Category: Drawing Matter archive: research & collecting
On Travel (Videos)
22.10.2026
On Travel (Videos)22.10.2026
These videos, filmed in the space of the archive, are part of an ongoing series at Drawing Matter, where we ask scholars and practitioners to look closely at and comment on particular drawings, sketchbooks, and artefacts in the collection. Find more from the series here. * Matthew Wells teaches architectural history… Read More
Protected: Collection Guide: OMA
15.10.2026
Protected: Collection Guide: OMA15.10.2026
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Asplund’s Villa Snellman: An Oblique View
08.10.2026
Asplund’s Villa Snellman: An Oblique View08.10.2026
Situated sometime and somewhere between Paul Cézanne and the Villa Savoye, in the second decade of the twentieth century, is Erik Gunnar Asplund’s Villa Snellman. The building was designed and constructed between 1917 and 1918 for a bank director, and is situated in Djursholm, a suburb of Stockholm. At first… Read More
Snapshots of Aldo Rossi’s San Cataldo Cemetery
02.10.2026
Snapshots of Aldo Rossi’s San Cataldo Cemetery02.10.2026
– Luis Callejas and Julia Spackman
The following conversation has been adapted from a longer interview first published in Pairs 5, now including drawings from the Drawing Matter Collection. * Julia Spackman (JS): This collection of snapshots by Katie Ladd of Aldo Rossi’s San Cataldo Cemetery is a striking departure from its typical depiction.[1] For one, the… Read More
An Interview with David Connor
18.09.2026
An Interview with David Connor18.09.2026
– Gianni Botsford and David Connor
* Gianni Botsford (GB): What I said that I could talk to you about is where it all started for you, how you learned to draw, where your drawing method came from, and how it developed over time. David Connor (DC): I did start to draw when I was 4 or 5, which would… Read More
DMJ – Notes on Derek Boshier
11.09.2026
DMJ – Notes on Derek Boshier 11.09.2026
Derek Boshier’s 16 Situations (1971) could be experienced both in print and as an installation. The exhibition, which toured from early 1971 before being shown at the Whitechapel Gallery in September and October 1973, was simple in concept: the viewer followed a wall with 16 altered photographic images, each one with the… Read More
Collection Guide: John Ruskin
27.08.2026
Collection Guide: John Ruskin27.08.2026
– Editors
Drawing Matter holds a mineral collection compiled by John Ruskin for the St David’s Boys’ Preparatory School in Reigate, Surrey. The school later relocated to Stone House in Broadstairs and the mineral collection moved with it. Donated in 1883, the specimens were chosen from Ruskin’s personal collection, yet his idea… Read More
Michael Gold: The Dialogue of Representation
24.08.2026
Michael Gold: The Dialogue of Representation24.08.2026
– Michael Gold and Dalibor Vesely
The following text, ‘The Dialogue of Representation’ by Dalibor Vesely, was published in People in Architecture, the book featuring the exhibition of work by Michael Gold’s AA Unit 5 students held at the Architectural Association, 4–29 October 1983. Read a response to the exhibition by Peter Wilson here. Drawing Matter… Read More
BOLLES+WILSON: Drawing Towards Building (Exhibition + Talk)
14.08.2026
BOLLES+WILSON: Drawing Towards Building (Exhibition + Talk)14.08.2026
– Editors
On Saturday 4 and Sunday 5 July, Drawing Matter presented an exhibition of drawings by BOLLES+WILSON (founded in London in 1980; based in Münster since 1988). The exhibition was the fourth in a series presenting the work of architects and practices that are represented in the Drawing Matter Collection by significant portfolios… Read More
Collection Guide: Cedric Price
03.08.2026
Collection Guide: Cedric Price03.08.2026
– Editors
Cedric Price (1934–2003) studied architecture at Cambridge University before receiving his diploma from the Architectural Association (AA) in 1957. He went on to teach at the AA and worked in the offices of Maxwell Fry and Denys Lasdun before founding his own practice in 1960. Though the majority of Price’s… Read More
The Creative Potential of Archival Boundaries
30.07.2026
The Creative Potential of Archival Boundaries30.07.2026
This unknown eighteenth-century French textile sample pattern book is an intriguing addition to the Drawing Matter collection. Is it architecture, or is it here through a taxonomic error? Either way, how should we approach reading it within this architectural context? The book opens to roughly A3 in format, and each… Read More
On Tony Fretton’s Sketchbook, 1981 (Video)
17.07.2026
On Tony Fretton’s Sketchbook, 1981 (Video) 17.07.2026
Tony Fretton’s earliest sketchbooks contained within the collection at Drawing Matter are not records of projects developing page by page. They are stranger and more useful than that. Notes, sketches, references, lists, details, business, fragments of furniture and architecture sit beside one another without much concern for order. For an… Read More
