Category: commentaries, rants & reflections
Architectural Drawing (1983)
22 June 2021
Architectural Drawing (1983)22 June 2021
This essay was first published in the catalogue for Drawings by Architects (25 February – 3 April 1983), held at the ICA in London. A period piece, for sure, the text sits at the cusp of changing attitudes to the display and value attributed to architect’s drawings. In recent years… Read More
Insignificance 3: Mourning Work
9 June 2021
Insignificance 3: Mourning Work9 June 2021
All drawings contain traces of all previously drawn mediations. [1] All drawings are silent acts of memorialising (by employing inter-subjective readings of iconography, lineage, parody, reverie and reflexivity) what has been drawn before, or thought to have been so, or simply, what has been, consciously misplaced. [2] The text above… Read More
This Blue Love: Aldo Rossi in Samos in late Summer 1989
2 June 2021
This Blue Love: Aldo Rossi in Samos in late Summer 19892 June 2021
In his voyage to Samos in the Summer of 1989 Aldo Rossi gathered a collection of fragments in accordance with a Palladian education. The image repeats itself, following what Johns had written in 1984: ‘I like to repeat an image in another medium to observe the play between the two:… Read More
I Cut Mount Fuji Every Day
31 May 2021
I Cut Mount Fuji Every Day31 May 2021
With a circumference of approximately 10cm, I compress the majestic mountain. I pressure it between my fingers and the board and I slice. The contours fall on the board; in a matter of minutes, they will turn once more into a fragrant and luminous mountain. The emotional downpour induced by… Read More
68½ degrees, Sverre Fehn and the Nordic Pavilion: Review & Excerpt
26 May 2021
68½ degrees, Sverre Fehn and the Nordic Pavilion: Review & Excerpt26 May 2021
Review By preserving the trees on the site within his pavilion in the Giardini, Sverre Fehn offered Venice an insight into a unique Nordic sensitivity towards nature and the environment. He tempered the harsh Mediterranean sun to evoke the horizontal light of the Baltic through a spectacularly innovative technical design… Read More
Insignificance 2: Distinction – Polysemy
19 May 2021
Insignificance 2: Distinction – Polysemy19 May 2021
The following texts are excerpted from Gordon Shrigley, Insignificance: A short discourse on the physical and ideational economy of line within architectural representation (Solitude Editions, 1998). Now, twenty years after Insignificance was first published, Gordon Shrigley has revisited the publication for a series of postings on Drawing Matter. Each of these posts connect… Read More
Evocation of Solemnity: Temple of Minerva
19 May 2021
Evocation of Solemnity: Temple of Minerva19 May 2021
For the curious visitor that approaches the historic remains of the Temple of Minerva Medica in Rome, it will take a lot of effort to contextualize the building as it could have once been. That which before had allowed for a gentle processional approach to the ruin has now been… Read More
Bovenbouw Architectuur: One Paper Model and Three Paper Collages
12 May 2021
Bovenbouw Architectuur: One Paper Model and Three Paper Collages12 May 2021
The layers found in Bovenbouw Architectuur’s collages are analogous to the layering in their architecture – there to be unravelled by those willing to search. Sometimes ruinous, never complete, they are a representation of uncanny worlds where chimneystacks become doors, tyres become classical pediments and windows are adorned with eyelashes.… Read More
Eric Gill On Designing War Graves (1919)
11 May 2021
Eric Gill On Designing War Graves (1919)11 May 2021
In 1918, when the First World War ended, Eric Gill was in his late forties and completing the Stations of the Cross for Westminster Cathedral. He was soon in demand to design and sculpt war memorials. Gill would create simple memorials listing the names of the fallen for both the… Read More
The Intention of Suspension: Peter Wilson’s Clandeboye Fish
10 May 2021
The Intention of Suspension: Peter Wilson’s Clandeboye Fish10 May 2021
A phenomenological reading of ‘bridge’ would not prioritise function (crossing) but this suspended moment. – Peter Wilson [1] A fish out of water, a lady in thought, floating ‘wilderness’. Things first have to be separated from each other so as to be united later on. [2] Peter Wilson’s drawings of… Read More
fala atelier: Seriously Playful
6 May 2021
fala atelier: Seriously Playful6 May 2021
Back in December 2018, I received an email with a pdf containing 8 compositions in 1:200 from fala atelier. These were ‘comprehensive drawings’ that they were experimenting with for their 2G publication. They simply wanted to know which I liked, and what I thought about them. Some differ from the… Read More
