Category: office cultures

The Philips Pavilion: Models as Structural Expression

The Philips Pavilion: Models as Structural Expression

Matthew Mindrup

The following text discusses the use of models as an integral part of the architectural process. It is excerpted from Matthew Mindrup’s article on the roles of models in the design of the Sydney Opera House and Iannis Xenakis and Le Corbusier’s Philips Pavilion for the 1958 World’s Fair (arq:… Read More

Pan Scroll Zoom 18: Wolff Architects

Pan Scroll Zoom 18: Wolff Architects

Fabrizio Gallanti, Heinrich Wolff and Ilze Wolff

This is the eighteenth in a series of texts edited by Fabrizio Gallanti on the challenges in the new world of online architectural teaching and, particularly, on the changing role of drawings in presentations and reviews. In this episode, Heinrich Wolff and Ilze Wolff of Wolff Architects discuss the production of their drawings,… Read More

A Short History of Alberto Ponis on the Sardinian Coast

A Short History of Alberto Ponis on the Sardinian Coast

Sebastiano Brandolini

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

Doodles: Stirling Wilford and Associates, 1984–2000

Doodles: Stirling Wilford and Associates, 1984–2000

Marco Iuliano

The architectural trajectory of James Stirling has always been considered that of the individual genius, whilst acknowledging his close links to certain educational and working companions: his lifetime maestro Colin Rowe; the partners James Gowan and Michael Wilford, and the Associates, Laurence Bain and Russell Bevington. Without diminishing the importance and the inspirational role of… Read More

Cosmos Street Revisited

Cosmos Street Revisited

Peter Wilson

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

Pan Scroll Zoom 15: Other Architects

Pan Scroll Zoom 15: Other Architects

Fabrizio Gallanti, Grace Mortlock and David Neustein

This is the fifthteenth in a series of texts edited by Fabrizio Gallanti on the challenges in the new world of online architectural teaching and, particularly, on the changing role of drawings in presentations and reviews. In this episode Fabrizio talks to Grace Mortlock and David Neustein of the Sydney-based practice Other Architects… Read More

Notes on Twelve drawings for the Governor’s Palace at Chandigarh

Notes on Twelve drawings for the Governor’s Palace at Chandigarh

José Oubrerie

Drawing Matter was introduced to José Oubrerie by Stan Allen after publishing his text Just Begin in July 2020. Oubrerie worked for Le Corbusier on the Brazilian Pavillion at the Cité Universitaire in Paris in 1958 and in the Atelier at 35 Rue de Sèvres from 1959 to 1965. The… Read More

Notes on The Palace of the Assembly and Museum at Chandigarh

Notes on The Palace of the Assembly and Museum at Chandigarh

José Oubrerie

Drawing Matter was introduced to José Oubrerie by Stan Allen after publishing his text Just Begin in July 2020. Oubrerie worked for Le Corbusier on the Brazilian Pavillion at the Cité Universitaire in Paris in 1958 and in the Atelier at 35 Rue de Sèvres from 1959 to 1965. The… Read More

Pan Scroll Zoom 13: Tatiana Bilbao

Pan Scroll Zoom 13: Tatiana Bilbao

Tatiana Bilbao and Fabrizio Gallanti

This is the thirteenth in a series of texts edited by Fabrizio Gallanti on the challenges in the new world of online architectural teaching and, particularly, on the changing role of drawings in presentations and reviews. In this episode, Fabrizio interviews Tatiana Bilbao about her teaching at Yale School of Architecture and… Read More

Bovenbouw Architectuur: One Paper Model and Three Paper Collages

Bovenbouw Architectuur: One Paper Model and Three Paper Collages

Ciaran Scannell

The layers found in Bovenbouw Architectuur’s collages are analogous to the layering in their architecture – there to be unravelled by those willing to search. Sometimes ruinous, never complete, they are a representation of uncanny worlds where chimneystacks become doors, tyres become classical pediments and windows are adorned with eyelashes.… Read More

Diagrams: Hans van der Heijden in Conversation with Richard Hall

Diagrams: Hans van der Heijden in Conversation with Richard Hall

Richard Hall

Hans van der Heijden is an Amsterdam-based architect. He co-founded biq in 1994 with Rick Wessels before establishing his own office, Hans van der Heijden Architect, in 2014. During this timeframe he has developed a recognisable and idiosyncratic drawing repertoire, the origins of which can be traced back to his… Read More

Leicester Engineering building: Two Architects (1964)

Leicester Engineering building: Two Architects (1964)

Ellis Woodman

Filmed in 1964, Ron Parks’ documentary on the newly completed Engineering Department at Leicester catches James Stirling and James Gowan at a moment of professional triumph and personal crisis. Their building was being applauded the world-over – Parks’ film had been commissioned by the American Institute of Architects, to mark its… Read More

