Category: project & building histories
Protected: Shadowed plans
04.03.2026
Protected: Shadowed plans04.03.2026
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Levers Long Enough to Move the World
03.03.2026
Levers Long Enough to Move the World03.03.2026
‘Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world’ — Archimedes Levers Long Enough to Move the World is an exhibition of architectural sketches curated by Andrew Holder at the Pratt School of Architecture, featuring the work of 62 contemporary… Read More
New Views on Vanbrugh and his Drawings
02.03.2026
New Views on Vanbrugh and his Drawings02.03.2026
This text is published to mark the opening of John Vanbrugh: The Drama of Architecture at Sir John Soane’s Museum (4 March–28 June 2026), co-curated by Charles Saumarez Smith and Roz Barr. More information about the exhibition can be found here. In the summer of 1982, when I was at… Read More
James Gowan’s Trafalgar Road & East Hanningfield
12.02.2026
James Gowan’s Trafalgar Road & East Hanningfield12.02.2026
– Vera Okodugha and Ana Francisco Sutherland
To mark the publication of Ana Francisco Sutherland’s remarkable compendium of the modern buildings of Greenwich and Blackheath, this post is presented as a ‘project scrapbook’ that traces two of James Gowan’s social housing projects, Trafalgar Road, London, built between 1964 and 1968, and East Hanningfield, Essex, finished in 1978.… Read More
Provenance in Architecture, A Dictionary: Photography
30.01.2026
Provenance in Architecture, A Dictionary: Photography30.01.2026
The following text is one of the entries included in the recently published 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… Read More
Protected: The house stands still while life moves
27.01.2026
Protected: The house stands still while life moves27.01.2026
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Heinrich Kulka and Adolf Loos
23.01.2026
Heinrich Kulka and Adolf Loos23.01.2026
On 7th July 2025, an exhibition dedicated to architect Heinrich Kulka opened at the Ringturm Exhibition Centre in Vienna, titled Heinrich Kulka (1900–1971) – The Spatial Plan as a Design Method, focusing on Kulka’s European work, both with Adolf Loos and as an independent architect. It was curated by architect and writer… Read More
Summer Evenings on Sukhna Dam
08.01.2026
Summer Evenings on Sukhna Dam08.01.2026
Poornmashi. The bright full-moon nights of the year were always opportunities for us to try to convince our parents to organise a picnic at the Lake. Chandigarh is a long way from the ocean, way inland, surrounded by the vast Indo-Gangetic plains. And although the mighty Himalayas are right at… Read More
DMJ – The Story of the Raft: Architectural Narrations of Disaster, Despair and Delight
18.12.2025
DMJ – The Story of the Raft: Architectural Narrations of Disaster, Despair and Delight18.12.2025
Architectural stories, almost by definition, construct narratives combining image and text. It is these combinations of the visual and the verbal that make architectural stories particularly compelling and memorable. ‘The Story of the Pool’ (1976) by Rem Koolhaas is a case in point. The script, written by Koolhaas, tells of… Read More
Collection Guide: Zaha Hadid
15.12.2025
Collection Guide: Zaha Hadid15.12.2025
– Editors
Zaha Hadid was born in 1950 in Baghdad, Iraq. After studying mathematics at the American University in Beirut, Lebanon, from 1968 to 1971, she moved to London in 1972, where she studied architecture at the Architectural Association (AA). It was here that her work began to reference the Russian avant-garde,… Read More
The Many Lives of the Open Hand
08.12.2025
The Many Lives of the Open Hand08.12.2025
Saturday afternoon, 4pm, the summer heat. My father revs up the engines of his Fiat 1100, his pride and joy. It is the early 1970s and I am in my pre-teens. Small for my age, I squeeze into the front seat, between my parents. I am not welcome in the… Read More
The Lovell Health House: Richard Neutra’s Revolution in Building
04.12.2025
The Lovell Health House: Richard Neutra’s Revolution in Building 04.12.2025
‘Paris, 1927. I was in Lurçat’s studio on the rue Bonaparte looking for the first time at reproductions of the ‘Health House’ of Neutra. We young followers of the new architecture were both admiring and astounded by this signal of a revolution in building.’ Willy Boesiger, introducing Richard Neutra. Buildings and Projects (Zurich:… Read More
This is Tomorrow
02.12.2025
This is Tomorrow 02.12.2025
The following text is excerpted from the catalogue of the exhibition Theo Crosby: One Hundred Lives, which is on view at Osh Gallery London until the 11th December 2025. Curated by Pentagram’s Michael Bierut and researcher Tess McCann, the exhibition focuses on the life and work of Theo Crosby, one of the founding… Read More
