Category: project & building histories
The Empire State Building: Elevators (1931)
13 October 2020
The Empire State Building: Elevators (1931)13 October 2020
The following was first published as ‘The Empire State Building: Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, Architects: VIII. Elevators’, Architectural Forum (January 1931). Drawing Matter would like to thank Nicholas Olsberg for sending us this text. Digital copies of Architectural Forum’s series on the Empire State Building can be found at usmodernist.org.
Trees Make A Plan
7 October 2020
Trees Make A Plan7 October 2020
By Sylvia Lavin
In 1546, Antonio da Sangallo the Younger died of malaria while working in Umbria about 100 kilometres north of Rome. Unlike Claude Perrault, who in 1688 also contracted a fatal infection as part of his work – the source of his malady is said to have been a camel he… Read More
Paul László: Hertz Fallout Shelter
31 August 2020
Paul László: Hertz Fallout Shelter31 August 2020
The mid-century architect Paul László knew what it was like to live in uncertain times. He served in both world wars, first for his native land and then for his adopted country. He was Hungarian-born and schooled in Vienna, and his earliest notable achievements were in Germany. László began to… Read More
Just Begin: The Convent Sainte-Marie-de-la-Tourette
28 July 2020
Just Begin: The Convent Sainte-Marie-de-la-Tourette28 July 2020
By Stan Allen and José Oubrerie
‘The first line on paper,’ Louis Kahn once said, ‘is already a measure of what cannot be expressed fully.’ This captures perfectly the anxiety of beginnings: not what is to be expressed, but everything that will be left out, and an inevitable sense of loss over all the unexplored possibilities.… Read More
Dating Siza: The Malagueira ‘Cupula’
23 July 2020
Dating Siza: The Malagueira ‘Cupula’23 July 2020
The unbuilt half-dome (referred to by the architect as the ‘cupula’) at the Quinta da Malagueira is the subject of a protracted design process that has lasted for over four decades. At the start of 2020, Álvaro Siza sent a drawing of the half-dome to Drawing Matter accompanied by letter… Read More
OMA in Scheveningen
22 July 2020
OMA in Scheveningen22 July 2020
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
Venice Biennale (1985)
14 July 2020
Venice Biennale (1985)14 July 2020
By Dario Passi
The third edition of the Venice Biennale in 1985, ‘Progetto Venezia’, directed by Aldo Rossi, had two major themes: the priority given to the moment of planning and the comparison with the Venetian landscape. For the 1985 exhibition, architects were invited to display their designs for the ‘requalification or the… Read More
Notes on Port Royal, Jamaica
7 July 2020
Notes on Port Royal, Jamaica7 July 2020
By Paul Cox
My parents Oliver and Jean Cox were devoted ‘Jamaicophiles’, having worked on many projects in the country since the 1960s. One of the most enduring and absorbing was a proposed redevelopment of Port Royal as a renewal and upgrade of the historic city, rebuilding and restoring while making an interesting… Read More
Philip Johnson on Mies (1974)
25 June 2020
Philip Johnson on Mies (1974)25 June 2020
The Berlin Building Exposition of 1931 was the largest of its kind ever to be held. With Teutonic thoroughness every material, every method, every theory that had to do with building was shown in the Exposition. The result of this thoroughness, plus an extraordinary lack of funds for proper presentation,… Read More
Soane: Energy and Frustration
24 June 2020
Soane: Energy and Frustration24 June 2020
By Ptolemy Dean
This seemingly benign-looking plan is in fact a thrilling drawing. It shows Sir John Soane’s cerebral struggles in attempting to resolve a number of key competing design elements in the planning of a country house. The drawing exudes energy and frustration. The challenge of designing buildings symmetrically is hard work… Read More
The Story of the Pool (1978)
19 June 2020
The Story of the Pool (1978)19 June 2020
By Rem Koolhaas
In the appendix to Delirious New York, Rem Koolhaas’s retroactive manifesto for the island of Manhattan, the tacit logic of ‘Manhattanism’ is set free from its origins in the form of five architectural projects: The City of the Captive Globe, Hotel Sphinx, New Welfare Island, the Welfare Palace Hotel and the Floating Pool. Four of these… Read More
Raymond Erith On Soane at Tendring Hall
13 October 2020
Raymond Erith On Soane at Tendring Hall13 October 2020
By Pierre du Prey
The following notes were composed by Pierre du Prey to accompany his gift of the sketches pictured above to Drawing Matter, 16 September 2020. The circumstances surrounding two detailed sketches by Raymond Erithof the John Soane gate lodges at Tendring Hall, Suffolk, remain stronglyimpressed on the tablets of my memory.… Read More
sketch concept & diagram