Category: Drawing Matter archive: research & collecting
Alternative Histories: Schneider Türtscher on Álvaro Siza
28 February 2019
Alternative Histories: Schneider Türtscher on Álvaro Siza28 February 2019
Accumulation – arranged, adjusted, rearranged and painted / grey cardboard, corrugated cardboard, spruce sticks, pencil, glue, acrylic paint white, acrylic paint red, clear lacquer / 20 x 22.8 x 14.3 cm. – Claudio Schneider, Michaela Türtscher
Alternative Histories: East Architecture on Otto Wagner
28 February 2019
Alternative Histories: East Architecture on Otto Wagner28 February 2019
Otto Wagner’s self-initiated design for the Capuchin Church and Imperial Crypt in Vienna reveals a powerful civic pride and belief in the role of architecture to improve lives. His monument was more than a symbol of mass and space; its claddings and dressings were dramatically intended for social effect. The… Read More
Alternative Histories: Taka Architects on Peter Märkli
28 February 2019
Alternative Histories: Taka Architects on Peter Märkli28 February 2019
Peter Märkli’s sketch of the plan for Haus Kuehnis seems to describe a compact building with a different front and back and interior rooms made specific through spatial divisions, decoration and architectural order. We know Markli’s house – with its stout singular form and enigmatic approach to order and decoration… Read More
Alternative Histories: Ryan W Kennihan Architects on John Nash
24 February 2019
Alternative Histories: Ryan W Kennihan Architects on John Nash24 February 2019
1. The architecture of John Nash (1752-1835) may be said to oscillate between two distinct approaches depending on location. On the one hand, he creates an architecture in the city that is ordered, symmetrical, proportioned and rational (see Park Crescent, Hanover Terrace or the garden front of Buckingham Palace), on… Read More
Alternative Histories: Stephen Bates on Henry Thomas Cadbury-Brown
22 February 2019
Alternative Histories: Stephen Bates on Henry Thomas Cadbury-Brown22 February 2019
Reading Jim Cadbury-Brown’s transcript of ‘Ideas of Disorder’ delivered at the Architectural Association in 1959, it is clear just how far he had moved from his functionalist modern movement origins towards a more expressive and instinctive idea of what architecture could be and mean. The drawing of a first scheme… Read More
Alternative Histories: 31/44 Architects on William Butterfield
22 February 2019
Alternative Histories: 31/44 Architects on William Butterfield22 February 2019
Dear Sir William, Thank you for forwarding your drawing concerning the proposed alterations to Heath Court, Otter-St-Mary. It is indeed an exciting project. We heard rumour that (y)our client is actually the wealthiest family in Britain. We understand that came with a certain expectation of what their home would be… Read More
Alternative Histories: Carmody Groarke on Haus-Rücker-Co
22 February 2019
Alternative Histories: Carmody Groarke on Haus-Rücker-Co22 February 2019
Ashtray Our interest in Haus-Rücker-Co’s drawing lies less in the technological implications that created the artificial environment and focusses instead on the spatial tension created between Mies van der Rohe’s Haus Lange and the heart-shaped bubble that surrounds it. The drawing removes reference to the context, within and outside the… Read More
Boompjes I
22 February 2019
Boompjes I22 February 2019
In the 1980s, the city of Rotterdam asked OMA to study its high-rise building and to illustrate their findings in a planning proposal. The site, selected in consultation with the Rotterdam Planning Department, was situated on Maasboulevard, near the Maasbridge – an angle between the river and the lower city grid, a ‘hinge’… Read More
Roosevelt Island
17 February 2019
Roosevelt Island17 February 2019
The Roosevelt Island competition was sponsored by New York State Urban Development Corporation for the urbanisation of an island in the East River of Manhattan. The city grid served as a formal generator for the building types, adapted with controlling geometry to the proportions of the island’s topography. There are… Read More
Alternative Histories: Conen Sigl Architekten on Giuseppe Chiantarelli
16 February 2019
Alternative Histories: Conen Sigl Architekten on Giuseppe Chiantarelli16 February 2019
Pompeiian Mausoleum for Extinct Animals (Associations about a mural painting of the Casa Pseudourbana in Pompeii) The painted structure on the plaster makes the wall appear as filigree and light – crumbled plaster shows the massive masonry behind, the actual construction of the wall. With a little bit of paint,… Read More
Alternative Histories: Christ & Gantenbein on Louis Kahn
16 February 2019
Alternative Histories: Christ & Gantenbein on Louis Kahn16 February 2019
Louis Kahn’s drawing is a floor plan, a typical plan. It is characterised by the stark expression of the poché. The coal-coloured stains lend the drawing the quality of a painting. Their roughness contrasts with the minuscule dots suggesting the mullions of the facade. It’s a sketch on paper, not on… Read More
Zaha Hadid: Azabu-Juban
16 February 2019
Zaha Hadid: Azabu-Juban16 February 2019
Zaha Hadid’s sketches during mid-1980s for projects often unknown and unbuilt mark a transitional period in her drawing and thinking, from the early work inspired by the programme briefs and axonometric drawing style of OMA. Often she sketches in plan, her line moving right to left, discernable through an initial… Read More
