Category: project & building histories
The Utzons go to Stockholm
17.01.2025
The Utzons go to Stockholm17.01.2025
‘…my parents went to visit the grand exhibition in Stockholm in 1930. Here the Scandinavian functionalism had its breakthrough in a society of exceedingly ornate style. Here [in Stockholm] they were exposed to a new and simple, white architecture that drew in light and air, one that let in the… Read More
E. W. Godwin and the Mild Mild West
13.01.2025
E. W. Godwin and the Mild Mild West13.01.2025
From this drawing it would seem unlikely that the side elevation at its centre would one day be photographed thousands of times and attract the interest of people from all over the world. It appears unremarkable, especially when compared to the gutsy brick detailing and gothic flourishes of the building’s… Read More
Two Lectures at Drawing Research Platform, Somerset, 2024, ENAC Summer Workshop
19.12.2024
Two Lectures at Drawing Research Platform, Somerset, 2024, ENAC Summer Workshop19.12.2024
The following text is a brief reflection on two lectures delivered at Shatwell Farm in August 2024 as part of the ENAC EPFL Drawing Research Platform. To read the students’ reflections and view their drawings, click here. To read an account of the week, click here. The two lectures at… Read More
Drawing as Signature: Paul Rudolph and the Perspective Section
12.12.2024
Drawing as Signature: Paul Rudolph and the Perspective Section12.12.2024
The following text delves into the drawing of the perspective section—a spatial and structural design tool as well as a specific type of architectural representation—through the drawings of Paul Rudolph, while also reflecting on a post-war Modern era of architectural design-thinking. The text is included in Reassessing Rudolph, ed. by… Read More
The Improvising Bouwmeester,* or: How Raymaekers’ Buildings Got Built
05.12.2024
The Improvising Bouwmeester,* or: How Raymaekers’ Buildings Got Built 05.12.2024
– Arne Vande Capelle, Stijn Colon, Lionel Devlieger and James Westcott
The following text first appeared in Arne Vande Capelle, Stijn Colon, Lionel Devlieger, and James Westcott, Ad Hoc Baroque: Marcel Raymaekers’ Salvage Architecture in Postwar Belgium (Brussels: Rotor, 2023), 168, 174-178. *Master builder, from the middle ages, responsible for materials, design, construction, workforce, and client liaison.[1] Raymaekers rejected the modern diminution of the architect’s… Read More
Swimming in Pixel Fuzz
28.11.2024
Swimming in Pixel Fuzz28.11.2024
– Will Fu
In 1979, the community of Riehen in Switzerland toured an indoor and outdoor swimming pool proposal by Herzog & de Meuron in the comfort of their private dwellings. Shared as a TV still of a video simulation, the shadowy figures and pliable ceiling surfaces, finished with a grainy wash of… Read More
Cedric Price: Parc de la Villette
18.11.2024
Cedric Price: Parc de la Villette18.11.2024
The following account looks into the drawing DMC 1438 related to Price’s Parc de la Villette competition entry, to quest for the modes in which this media object resituates his design approach of design for pleasure, not only as the evolution of his practice, but crucially as part of an… Read More
On Origins and Originality
15.11.2024
On Origins and Originality15.11.2024
The following text by Niall Hobhouse is included in the exhibition catalogue for Begin Again. Fail Better: Preliminary Drawings in Architecture. The exhibition, previously shown at the Kunstmuseum in Olten, opened at EPFL on the 5th of November and will close on the 2nd of December 2024. It includes nearly 100 drawings from… Read More
Fuglsang Kunstmuseum: Facts and Interpretation in Staging a Museum
11.11.2024
Fuglsang Kunstmuseum: Facts and Interpretation in Staging a Museum11.11.2024
The following text was first published in OASE #111: Staging the Museum (2022). Drawing Matter would like to thank Tony Fretton and the issue’s editors Aslı Çiçek, Jantje Engels, and Maarten Liefooghe, for allowing us to reproduce the text. Purchase a copy of OASE #111 here. Fuglsang Kunstmuseum is located on the… Read More
In the Archive: Riefenstahl, Hitler, Ebhardt, Sironi, Brasini
04.11.2024
In the Archive: Riefenstahl, Hitler, Ebhardt, Sironi, Brasini04.11.2024
Click on drawings to move and enlarge. Premiered at this year’s La Biennale di Venezia, was Andres Veiel’s documentary on Leni Riefenstahl, the German film director known for Olympia (1936) and Triumph des Willens (1935). Framed through archival material Veil’s Riefenstahl (2024) demonstrates how her work was inextricably linked to… Read More
OMA: Rem Koolhaas—Initiative
31.10.2024
OMA: Rem Koolhaas—Initiative31.10.2024
This is the sixth and final post, in the series titled OMA CONVERSATIONS. The series is the result of a collaboration between Drawing Matter and architect Richard Hall who, over the past two years, has conducted twenty-three in-depth conversations with key collaborators working with OMA during its formative years. Drawing… Read More
Goldfinger—Planning Your Neighbourhood
14.10.2024
Goldfinger—Planning Your Neighbourhood14.10.2024
At first glance Planning Your Neighbourhood appears as a series of prints in a case, and its use is unclear. This series of twenty prints was created by modernist architect Ernö Goldfinger, artist Ursula Blackwell, illustrator Shiela Hawkins, landscape architect Peter Shepheard and their assistant Martin Cobbett. Rather than solely… Read More
