Category: Drawing Matter archive: research & collecting
Frank Lloyd Wright, Taliesin and Fallingwater
29.04.2018
Frank Lloyd Wright, Taliesin and Fallingwater29.04.2018
The formative history of Frank Lloyd Wright – leading to Fallingwater – touches upon many of the themes that run through the exhibition ‘The Land We Live In – The Land We Left Behind’ (Hauser & Wirth Somerset till May 7th). The idea that there is a rural mindset, an… Read More
Jørn Utzon’s Sydney Opera House
26.04.2018
Jørn Utzon’s Sydney Opera House26.04.2018
Somebody said the story about the orange is not right, but it is: he sent one of us over to the shop to buy an orange and he peeled it and took up the segments. Mogens Prip-Buus on Jørn Utzon and the Sydney Opera House
Nicholas Grimshaw
05.04.2018
Nicholas Grimshaw05.04.2018
This axonometric of the Arthur Phillip High School illustrates the very inner workings of the building. Stripped bare of its materiality – the steel and concrete frame, the inner and outer facades and interior finishes – to reveal the network of elements which make the building come alive. These vital… Read More
Eurolandschaft Dérive
01.04.2018
Eurolandschaft Dérive01.04.2018
The format is Japanese: a concertina sketchbook presented empty to me by Akira Suzuki shortly after the 1983 completion of our Tokyo Suzuki House design. The drawing format is also Japanese – influenced by our reading of Tokyo (documented in Western Objects + Eastern Fields, AA 1989). Tokyo is difficult for… Read More
WilkinsonEyre
28.03.2018
WilkinsonEyre28.03.2018
This drawing presents a snapshot of the BIM model from the northern end of Battersea Power Station. Combined with a point cloud survey of the existing fabric, it overlays newer elements of construction with layers of the historic model. Careful selection of the information presented makes it possible to see… Read More
A. W. N. Pugin
13.03.2018
A. W. N. Pugin13.03.2018
In 1846 Viscount Feilding (later 8th Earl of Denbigh) married Louisa Pennant. She was the great-granddaughter of the topographer Thomas Pennant, and inherited his house, Downing Hall, in Flintshire. They decided to build a church to celebrate their marriage. The architect was Thomas Henry Wyatt (who also added to Downing). Building… Read More
R. Norman Shaw
11.03.2018
R. Norman Shaw11.03.2018
R. Norman Shaw (1831–1912) is commonly thought of as a domestic architect, but he built a fair number of churches, sixteen altogether, many of them original and remarkable in one way or another. There is an evolution in Shaw’s church designs from the emotional ardour of his earliest efforts, like… Read More
AL_A: V&A Exhibition Road Quarter
05.03.2018
AL_A: V&A Exhibition Road Quarter05.03.2018
Farshid Moussavi’s brief for the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition asked for representations of the complexities of designing and realising buildings and structures. We illustrated this by overlaying each level of intervention in a different colour – from the existing V&A stonework in green, the services in purple, to the… Read More
Louis Le Vau: Château de Meudon
01.03.2018
Louis Le Vau: Château de Meudon01.03.2018
– Basile Baudez, Alexandre Cojannot and Alexandre Gady
Built in the 16th century on the banks of the river Seine, west of Paris, the castle of Meudon stands amidst the great French Renaissance monuments that were ultimately destroyed. When it was bought by Abel Servien in 1654, the old castle – built under François I in brick and stone… Read More
Tony Fretton: Lisson Gallery 1
27.02.2018
Tony Fretton: Lisson Gallery 127.02.2018
84-7-1 is a singular image, a drawing of Lisson 1 seen from Lisson Street. It shows the back gallery as it was first intended – but which is not what it became, because the client kept buying land and adding to it. This sketch explores how a piece of architecture… Read More
Carlos Diniz: United States Embassy, Moscow
14.02.2018
Carlos Diniz: United States Embassy, Moscow14.02.2018
The Commons Overview These drawings were exhibited in ‘Off Location: Drawings for the US Embassy, Moscow’, an impromptu exhibition held at Pushkin House from 13–28 February 2018. In conjunction with the exhibition, curator Tim Abrahams gave a talk entitled ‘Fiction and Reality in Moscow’ at Pushkin House.
