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Early Life and Education

A quickly drawn sketch in brown ink on yellow-brown paper of a stand-alone tower. The features of the sketch are indistinct. The slender tower tapers from bottom to top and is covered in loose lines that suggest an ornamented facade.
A sketch of a slender, ornate tower that tapers as it goes up. The tower is in an urban setting with low buildings surrounding the tower. Small whips of the pencil suggest a crowded street.
Constant-Désiré Despradelle, 1862–1912
Beacon of Progress, preparatory sketches, detail, c. 1898
Ink on trace paper mounted on paper
12" × 5"
MIT Museum
Raymond Hood
Proposal for Electric Tower, February 14, 1924
Charcoal on board
18½" × 7½"
Raymond Mathewson Hood papers, 1903–1931, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

The first step in any design project, Hood was taught, was to produce an esquisse, or preliminary sketch. This sketch embodied the essence of the solution to the design problem and would serve as the basis for the project’s final form.

Hood employed this iterative method of design throughout his career. His early sketch for a proposed “Electric Tower” is strikingly similar to his professor’s sketches for the Beacon of Progress.