Category: project & building histories
On Tony Fretton and the Lisson Gallery
5 February 2021
On Tony Fretton and the Lisson Gallery5 February 2021
A conversation with Nicholas Logsdail, standing in the farmyard at Shatwell, on the day he came with Freeny Yanni her sons Yanis and Cassius Hammick, to look at Tony Fretton’s sketchbooks for the Lisson Gallery. By way of response, Tony gives us his account of the genesis of the commission.… Read More
Drawing the Curtain: Entangling rendering and theatrical space
2 February 2021
Drawing the Curtain: Entangling rendering and theatrical space2 February 2021
Pliny the Elder recounted the following story in Naturalis Historia: The two great painters of classical Greece, Zeuxis and Parrhasius staged a contest to determine the greater painter. When Zeuxis unveiled his painting, the grapes he depicted appeared so real that a bird flew down to peck at them. When… Read More
Drawing Sacred Forests and Courtyards in South Benin
29 January 2021
Drawing Sacred Forests and Courtyards in South Benin29 January 2021
The following conversation between the editors of Accattone and Quentin Nicolaï was first published in Accattone 6 (2019). It documents research carried out by Quentin Nicolaï in Abomey, Benin, between January 2014 and June 2018. Drawing Matter would like to thank the author and the magazine’s editors for allowing us reproduce… Read More
Two Early Paintings with OMA
25 January 2021
Two Early Paintings with OMA25 January 2021
Here, Zoe Zenghelis, painter and founding member of OMA, recalls the making of two paintings now in the Drawing Matter collection. The first, pictured below, is an aerial view of the unbuilt Hotel Therma, and the second is a version of OMA’s entry to the Parc de la Villette competition.… Read More
Zahalternative Histories: O’Donnell + Tuomey on Zaha Hadid
19 January 2021
Zahalternative Histories: O’Donnell + Tuomey on Zaha Hadid19 January 2021
From a sheet of sketches by Zaha Hadid to rock formations at Ines Meáin and St Brigid’s Well, in this short film John Tuomey explains the thinking behind O’Donnell + Tuomey’s Alternative Histories model. This commentary is the first in a series organised by the Irish Architectural Archive. The series,… Read More
Aldo Rossi: Divination of a Drawing
18 January 2021
Aldo Rossi: Divination of a Drawing18 January 2021
‘With the instinct of a water-diviner, he begins to search, and that which is inside… begins to simmer to the surface.’ – Giorgio De Chirico This is a short meditation on an enigmatic drawing by Aldo Rossi. The drawing is framed as a stacked layering of three architectural elements whose… Read More
Pan Scroll Zoom 6: Emily Wettstein
18 January 2021
Pan Scroll Zoom 6: Emily Wettstein18 January 2021
– Fabrizio Gallanti and Emily Wettstein
This is the sixth in a series of texts edited by Fabrizio Gallanti on the challenges in the new world of online architectural teaching and, particularly, on the changing role of drawings in presentations and reviews. In this episode Fabrizio interviews Emily Wettstein, Design Critic in Landscape Architecture at Harvard University GSD. The… Read More
The Discreet Charm of the Bureaucratic
13 January 2021
The Discreet Charm of the Bureaucratic13 January 2021
When Henry-Russell Hitchcock drew a crooked line between the architecture of genius and the architecture of bureaucracy in a famous essay of 1947, he could hardly have predicted that within two decades, neo-avant-gardists around the world would embrace bureaucratic architecture because of its liberatory capacities—precisely the opposite reading of what… Read More
Thomas Chippendale and Ornament
13 January 2021
Thomas Chippendale and Ornament13 January 2021
‘[Ornament] omitted at pleasure,’ wrote Thomas Chippendale in a guide to his revolutionary The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker’s Director, the first furniture pattern book of its kind. Although initially considered an advertising tool, it quickly became an invaluable manual for craftsmen, with its clear dimensions and rigorously proportioned pieces open… Read More
The Fun Palace: Light Adaptation
8 January 2021
The Fun Palace: Light Adaptation8 January 2021
Techniques of architectural drawing have been developed according to the physics of light and our perception of its effects. From the origins of two-dimensional representation – often mythologized in the act of tracing a projected silhouette on a flat surface – to practices of atmospheric simulation in rendering, recognized patterns of light have become essential in the communication of architecture’s spatial… Read More
Writing Prize 2020: Architectural Apparitions
7 January 2021
Writing Prize 2020: Architectural Apparitions7 January 2021
Some dreams are never meant to see the light of day. Like a wild design that continually finds itself at the bottom of the roster, patiently waiting its turn to be a part of the city’s skyline, it either promises to burn a hole in the pocket of the investor,… Read More
Shower at Shatwell Farm
21 December 2020
Shower at Shatwell Farm21 December 2020
Being a designer and adherent of adhocism – speed, economy, improvisation and learning-as-you-go – the materials I use have a strong influence on the outcome of my work. This completely dovetailed with Niall’s brief: to design and build an outdoor toilet and shower for occasional scholars occupying the library at… Read More
