Category: Drawing Matter archive: research & collecting
The Urban Fact: Aldo Rossi, The School, Fagnano Olona
16 November 2021
The Urban Fact: Aldo Rossi, The School, Fagnano Olona16 November 2021
– Kersten Geers, Stefano Graziani and Jelena Pancevac
This is part one of two excerpts chosen from The Urban Fact: A Reference Book on Aldo Rossi. The second text, on Aldo Rossi’s Student Housing in Chieti, completed in 1976, will be available soon. Please see the end of the page for more information on this publication. The Olona… Read More
A Short History of Alberto Ponis on the Sardinian Coast
15 November 2021
A Short History of Alberto Ponis on the Sardinian Coast15 November 2021
Alberto Ponis was born in Genoa in 1933. He took his architecture degree in Florence in 1960. His father, Mario Alberto, had founded the M.I.T.A. (Manifattura Italiana Tappeti Artistici) in 1926 in Nervi, near Genoa. The company’s building was built by Luigi Daneri in 1940. Gio Ponti, Arnaldo Pomodoro and… Read More
The Pursuit of Gothic
10 November 2021
The Pursuit of Gothic10 November 2021
William Gilpin notoriously suggested that the ruins of Tintern Abbey could be improved by ‘a mallet judiciously used’. [1] The next generation saw in the architecture of the Middle Ages something more than an assortment of ornamental landscape features, but it did not begin to understand it. Uvedale Price, whose… Read More
Frank Lloyd Wright, House for Edith Carlson, 1939, Part II
7 November 2021
Frank Lloyd Wright, House for Edith Carlson, 1939, Part II7 November 2021
Extracted from Stories from Architecture: Behind the Lines at Drawing Matter by Philippa Lewis, published by MIT Press © 2021. Order the book here. The drawings around which Stories from Architecture are written are all part of the Drawing Matter collection. Some of the texts were first published as ‘Behind the Lines’. My dear Miss Carlson, By… Read More
Drawing Powers 2: the object in the drawing
2 November 2021
Drawing Powers 2: the object in the drawing2 November 2021
This text is the second in a series of five in which Fernando Poeiras (ESAD.CR/LIDA), explores the different powers of drawing within architectural design projects. Each text is illustrated with examples from the Drawing Matter Collection. Find the introduction to the series here. First, I consider drawing as an adequate medium… Read More
Drawing Powers 3: the drawing in the object
2 November 2021
Drawing Powers 3: the drawing in the object2 November 2021
This text is the third in a series of five in which Fernando Poeiras (ESAD.CR/LIDA), explores the different powers of drawing within architectural design projects. Each text is illustrated with examples from the Drawing Matter Collection. Find the introduction to the series here. It was the drawing that led me to architecture,… Read More
Drawing Powers 4: the drawing-object
2 November 2021
Drawing Powers 4: the drawing-object2 November 2021
This text is the fourth in a series of five in which Fernando Poeiras (ESAD.CR/LIDA), explores the different powers of drawing within architectural design projects. Each text is illustrated with examples from the Drawing Matter Collection. Find the introduction to the series here. After I have developed a feel for the programme,… Read More
Alberto Ponis on Casa Scalesciani
27 October 2021
Alberto Ponis on Casa Scalesciani27 October 2021
The site chosen by Juan S., an Argentinian with a penchant for Italy, was almost alarmingly steep and sheer above the sea. Even the path leading to it was perilous, and trodden with bated breath. During our long conversations about where the house would be built, we were not so… Read More
Álvaro Siza: Fast and Slow Lines
20 October 2021
Álvaro Siza: Fast and Slow Lines20 October 2021
Álvaro Siza began working on the ‘Quinta da Malagueira’ project in 1977. In his sketchbooks, he would doodle iterations of the proposal over and over, together with other observational scenes, figures, calculations, and schedules. The sketches have various line qualities. Some are steadier, thicker in the middle, and thinner at… Read More
Writing Prize 2021: Savinien Petit’s Chapelle a deux salles avec luminaire
18 October 2021
Writing Prize 2021: Savinien Petit’s Chapelle a deux salles avec luminaire18 October 2021
When art crosses paths with the language of architecture, odd things can occur. Savinien Petit was an academic painter who is little-known today. Conventional even for his own time, his taste at times did not exceed drawing children in clouds, but mostly he created religious scenes in traditional frescoes for churches, work which was… Read More
The Hidden Horizontal. Cornices in Art and Architecture: Exhibition Review
18 October 2021
The Hidden Horizontal. Cornices in Art and Architecture: Exhibition Review18 October 2021
Architecture is never an easy topic for exhibitions, because the level of knowledge and pre-existing interest of the public is difficult to gauge. A show devoted specifically to a single architectural detail, seen across a historic panorama, is even more challenging. But this is the ambition of ‘The Hidden Horizontal:… Read More
Survey: Le Corbusier, Roland Garros stadium
21 September 2021
Survey: Le Corbusier, Roland Garros stadium21 September 2021
In July 1958, one day before Faisal II was assassinated during the 14 July Revolution in Baghdad, the Iraqi Ministry of Development sent a telegram to Paris confirming Le Corbusier’s appointment to design the Olympic Stadium. Over the following months, while the programme and site were being clarified, his office… Read More
