Category: commentaries, rants & reflections
Letter of Authorisation to Discuss Late Ottoman Archive Drawings as Operational Images
6 February 2023
Letter of Authorisation to Discuss Late Ottoman Archive Drawings as Operational Images6 February 2023
– Ecem Arslanay and Mina Gürsel Tabanlıoğlu
Southeastern Turkey and Northern Syria have been struck by a 7.7 magnitude earthquake, followed by a 7.5 tremor, killing more than 46,000 people. Ecem and Mina’s local NGO is AHBAP. Please click here if you would like to make a donation. For the past two years, our Writing Prize has… Read More
W. R. Lethaby: Philip Webb and His Work
3 February 2023
W. R. Lethaby: Philip Webb and His Work3 February 2023
This is the fifth and final text in this series, where Hugh Strange visits key texts throughout W. R. Lethaby’s life. Philip Webb was William Lethaby’s great hero; he considered his life and work the model for an architect. Webb was a generation older than Lethaby, and the two men most… Read More
Le Corbusier: The ‘Open hand’ as an expression of freedom?
2 February 2023
Le Corbusier: The ‘Open hand’ as an expression of freedom?2 February 2023
Le Corbusier placed particular emphasis on the notion of freedom. In Où en est l’architecture?, he declares: ‘I accept a poem only if it is made of “words in freedom”’. [1] In the same text, Le Corbusier describes his conception of art as ‘individual manifestation of freedom’. [2] In Sur… Read More
Historic England Image Archive
23 January 2023
Historic England Image Archive23 January 2023
For the past two years, our Writing Prize has attracted a large number of thoughtful texts from participants all over the world. This year we partnered with the Architecture Foundation to sponsor one of their three writing prize categories. The Drawing Matter category, titled ‘Architecture and Representation’, invited entrants to… Read More
Geography of Hope: Adolfo Natalini and Superstudio
18 January 2023
Geography of Hope: Adolfo Natalini and Superstudio18 January 2023
This is the first of four extracts taken from an article first published in issue 40 on nonsite.org, dedicated to ‘New Views on Modern Architecture at Mid-Century’. As we descended into a World War that threatened the obliteration of decency and history, the poet Archibald Macleish, then Librarian of Congress,… Read More
The Sasada Lab
16 January 2023
The Sasada Lab16 January 2023
For the past two years, our Writing Prize has attracted a large number of thoughtful texts from participants all over the world. This year we partnered with the Architecture Foundation to sponsor one of their three writing prize categories. The Drawing Matter category, titled ‘Architecture and Representation’, invited entrants to… Read More
W. R. Lethaby: Apprenticeship and Education
13 January 2023
W. R. Lethaby: Apprenticeship and Education13 January 2023
This is the fourth text in this series, where Hugh Strange visits key texts throughout W. R. Lethaby’s life. The building sites of London in the late nineteenth century desperately lacked adequate skills, and this need was being addressed neither on the job nor through appropriate training. The first prospectus of… Read More
Materia 4: Brick
10 January 2023
Materia 4: Brick10 January 2023
This text is the fourth in a series by Gordon Shrigley titled ‘Materia’ in which the architect meditates on the physical and semiotic nature of a number of everyday construction products. Coarse rectangular lumps of clay mixed with straw and water, small enough to be carried in one or two hands, are laid… Read More
The City of Design
9 January 2023
The City of Design9 January 2023
Italy has remained a federation of city-states. There are museum cities and factory cities. There is a city whose streets are made of water and another where all streets are hollowed walls. There is a city where all its inhabitants work on the manufacture of equipment for amusement parks, a… Read More
Beverly Buchanan: here I am; I’m still here
15 December 2022
Beverly Buchanan: here I am; I’m still here15 December 2022
For the past two years, our Writing Prize has attracted a large number of thoughtful texts from participants all over the world. This year we partnered with the Architecture Foundation to sponsor one of their three writing prize categories. The Drawing Matter category, titled ‘Architecture and Representation’, invited entrants to… Read More
Geography of Hope: Bruce Goff
17 February 2023
Geography of Hope: Bruce Goff17 February 2023
– Nicholas Olsberg
This is the third of four extracts taken from an article first published in issue 40 on nonsite.org, dedicated to ‘New Views on Modern Architecture at Mid-Century’. ‘Aparture’: Bruce Goff in the Parched Land ‘For the Panhandle, …1956 became the seventh straight year of drouth. Except for one savage blizzard, it… Read More
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