Swedish architect for Stenungsunds Municipality impresses with the effortless flow of his pen and watercolour drawings, taking third place in Eye Line 2025's Practitioner category
In counterpoint to the defined algorithmic parameters of the other Eye Line 2025 winners, Erik Rokke’s entry presented itself as a form of liberation, the effect of his pen and watercolour drawings washing over judges as loosely as it did across his paper.
There were a few other hand-drawn and painted submissions – in the main from practitioners – but the fluid, instinctive interpretations of architecture from Rokke, the lead architect for Stenungsunds Municipality, Greater Gothenburg, felt next-level.
Among the judges, Koldo Lus Arana admired the “effortless” qualities of Rokke’s cathedral cupola. “I love how the general watercolour wash is offset by the consciously picked-out details in the centre of the image in a ‘classic’ way,” he said, adding: “It retains ‘sketch-appeal’ but has all the detailing of a finished drawing.”
Bongani Muchemwa agreed, also noting its unfinished quality “as a sign of real skill and confidence, allowing the viewer to bring their own interpretive imaginations into play”.
Samantha Hardingham loved the works’ compositional strength, seeing “amazing control to the images – a lot of observation and a lot of technical decisions being made, while Jan-Carlos Kucharek remarked on its “simultaneous looseness and precision”.
But it was Mary Duggan for whom the drawings’ sheer expressive humanity resonated most. She concluded: “It feels utterly genuine, which is what I love about it: that it was done without anyone having to press a button.”