Category: project & building histories
Owen Luder: Sunderland Stadium
29.05.2026
Owen Luder: Sunderland Stadium29.05.2026
Apart from the extraordinary dynamism of the composition, one of the most striking things about this drawing of Owen Luder’s design for a new stadium for Sunderland A.F.C. is that the people heading towards the turnstiles aren’t wearing red and white. Indeed, the figures are not your usual football fans—today,… 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: 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.
Siza on Paper (Exhibition + Talk)
18.05.2026
Siza on Paper (Exhibition + Talk)18.05.2026
– Editors
On Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 March, Drawing Matter presented an exhibition of drawings by the Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza. The exhibition focused on Siza as a designer of public housing after the Carnation Revolution (1974) and his approaches to drawing. At the centre of the exhibition were three housing… Read More
Protected: Unseen Bodies
12.05.2026
Protected: Unseen Bodies12.05.2026
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Uncommon References: Le Corbusier, the Primal and the Flesh of Matter
07.05.2026
Uncommon References: Le Corbusier, the Primal and the Flesh of Matter07.05.2026
– João Miguel Couto Duarte and Maria João Moreira Soares
In 1950, Le Corbusier began designing the Chapel of Notre-Dame du Haut in Ronchamp. Le Corbusier wrote that it represented ‘Liberté’ (freedom).[1] Totally free architecture. A veritable phenomenon of visual acoustics. That freedom affected one visitor in 1955: ‘the sacred building stood in the landscape like an extraterrestrial object, leaving… Read More
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.
The Incessant Power of Drawings
05.05.2026
The Incessant Power of Drawings05.05.2026
We have come to doubt the real necessity of being exposed to original artefacts, as we find ourselves drowned in a deluge of endless reproductions. Why bother visiting galleries and museums when one can check stuff on the web? A picture of teenagers scrolling their cellphones in front of a… Read More
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
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.
Chandigarh’s Forgotten Modernists
23.04.2026
Chandigarh’s Forgotten Modernists23.04.2026
– Maristella Casciato, Eashan Chaufla, Deepika Gandhi and Vikramaditya Prakash
The following conversation took place to mark the opening of Chandigarh’s Indian Modernists at the Government Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh (28 February–25 April 2026). The exhibition was curated by Deepika Gandhi, Eashan Chaufla, Vikramaditya Prakash, and Maristella Casciato. The text is illustrated with objects included in the exhibition. What… Read More
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
The House Stands Still While Life Moves
17.04.2026
The House Stands Still While Life Moves17.04.2026
The house has a floor sticky like honey; our feet cling to it and we cannot get away from it. The house is a rucksack so huge and full on our shoulders that every movement becomes impossible. The house is an unconditional refuge for those who fear all the mishaps… 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
Protected: James Gowan’s Schreiber House
19.03.2026
Protected: James Gowan’s Schreiber House19.03.2026
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
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
Massinissa Selmani
09.03.2026
Massinissa Selmani 09.03.2026
The nomination of the Algerian artist Massinissa Selmani for the 2023 Prix Marcel Duchamp was an official acknowledgement that a practice grounded primarily in pencil drawing on paper on a modest scale can constitute a major contribution to contemporary art.[1] In Selmani’s abbreviated aesthetic, weighty ideas are carried by the… Read More
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
Het woonpalazzo – The Residential Palazzo
16.02.2026
Het woonpalazzo – The Residential Palazzo16.02.2026
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
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