PC Harry Woodley: Plans of No 131 Cornwall Street, 1902
17 September 2021
PC Harry Woodley: Plans of No 131 Cornwall Street, 190217 September 2021
Extracted from Stories from Architecture: Behind the Lines at Drawing Matter by Philippa Lewis, published by MIT Press © 2021. Preorder the book here. The drawings around which Stories from Architecture are written are all part of the Drawing Matter collection. Some of the texts were first published as ‘Behind the Lines’. It was a short walk… Read More
An Overwhelming Concern with Shelter! (1966)
16 September 2021
An Overwhelming Concern with Shelter! (1966)16 September 2021
The International Dialogue on Experimental Architecture (IDEA) was held at New Metropole Arts Centre in Folkestone, Kent, 10–11 June 1966. The symposium was organised by Archigram and included contributions from Hans Hollein, Joe Weber, Yona Friedman, Cedric Price, Arthur Quarmsby, Anthony G. William and Reyner Banham. The following text is… Read More
Disney: The Architecture of Staged Realities
10 September 2021
Disney: The Architecture of Staged Realities10 September 2021
‘Project Life Cycle’ provides a brief look into the complex work behind the scenes of a Walt Disney Company production. It is a meticulous formalisation that maps the industrial-organisational apparatus of the life cycle of a Disney project. The creative process is abstracted into a sequence of decisions, a neatly… Read More
John Nash: Designs for Langham House, ca. 1812–1816
6 September 2021
John Nash: Designs for Langham House, ca. 1812–18166 September 2021
Extracted from Stories from Architecture: Behind the Lines at Drawing Matter by Philippa Lewis, published by MIT Press © 2021. Preorder the book here. The drawings around which Stories from Architecture are written are all part of the Drawing Matter collection. Some of the texts were first published as ‘Behind the Lines’. Nash… Read More
Cosmos Street Revisited
31 August 2021
Cosmos Street Revisited31 August 2021
This response relates to a text by Oscar Binder and Nicholas Podlanha published by Drawing Matter in July 2021, which described and reconstructed (badly) a lost project by the deceased architect James Clark. In fact I am James Clark (decidedly not dead) and the project parodied in this less than… Read More
Superstudio: Finding the Horizon
12 August 2021
Superstudio: Finding the Horizon12 August 2021
Until not too long ago, I would be asked to explain to youngsters accustomed to digital graphics how I used to make montages. I felt like an archaeologist, explaining how, in the Palaeolithic era, Neanderthals used to make their tools. Across several workshops, I have realised that the techniques today… Read More
Where to Begin? – Juhani Pallasmaa
12 August 2021
Where to Begin? – Juhani Pallasmaa12 August 2021
This is the first in a series revisiting responses from architects to the question: Where to Begin?. The question was posed by the Drawing Matter editors while compiling the first volume in our Extracts series – find more information here. Beginning to sketch a project has always been easier for me… Read More
Building the Gowan Shed
30 July 2021
Building the Gowan Shed30 July 2021
Through the week of July 12–17, thirteen young architects camped at Shatwell Farm in order to realise a shed from an enigmatic early drawing by James Gowan. The workshop was initiated and led by Maria-Chiara Piccinelli of PiM.studio and Corinna Dean of ARCA. This film portrays the (re)design and construction… Read More
Steeling Stirling & Gowan’s Isle of Wight House
28 July 2021
Steeling Stirling & Gowan’s Isle of Wight House28 July 2021
The editors were thrilled to receive this response from Neil Jackson to our publication of drawings and literature relating to Stirling & Gowan’s Isle of Wight house. We are always interested in receiving comments and feedback from our readers: editors@drawingmatter.org. In taking the plan of the Stirling & Gowan’s Isle… Read More
Insignificance 4: Self-reflexive
26 July 2021
Insignificance 4: Self-reflexive26 July 2021
Whoever decides to study the conditions of a practice of imagining architecture through/as line will, I am afraid, be left in despair. Once the theatrical mask of line’s incontrovertible instrumentality is seen to slip, line’s solidity, its all too evident honesty as a simple mimetic tool, turns up by and… Read More
Cassius Goldsmith’s Grey Weather Gate House
25 July 2021
Cassius Goldsmith’s Grey Weather Gate House25 July 2021
I find myself lost in the woods, then reorientated, guided by the centralised chimney. Standing dead centre in front of the gate lodge, my gaze is lifted to the space between chimney and sky, between foreground or background. A cloud of white smoke disguises itself as an English cloud, passing… Read More
Álvaro Siza: Seven Early Sketchbooks
22 November 2021
Álvaro Siza: Seven Early Sketchbooks22 November 2021
– Niall Hobhouse, Manuel Montenegro and Álvaro Siza
These films were made over four hours on the afternoon of Sunday 25 March 2018 in Álvaro Siza’s studio in Rua do Aleixo outside Porto. I had flown to Portugal that morning with the seven sketchbooks which we were to look through with Manuel Montenegro. Manuel and I had conceived… Read More
public space DMC sketch furniture & object design housing