Category: commentaries, rants & reflections
Shower at Shatwell Farm
21.12.2020
Shower at Shatwell Farm21.12.2020
Being a designer and adherent of adhocism – speed, economy, improvisation and learning-as-you-go – the materials I use have a strong influence on the outcome of my work. This completely dovetailed with Niall’s brief: to design and build an outdoor toilet and shower for occasional scholars occupying the library at… Read More
Startha Éagsula: GKMP architects on Charles Moore
17.12.2020
Startha Éagsula: GKMP architects on Charles Moore17.12.2020
The sketch sections by Charles Moore are dense with ideas. They suggest an intriguing disparity between the exterior form and the interior space, a type of Baroque poché created by a thicket of lines. The structure is tree-like, with trunks and branches shaping the space of the undercroft. Our model… Read More
Writing Prize 2020: Pens down, Braid up
17.12.2020
Writing Prize 2020: Pens down, Braid up17.12.2020
Hair, silky, wavy or coiled, somewhere, is felt by us all. It is one of the first things we play with, we shape and mold, unconsciously or artfully. Beginning as a line, slack and tentative, a hair appears as a strike of fine ink. Collected and carefully teased each strand… Read More
Pan Scroll Zoom 5: Andrés Jaque
16.12.2020
Pan Scroll Zoom 5: Andrés Jaque16.12.2020
– Fabrizio Gallanti and Andrés Jaque
This is the fifth in a series of texts edited by Fabrizio Gallanti on the challenges in the new world of online architectural teaching and, particularly, on the changing role of drawings in presentations and reviews. In this episode Fabrizio interviews Andrés Jaque, founder of the Office for Political Innovation… Read More
Writing Prize 2020: The Anatomy of an Oyster Theatre
14.12.2020
Writing Prize 2020: The Anatomy of an Oyster Theatre14.12.2020
In the beginning, there was only a shell. An empty shell. But we could already sense the contours of its elliptical shape, its multilayered protective envelope, stratified, laminated, like the bark of a tree (a). Slowly, the outer flaps of the carapace would move away from each other, vertically sweeping… Read More
Writing Prize 2020: Domestic Space, Registered
05.12.2020
Writing Prize 2020: Domestic Space, Registered05.12.2020
– Laura Bonell and Daniel López-Dòriga
Around 200 AD, a map of the city of Rome was carved on marble at a scale of approximately 1:240. It measured 18 meters wide by 13 meters high and comprised 150 marble slabs hung on an interior wall of the Templum Pacis. The Forma Urbis Romae or Severan Marble Plan, as… Read More
Startha Éagsula: t o b Architect on James Gowan
03.12.2020
Startha Éagsula: t o b Architect on James Gowan03.12.2020
There is a ramp;There is a staggering of volumes in plan and section, in out, in out;There is a tapering toward the top;The emphasis is on the public ambulatory spaces;There are people ambulating about;The proportion and judgement of the volumes appear to be empathetic to people;The undercroft condition is important… Read More
Collection of Sections
02.12.2020
Collection of Sections02.12.2020
The following drawings and commentaries have been excerpted from Visual Discoveries: A Collection of Sections (Oro Editions, 2020). The publication surveys the use of section drawings in the histories of architecture and other professions, from the 17th century to the present. More information on the book can be found here.… Read More
On a Handrail
30.11.2020
On a Handrail30.11.2020
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
Startha Éagsula: Paul Dillon Architects on Florian Beigel and Philip Christou
26.11.2020
Startha Éagsula: Paul Dillon Architects on Florian Beigel and Philip Christou26.11.2020
This drawing is a development sketch for their proposed part in the rebuilding of the last remaining shanty town outside of Seoul, South Korea. It remains unbuilt. The model is instructional, suggestive of a final building, uses found, recycled materials. The use is not specified. The process of building is… Read More
William Heath Robinson ‘Tightening the Green Belt’
26.11.2020
William Heath Robinson ‘Tightening the Green Belt’26.11.2020
On 22 March 1921, The Times reported on ‘the urgent need of a green belt being preserved round London.’ It was the first recorded use of the phrase. By the time William Heath Robinson came to makes sketches for ‘Tightening the Green Belt’ (c.1935–47), the urban ring o’ roses was familiar enough… Read More
Aldo Rossi: The First Sketch and the Final Drawing
25.11.2020