The Zilsel Thesis: A Review of Strata: William Smith’s Geological Maps (2020): Review
4 May 2021
The Zilsel Thesis: A Review of Strata: William Smith’s Geological Maps (2020): Review4 May 2021
In a series of essays and lectures developed between 1939 and 1943, the philosopher of science Edgar Zilsel identified three distinct sources of knowledge in the Renaissance. In the late-medieval period, writes Zilsel, the traditional learning associated with the universities was still theological and scholastic in character. The texts preserved… Read More
Insignificance 1: Discipline
4 May 2021
Insignificance 1: Discipline4 May 2021
The space of the architectural imagination resides within the discourses of line. This space defines the boundaries of a practice of conceptualising the laws of the place [1] whereby through an array of ordinances, the architectural line constitutes ‘the objects which it pretends only to describe realistically and to analyse… Read More
Notes on Architectural Education and Drawing
3 May 2021
Notes on Architectural Education and Drawing3 May 2021
The speed of transformation that characterises our contemporality is largely motivated by the development of the newest information technologies. The speed introduced by computation seems to be the promoter of the instability that reaches the conceptions of almost all professional and disciplinary fields since it imposes a pace of change… Read More
Bulgakov’s ‘Golden City’ (1923)
3 May 2021
Bulgakov’s ‘Golden City’ (1923)3 May 2021
This text is an excerpt from Mikhail Bulgakov’s series of short vignettes that appeared under the overarching title ‘Golden City’ and were serialised in the Berlin-based Russian migrant ‘Nakanune’ newspaper between 30 September and 14 October 1923. Bulgakov was commissioned to write an account of the first and only All-Russian… Read More
The Beaux-Arts Tradition
29 April 2021
The Beaux-Arts Tradition29 April 2021
– Basile Baudez and Maureen Cassidy-Geiger
The following text has been excerpted from Living with Architecture as Art, the recently published catalogue of Peter May’s collection of drawings, models and architectural artefacts. The catalogue is edited by Maureen Cassidy-Geiger and published in two generously illustrated volumes. The first volume includes essays by Maureen Cassidy-Geiger, Basile Baudez,… Read More
Nobuo Sekine: Phase of Nothingness
27 April 2021
Nobuo Sekine: Phase of Nothingness27 April 2021
– Editors
With thanks to Nicholas Olsberg for sending us this tribute to Sekine written on the first anniversary of the artist’s death (linked here).
Open Wide / Wide Open
22 April 2021
Open Wide / Wide Open22 April 2021
We started with six words: a short-term dwelling for an artist then added: with a child What adaptations have you made to your domestic space since having a child? / What adaptations have you made to your work space since having a child? / How / When / Where do… Read More
Pan Scroll Zoom 11: Architecten Jan De Vylder Inge Vinck
19 April 2021
Pan Scroll Zoom 11: Architecten Jan De Vylder Inge Vinck19 April 2021
– Fabrizio Gallanti, Inge Vinck and Jan De Vylder
This is the eleventh 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 Jan De Vylder and Inge Vinck about their teaching… Read More
Physical & Digital Drawing
19 April 2021
Physical & Digital Drawing19 April 2021
When we use a Computer Aided Design (CAD) programme we invoke the act of drawing as we draw the mouse around on the desk. The cursor is drawn across the screen, albeit with a level of discontinuity as the lines of code convert the signals of the optical sensor into… Read More
The Architecture of Nothingness: Analysing Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple
12 April 2021
The Architecture of Nothingness: Analysing Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple12 April 2021
The Architecture of Nothingness: Drawing the Drawings As architects we have learned to read drawings almost instantly. At a glance we see what the spaces feel like, what it will be like to move around the building and perhaps even get a sense of the appropriateness of the structure. This ‘presentational’ way… Read More
Keeping a Notebook
24 June 2021
Keeping a Notebook24 June 2021
– Simon Unwin
Looking into other people’s notebooks is to witness moments of creative exploration and growth. A graphic facility in others can provoke envy, but being given access into someone else’s mind and seeing where it wanders is always stimulating. As the examples published by Drawing Matter illustrate, architects’ notebooks harbour many… Read More
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