Drawings of Architectures
13.11.2025
Drawings of Architectures13.11.2025
– Primitivo González and Niall Hobhouse
The exhibition Drawings of Architectures brings together Primitivo González’s private collection of original architectural drawings, sketches and notes, which González has been collecting for more than twenty-five years. The exhibition, designed by Ara, Noa and Primitivo González, includes drawings from Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto, Rafael Moneo, and Emilio Tuñón, among others, and is presented at the Patio Herreriano Museum in… Read More
Sin Centre: Sheen and Transparent Overlays
10.11.2025
Sin Centre: Sheen and Transparent Overlays10.11.2025
– Nat Chard and Michael Webb
Following a lively debate at Drawing Matter about the surface and support of Michael Webb’s isometric drawing of a car ramp, Nat Chard thought to ask Michael himself how he made it. Dear all, On Monday we had a conversation about one of Mike Webb’s Sin Centre drawings that had a print-like… Read More
In Palau, Sardinia, on the East Coast
03.11.2025
In Palau, Sardinia, on the East Coast03.11.2025
Anyone who has seen and contemplated certain beautiful and simple ancient Mediterranean houses, such as those found in Greece, Spain, Portugal and southern Italy, knows that modern examples rarely possess the wisdom and beauty of these anonymous, traditional dwellings. Wisdom, above all: the thickness of the walls, for coolness and… Read More
Collection Guide: Andrea Branzi & Archizoom Associati
27.10.2025
Collection Guide: Andrea Branzi & Archizoom Associati27.10.2025
– Rosie Ellison-Balaam and Francesco Fiammenghi
To probe the long and multifaceted career of Andrea Branzi (1938–2023), one must first turn to his formative years at the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Florence in the early 1960s. At the time, the Florence School became the incubator of several of Italy’s postwar avant-garde groups, including… Read More
Lucien Hervé: A Photographer with Scissors
23.10.2025
Lucien Hervé: A Photographer with Scissors23.10.2025
We are thankful to Ross Anderson, who identified these statements Lucien Hervé made when interviewed by Hans Ulrich Olbrist, and which are pertinent to this contact sheet in the Drawing Matter Collection: ‘When Le Corbusier received me in his office one day, we talked for a long time; I remember that he… Read More
Le Corbusier, Album Punjab, 1951
13.10.2025
Le Corbusier, Album Punjab, 195113.10.2025
The following text first appeared in Maristella Casciato, Le Corbusier Album Punjab, 1951 (Zurich: Lars Müller Publications, 2024), 17–21. * Le Corbusier embarked on his first visit to the Indian state of Punjab in 1951 in anticipation of the planning and construction of Chandigarh. Included in his luggage was a notebook, which he… Read More
DMJ – The Field of Mars: The Mother of All Conspiracies
06.10.2025
DMJ – The Field of Mars: The Mother of All Conspiracies06.10.2025
30 days hath September. All the rest, I can’t remember. — Trad. To what extent can an object tell a story? The idea that things, particularly things of stone, might speak – or at least induce speech – is innate to our practice of raising memorials and preserving monuments. But… Read More
Building with Writing
02.10.2025
Building with Writing02.10.2025
Stan Allen’s exhibition Building with Writing, an installation documenting 40 years of writing and drawing practice, is currently presented at the Graham Foundation as part of the 2025 Chicago Architecture Biennial, led by Florencia Rodríguez, Artistic Director, and Igo Kommers Wender, Associate Curator. The exhibition was curated by Michael Meredith, with… Read More
Collection Guide: William Butterfield
25.09.2025
Collection Guide: William Butterfield25.09.2025
William Butterfield was a British architect who trained first as a builder’s apprentice and then as an architect in offices at London and Worcester before opening his own London studio in 1838, continuing in full practice until 1886, and then on a limited scale through to 1897. He was the… Read More
Het woonpalazzo – The Residential Palazzo
16.02.2026
Het woonpalazzo – The Residential Palazzo16.02.2026
– Nicholas Ray
Open any book by a Dutch architect and you are bound to come across H. P. Berlage—the forefather from whom sprang everything, albeit indirectly, from the Amsterdam School to Der Stijl and who is revered for his contribution at all scales from the details of his buildings to his town… Read More
presentation theoretical & imaginary plan section projection (axonometric isometric)