Aldo Rossi: The First Sketch and the Final Drawing25.11.2020
The following letter was sent to the Drawing Matter editors by Andrea Leonardi, a member of Rossi’s office for nine years. A few days ago my dear friend Maurizio Diton, sent me an article he wrote for you in October 2019, ‘The Office Copier and Baptism by Colour: Working… Read More
Drawing is discovery (1953)
24.11.2020
Drawing is discovery (1953)24.11.2020
For the artist drawing is discovery. And that is not just a slick phrase, it is quite literally true. It is the actual act of drawing that forces the artist to look at the object in front of him, to dissect it in his mind’s eye and put it together… Read More
Outside In
23.11.2020
Outside In23.11.2020
Music plays from behind a curtain. Lights come on and you see that the curtain runs along two sides of a carpet whose centre hosts a leopard skin cushion. There is a chair at one side of the carpet and at the opposite end, a single column. Not before long… Read More
Sigurd Lewerentz: Siting the Axonometric
17.11.2020
Sigurd Lewerentz: Siting the Axonometric17.11.2020
One way to think about an axonometric drawing is as a perspective with the vanishing point at infinity. This means that the lines of projection are parallel, which assures dimensional consistency. Early treatises, for example, spoke of parallel projection as analogous to shadows cast by the sun; not, strictly speaking,… Read More
Writing Prize 2020: Appropriation and Drawing
13.11.2020
Writing Prize 2020: Appropriation and Drawing13.11.2020
Similar to many of Rossi’s drawings, the Urban Fragment presents us with a collection of his most cherished forms – a primordial tower, the hand of a saint, and fragments of his own projects, such as the Gallaratese 2 housing complex in Milan and the Cemetery of San Cataldo. In… Read More
Startha Éagsula: Steve Larkin Architects on Walter Pichler
12.11.2020
Startha Éagsula: Steve Larkin Architects on Walter Pichler12.11.2020
This text has been excerpted from Startha Éagsula / Alternative Histories (2020), a companion catalogue to Alternative Histories (2019) and published to accompany the third installation of Alternative Histories at the Irish Architectural Archive. Startha Éagsula / Alternative Histories is now available to purchase from Drawing Matter’s bookshop, here. Friedrich… Read More
Tree Speech
07.11.2020
Tree Speech07.11.2020
The following text is the fourth of a series of four essays on trees in architectural drawings by Sylvia Lavin. The essays were first published in Log 49 (Summer 2020). Drawing Matter would like to thank the author and the journal’s editors for allowing us reproduce the essays on www.drawingmatter.org.… Read More
Trees Push Back
03.11.2020
Trees Push Back03.11.2020
The following text is the third of a series of four essays on trees in architectural drawings by Sylvia Lavin. The essays were first published in Log 49 (Summer 2020). Drawing Matter would like to thank the author and the journal’s editors for allowing us reproduce the essays on www.drawingmatter.org.… Read More
Startha Éagsula: Elizabeth Hatz on Frank Lloyd Wright
29.10.2020
Startha Éagsula: Elizabeth Hatz on Frank Lloyd Wright29.10.2020
a vanished gardenthe oriental plan eclipses an obsession with circlesall spaces on their way to evaporateany momentthe terrible weight of void implodes into a dome turned sidewayson its way down, breast-feeding earthmidway of life – garden of deathlight words lift like invisible balloonsthe perspective of cantilevered canopies is relentlessin heavy… Read More
Tony Fretton: Tolerance
27.10.2020
Tony Fretton: Tolerance27.10.2020
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
Trees Move In
22.10.2020
Trees Move In22.10.2020
The following text is the second of a series of four essays on trees in architectural drawings by Sylvia Lavin. The essays were first published in Log 49 (Summer 2020). Drawing Matter would like to thank the author and the journal’s editors for allowing us to reproduce the essays on… Read More
The Meaning of Lines
11.01.2021
The Meaning of Lines11.01.2021
– Laura Bonell and Daniel López-Dòriga
A series of seemingly abstract lines occupy the whole space of the paper. Each of them is formed by a thin black line that defines the geometry, accompanied by a thicker, semi-transparent brown line, which highlights it. Written annotations are placed on top, sometimes following the drawing’s wavy shape like… Read More
drawing matter writing prize 2020 DMC plan theoretical & imaginary