Category: drawing histories
Vanbrugh in the Best Light: Sir John Soane’s Lecture Drawings of Blenheim Palace
01.06.2026
Vanbrugh in the Best Light: Sir John Soane’s Lecture Drawings of Blenheim Palace01.06.2026
The architect Sir John Vanbrugh (1664–1726) is currently enjoying a moment in the sun! 2026 marks the tercentenary of his death and a variety of activities have been organised to celebrate and reassess this most dynamic of British architects, under the banner of ‘Vanbrugh 300’, which is being coordinated by… Read More
Protected: Up in the Air: The Heygate and Aylesbury Estates
27.05.2026
Protected: Up in the Air: The Heygate and Aylesbury Estates27.05.2026
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Carlos Bedoya, PRODUCTORA: Thinking through Drawing
25.05.2026
Carlos Bedoya, PRODUCTORA: Thinking through Drawing25.05.2026
The first thing to be said about the drawings of Carlos Bedoya is that this is not an exercise in nostalgia, or a case for the lost art of drawing by hand. The architects of PRODUCTORA work in the present, with all the tools and techniques available to them. The… Read More
Protected: DMJ – Show
21.05.2026
Protected: DMJ – Show21.05.2026
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Protected: Collection Guide: Peter Wilson & BOLLES+WILSON
20.05.2026
Protected: Collection Guide: Peter Wilson & BOLLES+WILSON20.05.2026
– Editors
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
My Parish Drawings
19.05.2026
My Parish Drawings19.05.2026
From an early age I was in love with China and all things Chinese. I don’t know what inspired this passion, but a few years ago I came upon a Rupert Bear cartoon strip and there was the Emperor of China aloft on a flying carpet. I know my father… 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: An Attardé Draftsman: Giacomo Beverati
11.05.2026
Protected: An Attardé Draftsman: Giacomo Beverati11.05.2026
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
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.
Ian Hamilton Finlay’s Cloud Board and the Architectural Drawing
30.04.2026
Ian Hamilton Finlay’s Cloud Board and the Architectural Drawing30.04.2026
On the 12th of March 1968, Scottish concrete poet Ian Hamilton Finlay wrote, as he did frequently throughout the late 1960s, to friend and architect Philip Steadman. ‘Dear Phil,’ he began, ‘I have been meaning for some time to ask if you could help me with some rough drawings, of… Read More
Protected: Mapping Water
29.04.2026
Protected: Mapping Water29.04.2026
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
The Principle of ‘Reach’
27.04.2026
The Principle of ‘Reach’27.04.2026
In the home economics theory of domestic space, a necessary and pivotal condition allowing the homemaker to work out and practice more ‘efficient’ routines, and thereby decrease her domestic drudgery, was the design of home interior. This included the arrangement of the objects of daily use. Conceptualising the space as… Read More
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
Protected: Collection Guide: Cedric Price
23.04.2026
Protected: Collection Guide: Cedric Price23.04.2026
– Editors
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
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
Desire and Pain: John Hejduk’s Thirteen Watchtowers of Cannaregio
13.04.2026
Desire and Pain: John Hejduk’s Thirteen Watchtowers of Cannaregio13.04.2026
– Mehrshad Atashi and Lida Badafareh
In his conversation with Don Wall in Mask of Medusa, John Hejduk recalls the programme of the Schatzalp sanatorium in Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. ‘[…] the hero is going up the mountain in a carriage in the deep snow, he sees the dead bodies of those who had died in the sanatorium… Read More
Collection Guide: Futurism, Rationalism, and Stile Littorio
26.03.2026
Collection Guide: Futurism, Rationalism, and Stile Littorio26.03.2026
The Drawing Matter collection holds around 70 objects that speak to Italy’s architectural evolution in the early twentieth century. It should be noted that this period was characterised by tremendous stylistic diversity, with movements and groups—often unhappily—coexisting and shifting, ultimately culminating in the dominance of the Stile Littorio. At the… Read More
André des Gachons: Weather Warning
19.03.2026
André des Gachons: Weather Warning19.03.2026
The recent publication, La Veille du ciel: aquarelles météorologiques (Phénomène éditions), one of the most beautiful books published in 2025, gathers together forty years of daily weather reports by André des Gachons on the skies above the small rural commune of La Chaussée-sur-Marne, in eastern France. Des Gachons remained subjective… Read More
The Unperformed: Eisenstein’s Set Design for Heartbreak House
13.03.2026
The Unperformed: Eisenstein’s Set Design for Heartbreak House13.03.2026
The sole drawing by Sergei Eisenstein in the Drawing Matter archive is a set design for a production of George Bernard Shaw’s Heartbreak House (1919) from 1922. It is a rare, interdisciplinary confluence of a socialist Irish playwright (Shaw), a Russian filmmaker and theorist (Eisenstein), and a radical theatre maker… Read More
Shadowed plans
11.03.2026
Shadowed plans11.03.2026
Drawing Matter holds in its collection a plan by Superstudio architects Carlo Chiappi and Adolfo Natalini for the 1967 competition for the restoration of the Fortezza da Basso—a 16th-century fort in Florence—and its transformation into a National Centre for Arts and Crafts.[1] The drawing combines traditional plan-making techniques with remarkable… Read More
The Brick Pencil: Analogue Technology in a Digital Age
27.02.2026
The Brick Pencil: Analogue Technology in a Digital Age27.02.2026
Part 1: The Brick Pencil In a colour photograph with the rich saturation of Kodachrome, against an aquamarine background, a manicured hand grips an upright brick. Taped to the brick, tip down, is a pencil. The weight of the brick is palpable. Someone is working hard to write with this… Read More
Arrows
19.01.2026
Arrows19.01.2026
The small drawing that adorns the title page of F. R. S. Yorke’s 1937 study, The Modern House in England, is typical for its time. It shows an aerial perspective, made in thin black lines, of a conventional modern house with all its attributes. Cubic in shape, the house is… Read More
On Measurement: A Survey of Florence
12.01.2026
On Measurement: A Survey of Florence12.01.2026
The following text is an extract from a longer essay entitled ‘De re mensura: Surveying Practice in Quattrocento Painting’—which the author completed at the Warburg Institute in the autumn of 2025—looking at Renaissance perspective painting to consider how practices of surveying informed the development of perspective as an artistic and intellectual pursuit. *… 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
DMC plan presentation section