates those in the building professions to excel at the art of shaping our physical environment.

 

Feedback, Art for Purchase

Welcome to my website! I would enjoy your feedback, and many of the pieces in my watercolors collection are available for purchase.  Please contact me using the template below to express interest in sketching and/or owning work from my portfolio.

 

 

 

 

 

 

All works copyrighted by Stephen Daniel Siegle.  The artist retains the right to reproduce and publish these paintings.  Reproduction or other use of these paintings or images of them by others without the artist’s consent is prohibited.