Category: project & building histories
Protected: Teatro del Mondo
09.09.2025
Protected: Teatro del Mondo09.09.2025
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Protected: DMJ – The Field of Mars: The Mother of All Conspiracies
04.09.2025
Protected: DMJ – The Field of Mars: The Mother of All Conspiracies04.09.2025
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Protected: Andrea Branzi & Archizoom Associati at Drawing Matter
31.08.2025
Protected: Andrea Branzi & Archizoom Associati at Drawing Matter31.08.2025
– Rosie Ellison-Balaam and Francesco Fiammenghi
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Carlos Diniz: London 2025
29.08.2025
Carlos Diniz: London 202529.08.2025
– Editors
‘As a piece of urban design [it] is simply abysmal. A wonderful opportunity to create a new place in London with innovative urban forms has been missed… The layout is simplistic and banal, the architecture lumpy and mediocre—the whole looks like a chunk of some ageing, tired and dreary US… Read More
Orgonic Architecture
21.08.2025
Orgonic Architecture21.08.2025
A face is drawn over a torso; breasts are transformed into eyes with nipples as pupils, the nose curves along the edge of the ribcage, and the belly button is the pursed smoking and kissing mouth, above hangs a necklace made of spherical beads, acting like a curled fringe. The… Read More
DMJ – Riddle as Method, Transparency at Play: Aldo Van Eyck at Baambrugge
18.08.2025
DMJ – Riddle as Method, Transparency at Play: Aldo Van Eyck at Baambrugge18.08.2025
As work on site at the Orphanage (1956-1960) neared completion, Aldo van Eyck was busy exploring and expanding the reach of his ideas through a number of interlaced and mutually generative projects, editorial of Forum magazine (1959-63), contributions to the reorganisation and ultimate dissolution of CIAM (1954-1960) and the design of a… Read More
Typology: A conversation
13.08.2025
Typology: A conversation13.08.2025
– Richard Hall, Hans van der Heijden and Andreas Lechner
In Spring 2025, Hans van der Heijden and Andreas Lechner corresponded about books which each had recently published that deal with the issue of ‘type’ and the role of drawing in typological work.[1] Hans invited Richard Hall to join the conversation, widening the discussion to three generations working in three… Read More
Melancholy Little Gardens
04.08.2025
Melancholy Little Gardens04.08.2025
Lionel Wallace, the protagonist of H.G. Wells’s The Door in the Wall (1906), was haunted by the vision of an enchanted garden glimpsed in childhood. Having eluded the vigilant and authoritative care of his nursery governess, he found himself wandering aimlessly among the long grey West Kensington roads until he… Read More
Reading Between the Lines: The Language of Structural Engineers
28.07.2025
Reading Between the Lines: The Language of Structural Engineers28.07.2025
A version of the phrase ‘engineering drawing is a universal language of signs and symbols’ appears in countless engineering drawing textbooks starting in the early twentieth century and continues today. A particularly evocative iteration published in the 1960s states: ‘[Engineering drawing] is a universal language; for the reader may be… Read More
Gio Ponti at Drawing Matter
21.07.2025
Gio Ponti at Drawing Matter21.07.2025
– Maristella Casciato and Rosie Ellison-Balaam
Gio Ponti (1891-1979) was born in Milan, and while he had ambitions to become an artist, he enrolled in architecture at the Politecnico di Milano in 1913. He completed his studies in 1921 after serving in the war, and in the same year, he opened his firm. Ponti is often… Read More
The Design Legacy of Tamar de Shalit and Arthur Goldreich
10.07.2025
The Design Legacy of Tamar de Shalit and Arthur Goldreich10.07.2025
After visiting the Tamart studio in Hoxton to see the collection of drawings by Tamar de Shalit and Arthur Goldreich, and the growing collection of furniture based on their designs, the editors asked Amos Goldreich to write this illustrated account of his parents’ remarkable lives both in South Africa and… Read More
Architecture as Poetics of Knowledge. The São Salvador de Figueredo Parish Church by Paulo Providência
03.07.2025
Architecture as Poetics of Knowledge. The São Salvador de Figueredo Parish Church by Paulo Providência03.07.2025
The book Architecture as Poetics of Knowledge is essential reading for anyone interested in Paulo Providência’s renovation of the parish church of São Salvador, Figueredo, 1992-2002, as well as for understanding his singular architectural poetics. A beautifully published suite of drawings (29 pages, including 4 foldouts) and photographs (34 pages) is supported… Read More
Studio Ponis: The Crystal and the Flame
02.07.2025
Studio Ponis: The Crystal and the Flame02.07.2025
– Irina Davidovici, Niall Hobhouse, Alex Pillen, Jonathan Sergison and Annarita Zalaffi