Pan Scroll Zoom 11: Architecten Jan De Vylder Inge Vinck

Pan Scroll Zoom 11: Architecten Jan De Vylder Inge Vinck

Fabrizio Gallanti, Inge Vinck and Jan De Vylder

This is the eleventh in a series of texts edited by Fabrizio Gallanti on the challenges in the new world of online architectural teaching and, particularly, on the changing role of drawings in presentations and reviews. In this episode Fabrizio interviews Jan De Vylder and Inge Vinck about their teaching… Read More

Working with Gowan: Housing at East Hanningfield

Working with Gowan: Housing at East Hanningfield

Paul Notley

The Site Plan was one of the Planning drawings prepared for submission to Chelmsford District Council and Essex County Council. It is A1 size and drawn on Wiggins Teape 112 gram ‘Gateway’ tracing paper. The East Hanningfield job was the first on which ‘A’ sized paper had been used in… Read More

Pan Scroll Zoom 7: MOS

Pan Scroll Zoom 7: MOS

Fabrizio Gallanti, Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample

This is the seventh in a series of texts edited by Fabrizio Gallanti on the challenges in the new world of online architectural teaching and, particularly, on the changing role of drawings in presentations and reviews. In this episode Fabrizio interviews Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample of the New York-based… Read More

Two Early Paintings with OMA

Two Early Paintings with OMA

Zoe Zenghelis

Here, Zoe Zenghelis, painter and founding member of OMA, recalls the making of two paintings now in the Drawing Matter collection. The first, pictured below, is an aerial view of the unbuilt Hotel Therma, and the second is a version of OMA’s entry to the Parc de la Villette competition.… Read More

Pan Scroll Zoom 5: Andrés Jaque

Pan Scroll Zoom 5: Andrés Jaque

Fabrizio Gallanti and Andrés Jaque

This is the fifth in a series of texts edited by Fabrizio Gallanti on the challenges in the new world of online architectural teaching and, particularly, on the changing role of drawings in presentations and reviews. In this episode Fabrizio interviews Andrés Jaque, founder of the Office for Political Innovation… Read More

Drawing, Collaging, Rendering

Drawing, Collaging, Rendering

Cameron Lintott

When the ‘hard-line drawing’ has become so synonymous with the image of the architect it is easy to forget that the convenience of the everyday pen is relatively recent. For most of the long history of the world’s second-oldest profession, pen, paint and ink were reserved for competition boards or… Read More

Aldo Rossi: the First Sketch and the Final Drawing

Aldo Rossi: the First Sketch and the Final Drawing

Andrea Leonardi

The following letter was sent to the Drawing Matter editors by Andrea Leonardi, a member of Rossi’s office for nine years.   A few days ago my dear friend Maurizio Diton, sent me an article he wrote for you in October 2019, ‘The Office Copier and Baptism by Colour: Working… Read More

Pan Scroll Zoom 4: Pezo von Ellrichshausen

Pan Scroll Zoom 4: Pezo von Ellrichshausen

Sofia von Ellrichshausen, Fabrizio Gallanti and Mauricio Pezo

This is the fourth in a series of texts edited by Fabrizio Gallanti on the challenges in the new world of online architectural teaching and, particularly, on the changing role of drawings in presentations and reviews. In this episode Fabrizio interviews Mauricio Pezo and Sofia von Ellrichshausen of Pezo von… Read More

Soane’s Designs for Combe House, Continued

Soane’s Designs for Combe House, Continued

Pierre du Prey

When Drawing Matter recently reproduced a preliminary ground plan for Combe House near Gittisham, Devon, by John Soane, I had a moment’s sudden recollection. Ptolemy Dean’s penetrating analysis of this precious if battered sheet of paper – entirely in the astonishingly fluid and energetic hand of the architect – set me to search… Read More

OMA in Scheveningen

OMA in Scheveningen

Willem Jan Neutelings

Scheveningen is a reef on which different architectonic and urban visions have run ashore. – Rem Koolhaas [1] What a surprise to see this 40 year old drawing! I made it as a young collaborator of OMA in Rotterdam in 1982. It is an analytic sketch in ink and color… Read More

James Gowan: The Sheet for the Job

James Gowan: The Sheet for the Job

Jantje Engels

The elevation of the Engineering Faculty in Leicester, a building by James Stirling and James Gowan, is in the centre of the tracing paper: a drawing composed of vertical, horizontal and diagonal black lines. A series of height lines and dimensions have been applied effectively, showing that the construction is… Read More

Stirling at Stuttgart: Rear View / Up Views

Stirling at Stuttgart: Rear View / Up Views

John Tuomey

Rear Views I joined the Stirling office in September 1976, working late hours through the length of four years until my return to Dublin towards the end of 1980. Straight out of college and into my first proper job, the critical years in my formation as an architect. I had… Read More