Architect: Louis Kahn

Thinking Through Twentieth-Century Architecture (2023) – Review

Thinking Through Twentieth-Century Architecture (2023) – Review

André Patrão

Philosophy has long played an influential part in architectural practice and discourse. In the last twenty years, several new publications have started to trace the histories of this phenomenon. Some, like Branko Mitrović’s Philosophy for Architects (2011), lay out introductory surveys of major figures, works, and ideas at the overlap… Read More

Open Letters: Harvard GSD

Open Letters: Harvard GSD

Paul Mosley

Drawing Matter has been enjoying Open Letters, published bi-weekly by Harvard University Graduate School Of Design, from the start. In part, this is because our own publishing initiative began at much at the same time – now ten years ago – and proceeds at the same pace, and with a little of the… Read More

Growth or Composition? Colin Rowe to Louis Kahn

Growth or Composition? Colin Rowe to Louis Kahn

Michael Merrill

Extracted, with permission, from Louis Kahn: The Importance of a Drawing edited by Michael Merrill, published by Lars Müller Publishers © 2021. Click here to read a review of this book by Stan Allen. An auspicious meeting: At the end of 1955, a thirty-five-year-old academic named Colin Rowe visited the office… Read More

Louis Kahn: The Importance of a Drawing (2021) – Review

Louis Kahn: The Importance of a Drawing (2021) – Review

Stan Allen

I’ll confess, I ordered a copy of this book reluctantly. I had received one of those ‘We think you might be interested…’ notices, but my bookshelves are overburdened, and already include a number of books on Kahn, among them one of Michael Merrill’s previous collaborations with Lars Müller, Louis Kahn:… Read More

Drawing Powers 3: the drawing in the object

Drawing Powers 3: the drawing in the object

Fernando Poeiras

This text is the third 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. It was the drawing that led me to architecture,… Read More

Excerpt: Shadow Places

Excerpt: Shadow Places

Simon Unwin

The following text is excerpted from Simon Unwin’s book on shadow, in his series Analysing Architecture Notebooks, available here. For 20% off until May 31st 2021, use code KHL20. The piece is illustrated with drawings specially selected by Simon from the Drawing Matter collection. ‘Yea, though I walk through the… Read More

Louis Kahn: In Praise of shadows

Louis Kahn: In Praise of shadows

Emerald Liu

The pale white touch The most exquisite glow and depth of shadows An immutable mystery in the crossbeam of tranquillity simply vanished when the sunlight flooded the atmosphere Of this small corner Where we as children would feel an inexpressible chill While waiting so quiet and pliant to the touch… Read More

BV Doshi: Drawn Closer

BV Doshi: Drawn Closer

Balkrishna Vithaldas Doshi and Sarah Handelman

I was fifty years old when I started designing Sangath, my office in Ahmedabad. In India, when you cross fifty, suddenly – biologically, psychologically – you start to think about what in your life you have discovered. When I made the first drawings, I was thinking about many things: although… Read More

Alternative Histories: Noreile Breen on Louis Kahn

Alternative Histories: Noreile Breen on Louis Kahn

Kahn’s drawing is composed of solid and dotted hard pencil lines with red hatching on coloured paper; conventions representing elements above, below and through a cut line. Parallel lines and breaks between lines give an indication of scale. Curious, massive, triangular, hollow and inaccessible forms meet broken lines in a… Read More

Alternative Histories: Multerer Architekten on Louis Kahn

Alternative Histories: Multerer Architekten on Louis Kahn

Alternative Histories: fala atelier on Louis Kahn

Alternative Histories: fala atelier on Louis Kahn

Supreme efficiency. For the cost of one millimetre of pencil lead, a few careful shapes define the volume, its load-bearing structure, the metrics of the facades and the distinction between services and open areas. We thought five pillars would be enough, and that the rhythm of the elevations would benefit… Read More