On Friday 20 June, Drawing Matter welcomed Annarita Zalaffi, Jonathan Sergison, Irina Davidovici, and Alex Pillen to the archive for a conversation about the work of Studio Ponis in Sardinia, and Alberto Ponis and Annarita Zalaffi’s working relationship. The conversation marked the opening of an exhibition of drawings from the… Read More
Le Corbusier at Drawing Matter
26.06.2025
Le Corbusier at Drawing Matter26.06.2025
– Maristella Casciato and Nicholas Olsberg
Born in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, 1887-1865) trained in the fine and decorative arts before undertaking travels and varied apprenticeships to develop his architectural skills, opening a studio and teaching practice in La Chaux in 1912, and moving to Paris in 1917 to work principally as a… Read More
Trevor Dannatt’s Riyadh Mosque: A Study in Sacred Space and Cultural Juxtaposition
23.06.2025
Trevor Dannatt’s Riyadh Mosque: A Study in Sacred Space and Cultural Juxtaposition23.06.2025
Saudi Arabia’s Quest for Modern Identity and the Urban Transformation of Riyadh Beginning in the 1960s, Saudi Arabia embarked on an ambitious building programme, resulting in numerous architectural projects recognised internationally for their remarkable scale as well as their innovative architectural and engineering solutions.[1] This extensive initiative gained substantial momentum from… Read More
AnnaRita Zalaffi: The Engineer at the Heart of Alberto Ponis’ Work
19.06.2025
AnnaRita Zalaffi: The Engineer at the Heart of Alberto Ponis’ Work19.06.2025
In April, Alex Pillen interviewed AnnaRita Zalaffi over the course of a day at her home in Palau, Sardinia. This text, which focuses on AnnaRita’s early life and her creative collaboration with her husband and professional partner Alberto Ponis, is published to coincide with the exhibition ‘The Crystal and the… Read More
Lisson to Tony Fretton
05.05.2025
Lisson to Tony Fretton05.05.2025
– Tony Fretton and Ricardo Aboim Inglez
Tony Fretton founded his architectural practice (Tony Fretton Architects) in 1982 in London. He came into international prominence in 1991 after the completion of the second Lisson Gallery building, transforming the street into an urban setting to be absorbed by culture. From his house in London and over two hours,… Read More
Jean Tinguely: La Vittoria
02.05.2025
Jean Tinguely: La Vittoria02.05.2025
– Editors
In 1970 Pierre Restany and Guido Le Noci, director of the Apollinaire gallery, decided to celebrate, with the help of the municipality of Milan, the tenth anniversary of the foundation of the Nouveaux Réalistes group. On 27 November, ten years after Yves Klein published his single-issue newspaper Le Dimanche 27… Read More
Trevor Dannatt: St Mary’s Grove —The Study, Pot Plants & Pottery
01.05.2025
Trevor Dannatt: St Mary’s Grove —The Study, Pot Plants & Pottery01.05.2025
Bringing the outside indoors, merging and blurring nature and culture, extending the garden into the study—such notions, a legacy of a generous North American sense of the landscape, from Fallingwater to the Case Study Houses, may have drifted into cliché but still, there is such glory to the actual open… Read More
The (Im)possible Palimpsest
10.04.2025
The (Im)possible Palimpsest10.04.2025
Preceding the Campo Marzio plan, a plate named Scenographia Campi Martii offers a clue towards an understanding of Piranesi’s work—the terminology is fundamental, the word Scenographia is purposely chosen to make a direct link to the theatrical representation and scenic design, often investigated by Piranesi. The image presented in this… Read More
In the Archive: Abattoirs, Boucheries, and Slaughterhouses
31.03.2025
In the Archive: Abattoirs, Boucheries, and Slaughterhouses31.03.2025
Click on drawings to move and enlarge. As architectural typologies, abattoirs, boucheries, and slaughterhouses embody the civilising of animal slaughter; serving as concrete expressions of the culture of animal consumption. Over time, the slaughterhouse has evolved in both its structures and perceptions, from a small-scale, craft-based operation rooted in necessity,… Read More
Curtains
28.03.2025
Curtains28.03.2025
– Petra Blaisse and Sophie Wehtje
Brief email exchanges. When meeting physically is out of the question, good old-fashioned correspondence still works, even if and for some time now, it is done electronically. This is how many of the editorial pieces on the Drawing Matter website come into being—through a chain of typed messages. It’s a… Read More
Sourcing Superstudio
04.07.2025
Sourcing Superstudio04.07.2025
– Martha Cruz
On the 21st page of Natalini’s 12th sketchbook (DMC 2141) there is a list of buildings and landmarks. It feels quite disparate at first. It begins as a chronological list of architecture’s greatest and most recognisable hits: Stonehenge… the Colosseum… the Uffizi… the Taj Mahal… Crystal Palace… the Eiffel Tower.… Read More
sketch sketchbook DMC