Category: commentaries, rants & reflections
Sir John Soane’s Museum: Bound Legacy
09.02.2021
Sir John Soane’s Museum: Bound Legacy09.02.2021
John Britton, a topographer and antiquarian by trade, began preparations to publish a guidebook to John Soane’s house-museum in 1825. The earliest mention of such an endeavour appears in a letter to Soane dated 3 November, in which Britton outlines his desire to ‘produce a vol to surprise the public, and… Read More
On Tony Fretton and the Lisson Gallery
05.02.2021
On Tony Fretton and the Lisson Gallery05.02.2021
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
Louis Kahn: In Praise of shadows
03.02.2021
Louis Kahn: In Praise of shadows03.02.2021
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
Hello Iwona
27.01.2021
Hello Iwona27.01.2021
A large, red ‘Hello!!’ and attribution to ‘Gowan, James’ is all I can see, at first, of image 3157.3r in Drawing Matter’s online archive. No date, no caption. The greeting is enthusiastic enough to stop scrolling: ‘Hi there, James!!’ I think. But when I zoom in, it’s not him at all. … Read More
Two Early Paintings with OMA
25.01.2021
Two Early Paintings with OMA25.01.2021
Here, Zoe Zenghelis, painter and founding member of OMA, recalls the making of two paintings now in the Drawing Matter collection. The first, pictured below, is an aerial view of the unbuilt Hotel Therma, and the second is a version of OMA’s entry to the Parc de la Villette competition.… Read More
Viollet-le-Duc: Ruins in Reverse
22.01.2021
Viollet-le-Duc: Ruins in Reverse22.01.2021
In 1844, architect Eugéne Viollet-le-Duc won a competition to supervise the restoration of the Notre-Dame Cathedral. Blasted and defaced during the Revolution, the condition of the great church testified less to the promises of an infant republic than to the bloody throes of its birth. For its restoration, the Comité des… Read More
Zahalternative Histories: O’Donnell + Tuomey on Zaha Hadid
19.01.2021
Zahalternative Histories: O’Donnell + Tuomey on Zaha Hadid19.01.2021
From a sheet of sketches by Zaha Hadid to rock formations at Ines Meáin and St Brigid’s Well, in this short film John Tuomey explains the thinking behind O’Donnell + Tuomey’s Alternative Histories model. This commentary is the first in a series organised by the Irish Architectural Archive. The series,… Read More
Architecture at the Edge
13.01.2021
Architecture at the Edge13.01.2021
– Craig Moller and Marco Moro
The following is a conversation between Marco Moro and Craig Moller, New Zealand-born architect and author of the drawing pictured above. Moller made the drawing while in a design studio taught by Mark Wigley in 1985, while the latter was about to finish his doctoral thesis within the newly established… Read More
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
The Problem with Rainbows
12.02.2021
The Problem with Rainbows12.02.2021
– Adolfo Natalini
Resta sempre insoluto il problema dell’arcobalenoPare que ce ne sia uno dopo la pioggiaE che dall’alto con l’aereoSi veda tutto tornaMa questo metterebbe in crisi tutto quelliChe cercano la pentola d’oro Alle fine dell’arcobaleno C’e sempre un arcobalenoAl di sopra di ogni questione sulla quantitàE qualità dei suoi coloriDopo la pioggiaMa non dopo ogni pioggia… Read More
sketch art practice DMC