Architect: Tony Fretton
Drawing Powers 4: the drawing-object
2 November 2021
Drawing Powers 4: the drawing-object2 November 2021
This text is the fourth in a series of five in which Fernando Poeiras (ESAD.CR/LIDA), explores the different powers of drawing within architectural design projects. Each text is illustrated with examples from the Drawing Matter Collection. Find the introduction to the series here. After I have developed a feel for the programme,… Read More
On Tony Fretton and the Lisson Gallery
5 February 2021
On Tony Fretton and the Lisson Gallery5 February 2021
A conversation with Nicholas Logsdail, standing in the farmyard at Shatwell, on the day he came with Freeny Yanni her sons Yanis and Cassius Hammick, to look at Tony Fretton’s sketchbooks for the Lisson Gallery. By way of response, Tony gives us his account of the genesis of the commission.… Read More
On a handrail
30 November 2020
On a handrail30 November 2020
What drew me to the drawings Tony made, and the handrail itself, is the line it treads between standardisation and customisation. The way in which, for instance, standard sections of steel are bundled together and expressed to form thicker newel posts or to hold the glazing panels of the balustrade.… Read More
Tony Fretton: Tolerance
27 October 2020
Tony Fretton: Tolerance27 October 2020
The following text is an excerpt from AMAG 20 | Tony Fretton Architects. Drawing Matter would like to thank the author and the editors of the magazine for allowing us to reproduce the text on drawingmatter.org. To order a copy of AMAG 20, click here. Tolerance is a measure of… Read More
Tony Fretton: Drawn Closer
6 February 2020
Tony Fretton: Drawn Closer6 February 2020
– Tony Fretton and Sarah Handelman
Sometimes you make drawings to tell yourself the project is going okay. Well, that’s what I do. This drawing came quite late in the design of the first Lisson Gallery. In the way I used to work, you would reach a point where you’d have a very thorough sense of… Read More
Alternative Histories: Raamwerk on Tony Fretton
31 July 2019
Alternative Histories: Raamwerk on Tony Fretton31 July 2019
Alternative Histories: ECTV on Tony Fretton
29 July 2019
Alternative Histories: ECTV on Tony Fretton29 July 2019
We are very happy with this new commission. Thinking of a third phase for the London Lisson gallery is an honorable and challenging design assignment! Without false modesty, we must recognize that a Belgian architect is particularly well-placed for this task. After all, Belgians are very skilled in row-house configurations… Read More
Alternative Histories: Dyvik Kahlen Architects on Tony Fretton
29 July 2019
Alternative Histories: Dyvik Kahlen Architects on Tony Fretton29 July 2019
A Ruin The sketch is finished and unfinished at the same time, it’s precise and equally ambiguous. In a way architecture should be the same, somewhere between a ruin and a loved space. A ruin understood as a spatial sequence that follows it’s own internal logic, void of an immediate… Read More
Alternative Histories: Tony Fretton Architects on Erik Gunnar Asplund
19 December 2018
Alternative Histories: Tony Fretton Architects on Erik Gunnar Asplund19 December 2018
We recognise modernism as a continuing program to find architecture for the present time, and Asplund’s work as part of its history. Our project is a thought experiment on the central aspects of architecture’s modernism – social responsibility in combination with freedom to work with current sensibilities. It has proceeded… Read More
Tony Fretton: Lisson Gallery 1
27 February 2018
Tony Fretton: Lisson Gallery 127 February 2018
84-7-1 is a singular image, a drawing of Lisson 1 seen from Lisson Street. It shows the back gallery as it was first intended – but which is not what it became, because the client kept buying land and adding to it. This sketch explores how a piece of architecture… Read More
Working with Tony Fretton
4 January 2022
Working with Tony Fretton4 January 2022
– Jonathan Sergison
In the early 1990s a number of architects, academics and artists came together in a rather fluid manner, meeting regularly in my Bloomsbury apartment. Tony Fretton was older than most of us and had already established a clear critical position. The conversations we had, and sometimes the arguments, were instructive… Read More
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