Category: office cultures

OMA: Rotterdam—Child’s Crusade

OMA: Rotterdam—Child’s Crusade

Richard Hall

This is the third post, in a series of six, titled OMA CONVERSATIONS. The series is the result of a collaboration between Drawing Matter and architect Richard Hall who, over the past two years, has conducted twenty-three in-depth conversations with key collaborators working with OMA during its formative years. Drawing… Read More

OMA: Elia Zenghelis—Watersheds

OMA: Elia Zenghelis—Watersheds

Richard Hall

This is the second post, in a series of six, titled OMA CONVERSATIONS. The series is the result of a collaboration between Drawing Matter and architect Richard Hall who, over the past two years, has conducted twenty-three in-depth conversations with key collaborators working with OMA during its formative years. Drawing… Read More

O.M. Ungers: Drawing a metaphor

O.M. Ungers: Drawing a metaphor

Diogo Lopes and Fanny Noël

This drawing emerged within the framework of a summer school in Berlin, organized by Oswald Mathias Ungers for his Cornell students in 1977. The project was developed by the German architect together with his assistants, Peter Riemann, Rem Koolhaas, Hans Kolhoff and Arthur Ovaska and it offers a vision for… Read More

James Stirling, and the Industrialization of Architecture?

James Stirling, and the Industrialization of Architecture?

Lok-Kan Chau

James Stirling’s presentation drawing from 1957 to a faculty of engineers might seem strangely familiar to contemporary architects. A section of a box, showing the structure, services, and how people might dwell inside—it almost anticipates the prefabricated modular construction architects are now being asked to design. Only a few years… Read More

OMA: London—Foreplay

OMA: London—Foreplay

Richard Hall

This is the first post, in a series of six, titled OMA CONVERSATIONS. The series is the result of a collaboration between Drawing Matter and architect Richard Hall who, over the past two years, has conducted twenty-three in-depth conversations with key collaborators working with OMA during its formative years. Drawing… Read More

Design Drawings Damage Atlas (2023)

Design Drawings Damage Atlas (2023)

Neil Bingham

Snap, crackle, pop. Oh, that horrible sound of unravelling a roll of architectural drawings on old dried-up tracing paper from the nineteenth century. Slowly unfurling the brown brittle sheet, it cracks and shatters, little bits drop off in flakes, littering the table and floor like confetti. The experience feels like… Read More

Helsinki City Theatre: Timo Penttilä on the real purpose of drawings

Helsinki City Theatre: Timo Penttilä on the real purpose of drawings

Gareth Griffiths

On his retirement in 1998 as professor of architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Finnish architect Timo Penttilä returned to Finland, where he soon made the decision to close his architectural practice. In this process he ordered his staff to destroy the entire office archive of drawings… Read More

OMA: Rem Koolhaas—Initiative

OMA: Rem Koolhaas—Initiative

[Intro] [Lead Image] Excerpt

OMA: Collaborators—Satellites

OMA: Collaborators—Satellites

[Intro] [Lead Image] Excerpt — Hans Werlemann and Claudi Cornaz Excerpt— Madelon Vrisendorp and Zoe Zenghelis Excerpt— Vincent de Rijk and Frans Pathesius

Protected: OMA: Big Competitions—Reorienting the Modern Project

Protected: OMA: Big Competitions—Reorienting the Modern Project

Richard Hall

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

Alberto Ponis, The London Years

Alberto Ponis, The London Years

Gillian Darley

I am leafing through a neat hundred-page sketchbook with notes, the text enlivened with pencil, charcoal, and pen sketches with varied annotations, including asterisks and underlining in colour crayon, brought into order with careful lists and occasional full pages on practical matters such as delivering a lecture or taking architectural… Read More

Keep digging and you will find what you are looking for: Alvar Aalto in Germany

Keep digging and you will find what you are looking for: Alvar Aalto in Germany

Sofia Singler

In 1957, Alvar Aalto gave a speech in Munich entitled ‘Schöner Wohnen’.[1] He referred to his own design, the Hansaviertel apartment block in Berlin—his first project in Germany—as he described the key concerns in the design of the modern dwelling. (The construction of Aalto’s second German project, the Neue Vahr… Read More