Alternative Histories: Mikael Bergquist on Peter Märkli
14 February 2019
Alternative Histories: Mikael Bergquist on Peter Märkli14 February 2019
Peter Märkli’s drawing of the House in Sargans has an intriguing combination of a rigorous proportional grid and a sketch-like drawing showing the garden elevation of the house. The actual house was designed in 1983 for the architect’s sister. It was built in situ, in cast concrete. The concrete has… Read More
Alternative Histories: De Smet Vermeulen architecten on Bruce Goff
14 February 2019
Alternative Histories: De Smet Vermeulen architecten on Bruce Goff14 February 2019
GOFFTOWN Walls cannot just be surfaces. They are mass. Wouldn’t you agree? Sure! But… this much? Can you afford the space? And why layering them twice? First the bricks, and then the ten-brick blocks It is important that all wall heights are related. The steps must be easy to count.… Read More
Alternative Histories: Marie-José Van Hee on Hans Hollein
14 February 2019
Alternative Histories: Marie-José Van Hee on Hans Hollein14 February 2019
The construction and layering in Hans Hollein’s drawing reminds me of the Aqueduc Romain de Barbegal in France, which I visited some summers ago. This structure can be found in Hollein’s drawing of the city; for me, it represents a landscape, rather than an urban context. The drawing comprises three layers.… Read More
Alternative Histories: Hans van der Heijden on Josef Hoffmann
14 February 2019
Alternative Histories: Hans van der Heijden on Josef Hoffmann14 February 2019
When I received a tiny sketch of a cottage by the Viennese architect Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956), I found the drawing at the same time intriguing and awkward. Hoffmann’s drawing suggests an expressive roof to the cottage, an attractive theme to me. It is ‘a little house with a big scale’.… Read More
Alternative Histories: Clancy Moore Architects on Joseph Paxton
14 February 2019
Alternative Histories: Clancy Moore Architects on Joseph Paxton14 February 2019
‘Every element of its construction speaks for itself alone.’ So wrote Gottfried Semper of the Caribbean hut he had seen in the Crystal Palace, and which he used to describe the four elements of architecture. Paxton’s patent drawings and text describe a fragment of the roof that sheltered Semper, the… Read More
Alternative Histories: Caruso St John & Siw Thomas on Hans Poelzig
13 February 2019
Alternative Histories: Caruso St John & Siw Thomas on Hans Poelzig13 February 2019
The charcoal lines of Poelzig’s sketches imply a volume and material surface that is close to the quality of his buildings. Our model attempts to engage with this fusion of formal energy and material alchemy. – Caruso St John
Alternative Histories: dePaor on Hans Poelzig
9 February 2019
Alternative Histories: dePaor on Hans Poelzig9 February 2019
The drawing is thinking, the same mark used over and over, up and down, hurdling scales quickly, the pulled edge of the sheet mimics the line. There is one idea — on the right, closer up — a study after or rehearsal for the three-quarter view bleached out from the… Read More
Alternative Histories: Hayatsu Architects on Charles-Dominique-Joseph Eisen
6 February 2019
Alternative Histories: Hayatsu Architects on Charles-Dominique-Joseph Eisen6 February 2019
Architecture evolves through material transformations, copying one from another, much like how Greek temples adopted using stone instead of wood. Casting is an act of copying. Bronze is an ancient material used by humankind dating back to the mid-4th millennium BC. It is a ductile alloy which does not corrode… Read More
Alternative Histories: Gustav Appell Arkitektkontor on Erik Gunnar Asplund
6 February 2019
Alternative Histories: Gustav Appell Arkitektkontor on Erik Gunnar Asplund6 February 2019
The model examines and highlights the way in which Asplund worked with interior space. Often the interior and exterior of his buildings show striking dissimilarities. His ability to hide unexpected spaces within unassuming volumes has always inspired us. This beautiful plan drawing of Villa Snellman speaks of this, we think,… Read More
Alternative Histories: Witherford Watson Mann on Cedric Price
4 February 2019
Alternative Histories: Witherford Watson Mann on Cedric Price4 February 2019
—–Original Message—–From: William MannSent: 17 January 2019 19:22To: cedric@cpa.org Cc: Stephen Witherford; William Mann; Philippa BattyeSubject: Bathat Dear Cedric, We tried to reach you by phone but gather you are still in East Grinstead. So we are sending some drawings instead, hope you are able to open the files ok. There are… Read More
Alternative Histories: Bosshard, Tavor, van der Ploeg and Vihervaara on Bohdan Lachert
3 February 2019
Alternative Histories: Bosshard, Tavor, van der Ploeg and Vihervaara on Bohdan Lachert3 February 2019
Bohdan Lachert’s 1937 sketch is a simple and elegant signage study for a post office in Stanislawów. Compared with Lachert’s more dynamic, constructivist compositions, this façade has a restrained, typographic character – the combination of the signage and ribbon windows is reminiscent of a bullet-point list. For this model, we extended… Read More