Anna Atkins: Laying Out the Blueprints
21 December 2020
Anna Atkins: Laying Out the Blueprints21 December 2020
They began to bloom on websites a couple of years or so ago – stretching out on social media, unfurling in the arts sections. Pale alien shapes suspended in deep blue: something like lightning flattened in a flower press; a sleeping creature emerging from a cloud of coral; a spectral… Read More
Soane’s Temple Stye
16 December 2020
Soane’s Temple Stye16 December 2020
A temple for pigs? for swine? for hogs? Not a temple to worship them in, nor a temple for them to be sacrificed in. A temple for them to live in. These are not the pigs which invented their own form of latin, or those powerful Orwellian pigs, but normal… Read More
Writing Prize 2020: The Anatomy of an Oyster Theatre
14 December 2020
Writing Prize 2020: The Anatomy of an Oyster Theatre14 December 2020
In the beginning, there was only a shell. An empty shell. But we could already sense the contours of its elliptical shape, its multilayered protective envelope, stratified, laminated, like the bark of a tree (a). Slowly, the outer flaps of the carapace would move away from each other, vertically sweeping… Read More
Pan Scroll Zoom 4: Pezo von Ellrichshausen
18 November 2020
Pan Scroll Zoom 4: Pezo von Ellrichshausen18 November 2020
– Sofia von Ellrichshausen, Fabrizio Gallanti and Mauricio Pezo
This is the fourth in a series of texts edited by Fabrizio Gallanti on the challenges in the new world of online architectural teaching and, particularly, on the changing role of drawings in presentations and reviews. In this episode Fabrizio interviews Mauricio Pezo and Sofia von Ellrichshausen of Pezo von… Read More
Sigurd Lewerentz: Siting the Axonometric
17 November 2020
Sigurd Lewerentz: Siting the Axonometric17 November 2020
One way to think about an axonometric drawing is as a perspective with the vanishing point at infinity. This means that the lines of projection are parallel, which assures dimensional consistency. Early treatises, for example, spoke of parallel projection as analogous to shadows cast by the sun; not, strictly speaking,… Read More
Paolo Portoghesi: the Field Theory
9 November 2020
Paolo Portoghesi: the Field Theory9 November 2020
Architects mediate the complexity of the world and their ideas through different instrumental modalities. Whether perspective drawings, proportional relationships, descriptive geometry, material prototypes, scaled models, maquettes or three-dimensional models – models serve the purpose of collecting and indexing information into measurable and rational systems so that the architectural project can… Read More
Tree Speech
7 November 2020
Tree Speech7 November 2020
The following text is the fourth of a series of four essays on trees in architectural drawings by Sylvia Lavin. The essays were first published in Log 49 (Summer 2020). Drawing Matter would like to thank the author and the journal’s editors for allowing us reproduce the essays on www.drawingmatter.org.… Read More
Startha Éagsula: Níall McLaughlin Architects on Basil Spence
4 November 2020
Startha Éagsula: Níall McLaughlin Architects on Basil Spence4 November 2020
This text has been excerpted from Startha Éagsula / Alternative Histories (2020), a companion catalogue to Alternative Histories (2019) and published to accompany the third installation of Alternative Histories at the Irish Architectural Archive. Startha Éagsula / Alternative Histories is now available to purchase from Drawing Matter’s bookshop, here. The… Read More
Writing Prize 2020: Held Fast: SITE’s Ghost Parking Lot
3 November 2020
Writing Prize 2020: Held Fast: SITE’s Ghost Parking Lot3 November 2020
The scene might not appear unusual at first: cars are parked in a row near a commercial building with pedestrians passing on a sidewalk. On closer examination, though, the edges of the finely crosshatched cars appear softer than those of the building and roads. The cars seem to be draped… Read More
Trees Push Back
3 November 2020
Trees Push Back3 November 2020
The following text is the third of a series of four essays on trees in architectural drawings by Sylvia Lavin. The essays were first published in Log 49 (Summer 2020). Drawing Matter would like to thank the author and the journal’s editors for allowing us reproduce the essays on www.drawingmatter.org.… Read More
Writing Prize 2020: The Best Future
2 November 2020
Writing Prize 2020: The Best Future2 November 2020
When James Wines was commissioned to design a series of big-box-retail sheds for ‘Best Products’—a now defunct chain of mail-order catalogue showrooms—it couldn’t have seemed illustrious. A shed’s objective is to enclose maximum space for minimum cost. The only real design element is the front facade, typically topped with a… Read More
Sir John Soane’s Museum: Bound Legacy
9 February 2021
Sir John Soane’s Museum: Bound Legacy9 February 2021
– Alexandra Politis
John Britton, a topographer and antiquarian by trade, began preparations to publish a guidebook to John Soane’s house-museum in 1825. The earliest mention of such an endeavour appears in a letter to Soane dated 3 November, in which Britton outlines his desire to ‘produce a vol to surprise the public, and… Read More
DMC plan section elevation publication correspondence letters ephemera drawing matter writing prize 2020