Behind the Lines 3
07.02.2018
Behind the Lines 307.02.2018
“Lord, Fanny, I had such a very strange encounter this morning. It being a Friday, I was delivering muffins down to that mad Lady Lewson in Cold Bath Square – her maid says she never washes and is most provoking – and as I was walking along the wall by… Read More
Better with Sun from West: US Embassy Moscow, The Commons
05.02.2018
Better with Sun from West: US Embassy Moscow, The Commons05.02.2018
In an interview for the Chicago Architects Oral History Project, architect Charles Edward Bassett, the design lead in SOM’s San Francisco office, was asked by Betty J. Blum how architectural education changed in the US when modernism became accepted in architectural schools and the Beaux-Arts tradition side-lined. What happened when the… Read More
Shatwell DrawingScape
29.01.2018
Shatwell DrawingScape29.01.2018
This year a group of 12 students from the Intermediate School at the Architectural Association, London, are developing proposals for the Shatwell site. They take inspiration from the Drawing Matter collection to create exhibition spaces to display and celebrate the culture of drawing. The work ranges from speculative interpretations of… Read More
A Blueprint is… Blue
24.01.2018
A Blueprint is… Blue24.01.2018
A common error in looking at architectural drawings is to mistake mechanical reproductions for originals. Original and copy drawings both physically consist of two elements: the material (like ink) and the support (usually paper). But – and it may seem obvious to say – lines on paper are made by… Read More
Studio Mumbai: Saatrasta-Mahindra Tape Drawing
14.01.2018
Studio Mumbai: Saatrasta-Mahindra Tape Drawing14.01.2018
The idea of using tape drawings originated for climatic reasons: India goes through a five-month monsoon season each year, and during this time it is very humid. For us this meant that the drawings we were producing, which were printed on paper, had a very short lifespan. Lines would slowly… Read More
Yona Friedman: Space-chain Structures
11.01.2018
Yona Friedman: Space-chain Structures11.01.2018
‘Proteinic structures’, ‘proteinic chains’, ‘space chains’ and ‘iconostase’ are different names for similar structures, proposed and varied over the years by Yona Friedman. [1] They originally have in common a single material, metal, and a principle: the possibility of an infinite architecture. Such an unrealistic but visionary use of giant… Read More
Gabriel Pierre Martin Dumont
07.01.2018
Gabriel Pierre Martin Dumont07.01.2018
– Editors
This large and exquisite drawing by Gabriel Pierre Martin Dumont represents a garden design in the form of the plan of St Peter’s Basilica and Piazza by Bernini. Serried ranks of trees rather than stone walls and columns are used to marshal a vast landscape into a perfect emblem of… Read More
The Politics of the Image
05.01.2018
The Politics of the Image05.01.2018
– Maria S. Giudici, Joseph Mercer, Florian Scheucher, Keranie Theodosiou, Livia Wang, Sophie Williams and Feifei Zhou
My course, The Politics of the Image at the Royal College of Art, drew on the Drawing Matter Collection amongst others to explore the construction of images since the Renaissance. This construction has allowed a crafty lie to evolve, be challenged and ultimately influence reality – albeit not always in straightforward ways.… Read More
Alternative Histories: Atelier Tomas Dirrix & Boris de Beijer on Otto Schönthal
01.01.2018
Alternative Histories: Atelier Tomas Dirrix & Boris de Beijer on Otto Schönthal01.01.2018
A few coloured washes present the frail idea for a cemetery church. The drawing, made by Otto Schontal, hardly seems to make a suggestion for a building. A blue and green blur with coloured stains loosely defines a sphere in which scale nor structure seems important. Following our interest in the… Read More
Behind the Lines 4
28.03.2018
Behind the Lines 428.03.2018
– Philippa Lewis
Isabella Puddefoot settled herself on the sofa, picked up her embroidery, and after enquiring about his day at the bank, remarked to her husband Samuel: ‘I do declare I am quite spent; running up and down stairs all day is very trying to my constitution. It is eight flights from dealing… Read More
housing urban form behind the lines (series) creative writing DMC topographic/cartographic presentation