Retreat and Commemoration: Heath’s Court, 1878–82 – Part 3
10.10.2024
Retreat and Commemoration: Heath’s Court, 1878–82 – Part 310.10.2024
This post concludes Nicholas Olsberg’s series on William Butterfield’s Heath’s Court project, the text of which is included in his new book The Master Builder: William Butterfield and his Times to be published by Lund Humphries in October 2024. ‘Sounding corridors’: entry and sequence The driveway brings us into a… Read More
Streetscapes: Bath
07.10.2024
Streetscapes: Bath07.10.2024
The following text is excerpted from Ptolemy Dean’s new book Streetscapes: Navigating Historic English Towns, published by Lund Humphries. Find out more about the book and purchase a copy here. ‘Bath is, beyond any question, the loveliest of English cities’, wrote Walter Ison, whose 1948 work on the city continued:… Read More
Retreat and Commemoration: Heath’s Court, 1878–82 – Part 2
03.10.2024
Retreat and Commemoration: Heath’s Court, 1878–82 – Part 203.10.2024
This post continues with the second part of Nicholas Olsberg’s text on William Butterfield’s Heath’s Court project, included in his new book The Master Builder: William Butterfield and his Times to be published by Lund Humphries in October 2024. ‘Cycles of the human tale’: the library The elevation of the… Read More
OMA: Collaborators—Allies
30.09.2024
OMA: Collaborators—Allies30.09.2024
This is the fifth post, in a series of six, titled OMA CONVERSATIONS. The series is the result of a collaboration between Drawing Matter and architect Richard Hall who, over the past two years, has conducted twenty-three in-depth conversations with key collaborators working with OMA during its formative years. Drawing… Read More
Retreat and Commemoration: Heath’s Court, 1878–82 – Part 1
23.09.2024
Retreat and Commemoration: Heath’s Court, 1878–82 – Part 123.09.2024
William Butterfield’s architectural practice, spanning the entire Victorian era, is the focus of Nicholas Olsberg’s new book The Master Builder: William Butterfield and his Times to be published by Lund Humphries in October 2024. Over the next three weeks, Drawing Matter will reproduce a chapter within The Master Builder that focuses… Read More
A Poetic Peak: Architecture and planning at the AA in the 1930s
16.09.2024
A Poetic Peak: Architecture and planning at the AA in the 1930s16.09.2024
– Editors and John Summerson
In 2022, Drawing Matter acquired nearly 100 drawings by the architect and urban planner Elizabeth Chesterton. Mostly for projects done while studying at the Architectural Association (1933–38), the group includes drawing exercises, such as colour theory, sciography and graphic design, and a wide variety of buildings at different scales, from… Read More
DMJ – Sir John Soane’s Office
09.09.2024
DMJ – Sir John Soane’s Office09.09.2024
Sir John Soane’s drawing offices at Nos 12 and 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields were the fulcrum of his practice between 1794 and his retirement in 1833. His unique surviving ‘upper’ office was restored in 2022–23. In this article, I will trace the history of the office and recount its use… Read More
Wolkenbügel: El Lissitzky as Architect
02.09.2024
Wolkenbügel: El Lissitzky as Architect02.09.2024
– Richard Anderson and Markus Lähteenmäki
It was in a room without windows and walls of bare concrete, in the basement of one of the ETH buildings on its suburban campus in Hönggerberg Zürich, where I first heard about this book project from its author. Not another book on El Lissitzky, I remember thinking, when he… Read More
OMA: Big Competitions—Reorienting the Modern Project
29.08.2024
OMA: Big Competitions—Reorienting the Modern Project29.08.2024
This is the fourth post, in a series of six, titled OMA CONVERSATIONS. The series is the result of a collaboration between Drawing Matter and architect Richard Hall who, over the past two years, has conducted twenty-three in-depth conversations with key collaborators working with OMA during its formative years. Drawing… Read More
Drawings as Cosmovisions
12.08.2024
Drawings as Cosmovisions12.08.2024
My decision to become an architect was triggered by my love of drawing. But during my university years in the 1990s, when digital techniques became widespread, nothing was more distant than the relationship between architecture and manual drawing. Without hand-drawn images, the connection between the body and ideas was gone,… Read More
The Future of the Past: The ‘Round Church’, Cambridge
09.08.2024
The Future of the Past: The ‘Round Church’, Cambridge09.08.2024
The war to restore to churches ritual and at the same time architectural dignity was waged by one man and one society, the man being a fervent convert to Catholicism, the society calling itself Catholic too, but meaning what is called Anglo-Catholic. They operated independently, but appreciated one another. The… Read More
José Oubrerie, In Memoriam
21.11.2024
José Oubrerie, In Memoriam21.11.2024
– Luis Burriel Bielza
Very few contemporary buildings take nearly 50 years to be finished. Just this fact tells us a lot about the intensity, resilience, passion and patience of José Oubrerie, who passed away on March 10th, at 91. Aged only 27 when joining the atelier Le Corbusier in 1959, the church of… Read More