Category: project & building histories
Trevor Dannatt: St Mary’s Grove — Garage door trio
18 September 2023
Trevor Dannatt: St Mary’s Grove — Garage door trio18 September 2023
No sooner had I written about the door hook than my mother, sharp as ever at 98, revealed that the original had been stolen, along with parts of the front gate, presumably for their metal value. This hook was definitely her replacement, from Franchi on the Holloway Road, whilst the first… Read More
Alberto Ponis: Drawing Landscape
30 August 2023
Alberto Ponis: Drawing Landscape30 August 2023
This is film was made by team SHICHAI拾柴 for the exhibition ‘Drawing Landscape: Alberto Ponis,’ exhibited at Tongji University, Shanghai, 10 April—20 May 2023. It concludes a series of posts on Drawing Matter pairing team SHICHAI拾柴’s films with drawings from our collection; find these in the ‘related reading’ below.
Trevor Dannatt: St Mary’s Grove — Hook & Extension
28 August 2023
Trevor Dannatt: St Mary’s Grove — Hook & Extension28 August 2023
Liza Fior, whose phone was used to take these snaps (I still refuse the portable-telephone obligation), was particularly taken by this hook for the garage door, the way it hangs, the perhaps deliberate chipping into the stone, ‘I am sure he planned it’. That minute attention to the smallest thing,… Read More
Capilla Pajaritos
24 August 2023
Capilla Pajaritos24 August 2023
The following text was written by Alberto Cruz as an account of the project for a small chapel outside of Santiago (1952–3; first published in Spanish in 1954). It describes an unfolding process of design, framed around the guiding principles of observation, act, and, form—the key tenets of Cruz’s architectural… Read More
Diplomatics and Instrumentality of the Drawing / William Butterfield
21 August 2023
Diplomatics and Instrumentality of the Drawing / William Butterfield21 August 2023
This film is part of series of posts of selected papers from the study symposium at Shatwell Farm, hosted by Drawing Matter and convened by KU Leuven and TU Delft on 27 and 28 April 2023. More about the symposium, and other films and written papers, can be found here. In… Read More
Chloethiel Woodard Smith
16 August 2023
Chloethiel Woodard Smith16 August 2023
In June 2023 Kathleen James-Chakraborty, Professor of Art History at University College Dublin, gave a talk about American modernist architect and urban planner Chloethiel Woodard Smith. Part of the series ‘Rethinking Architectural Legacies’ at the Zaha Hadid Foundation, the talk was titled ‘How to Succeed as a Woman: Chloethiel Woodard… Read More
Quinta da Malagueira
11 August 2023
Quinta da Malagueira11 August 2023
In this short text Pier Vittorio Aureli reflects on Quinta da Malagueira housing project in what he sees as a potential convergence between formal principals and political intentions. Quinta da Malagueira is perhaps the last great ‘social housing project’. That is, it is the last great architectural contribution to the… Read More
Alberto Ponis: Casa Scalesciani
9 August 2023
Alberto Ponis: Casa Scalesciani9 August 2023
This is the third of a series of posts pairing films made by team SHICHAI拾柴 with drawings from the Drawing Matter Collection. The films, of houses designed by Alberto Ponis on Sardinia, were made for the exhibition ‘Drawing Landscape: Alberto Ponis,’ exhibited at Tongji University, Shanghai, 10 April—20 May 2023. View more… Read More
Frank Lloyd Wright: Memorial to the Soil
31 July 2023
Frank Lloyd Wright: Memorial to the Soil31 July 2023
The renderings for Frank Lloyd Wright’s unbuilt Memorial to the Soil (1936) show the project’s incorporation of earth berms as a major component of its design. In a sense, the earth itself became architecture. About his design, as inscribed on the pencil drawing above, Wright wrote that the project was… Read More
Trevor Dannatt: St Mary’s Grove — Stone Head & Slab
26 July 2023
Trevor Dannatt: St Mary’s Grove — Stone Head & Slab26 July 2023
A carved stone head by Theo Crosby, given as a moving-in gift back in the mid-fifties and much weathered ever since, amongst the bosky foothills of the front steps. For aesthetic law insists that ‘outdoor’ sculpture must be shown as such and allowed to return to nature, obeying its original… Read More
Architecture and Real Abstraction: Adler & Sullivan
12 September 2023
Architecture and Real Abstraction: Adler & Sullivan12 September 2023
– Francesco Marullo
This film is part of series of posts of selected papers from the study symposium at Shatwell Farm, hosted by Drawing Matter and convened by KU Leuven and TU Delft on 27 and 28 April 2023. More about the symposium, and other films and written papers, can be found here. The… Read More
symposium april 2023 (series) industry & infrastructure construction drawing