The Visual Origins of Circulation in Architecture
09.07.2026
The Visual Origins of Circulation in Architecture09.07.2026
Amidst the architecture historians, the comparison between the plan of Borromini’s church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane and that of one of Bramante’s four pillars supporting the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica is well-known. Though I could not find the name of the historian who conceived it, it definitely… Read More
Collection Guide: Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc
06.07.2026
Collection Guide: Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc06.07.2026
The French Neo-Gothic architect Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (1814–1879) was one of the defining figures of nineteenth-century architecture worldwide. He transformed the restoration and interpretation of medieval monuments, championed structural rationalism, and reinvented drawing and publishing as tools for disseminating architectural knowledge. By the time of his death, he had become the… Read More
Collection Guide: Peter Wilson & BOLLES+WILSON
22.06.2026
Collection Guide: Peter Wilson & BOLLES+WILSON22.06.2026
– Editors
Peter Wilson and Julia Bolles are the founding partners of Architekturbüro BOLLES+WILSON. Peter Wilson was born in Australia, he studied architecture at the University of Melbourne and the Architectural Association, where he later taught from 1974–1988 (Diploma Unit Master 1980–88). Julia Bolles was born in Münster and graduated from the Karlsruhe Institute of… Read More
The Olympic Stadium Project: Le Corbusier & Baghdad
28.05.2026
The Olympic Stadium Project: Le Corbusier & Baghdad28.05.2026
– Editors
In the first three months of 2009, the Victoria and Albert Museum presented a small exhibition dedicated to Le Corbusier’s unrealised Olympic Stadium Project for Baghdad. The show was organised by the RIBA, Irena Murray, and Peter Carl, with work loaned from the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), the Fondation… Read More
Siza on Paper (Exhibition + Talk)
18.05.2026
Siza on Paper (Exhibition + Talk)18.05.2026
– Editors
On Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 March, Drawing Matter presented an exhibition of drawings by the Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza. The exhibition focused on Siza as a designer of public housing after the Carnation Revolution (1974) and his approaches to drawing. At the centre of the exhibition were three housing… Read More
Provenance in Architecture, A Dictionary: Architectural Drawing
14.05.2026
Provenance in Architecture, A Dictionary: Architectural Drawing14.05.2026
The following text is one of the entries included in the book Provenance in Architecture, A Dictionary (Berlin: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2025) edited by Uwe Fleckner and Mari Lending. The book, presented in the form of a dictionary, examines architectural provenance across 101 key concepts, from acquisition to will. Each… Read More
Protected: Collection Guide: Carlo Marchionni
06.05.2026
Protected: Collection Guide: Carlo Marchionni06.05.2026
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
The Open Hand Reloaded
24.04.2026
The Open Hand Reloaded24.04.2026
The above notes are based on a paper first presented at the workshop Long Table Conversation on ‘NonAligned Modernism’ held at the University of Washington in Seattle on October 31, 2025, moderated by Adair Rounthwaite (Art History) and with an introduction by Vikram Prakash (HHF/Architecture). * Maristella Casciato (architect, architectural… Read More
Vaucher’s Shadows
21.04.2026
Vaucher’s Shadows21.04.2026
It is a curious drawing, one that exudes an almost Magritte-like aroma of the surreal—the kind that depends upon the rendering of a visual-conceptual oxymoron with an extreme degree of realism. The subject has something to do with this, an isolated Ionic capital cut off at the neck from its… Read More
Wedging a Shrine
10.04.2026
Wedging a Shrine10.04.2026
This drawing by an unknown author can be appreciated from two different perspectives. On the one hand, it depicts a jinja, a Japanese Shinto shrine. From a historical point of view, the image can be read as an ezu—an illustrated map from the late Edo period (mid-nineteenth century)—featuring premodern calligraphy and the… Read More
Thalia & Melpomene
16.10.2026
Thalia & Melpomene16.10.2026
– Roberto Cides
It floats: Amid the haze, like a game or a dream, over an invented geography, toward the Grand Canal, the Po, the Paraná. Il Teatro del Mondo sways to nature’s rhythm.[1] Square in plan, it recalls both the Venetian carnivals and Shakespeare’s Globe. An entrance door on each side and vaporetti in the… Read More
DMC elevation theoretical & imaginary urban form