Category: project & building histories
Drawing Conversations: Letters to Clients
26.10.2022
Drawing Conversations: Letters to Clients26.10.2022
In October 1925 Le Corbusier wrote to his client Madame Meyer a remarkable letter about his proposal with Pierre Jeanneret for her villa. It combined drawings with a highly scripted text that carefully guided her through each space, from the entrance to the roof garden. Like the pioneers of early… Read More
Krier/Culot: Architecture, language and process (1977)
07.09.2022
Krier/Culot: Architecture, language and process (1977)07.09.2022
The essay by Robert Maxwell linked below was sent to Drawing Matter by Celia Scott earlier this year. It was first published in Architectural Design, March 1977, as part of a longer feature titled ‘The Role of Ideology’, which discussed the theme through the writing of the architect and historian… Read More
Lenin’s Tomb, the Second Version
05.09.2022
Lenin’s Tomb, the Second Version05.09.2022
– Niall Hobhouse and Markus Lähteenmäki
The following email exchange took place between Niall Hobhouse, founder of Drawing Matter, and Markus Lähteenmäki in July 2022. Dear Markus, Came across these here in the archive… from god knows where exactly. Thought you might have something to say – had forgotten that it was originally ‘dummied’ in wood.… Read More
Mies van der Rohe and the Universal Space Project
30.08.2022
Mies van der Rohe and the Universal Space Project30.08.2022
I must say that I was far more riveted by another Mies . . . who, in perfect International Style manner continued to insist on architecture and the production of truth as generated by a set of a priori and universalizing laws, and who was caught up in the entirely… Read More
Turning Point: The US Embassy in Dublin
17.08.2022
Turning Point: The US Embassy in Dublin17.08.2022
This is an extract of the construction drawings produced by John M. Johansen’s office in 1963 for the cylindrical US Embassy in Dublin. It is a three-dimensional ink drawing of the external precast concrete structure, describing two single-storey bays in isolation. Viewed abstractly it could almost be an anatomical study,… Read More
Power & Public Space 9: Ana Bonet Miró – Fun Palace
03.08.2022
Power & Public Space 9: Ana Bonet Miró – Fun Palace03.08.2022
– Matthew Blunderfield and Ana Bonet Miró
Power & Public Space is a podcast from Drawing Matter and the Architecture Foundation hosted by Matthew Blunderfield. You can find the full podcast series here. Or listen now: Since its conception in the 1960s, the Fun Palace has circulated widely in architecture culture, and mainly through its provocative collages, characterised… Read More
Power & Public Space 8: Markus LäHteenmäki – Lev Rudnev’s Monument to the Victims of the Revolution
29.07.2022
Power & Public Space 8: Markus LäHteenmäki – Lev Rudnev’s Monument to the Victims of the Revolution29.07.2022
– Matthew Blunderfield and Markus Lähteenmäki
Power & Public Space is a podcast from Drawing Matter and the Architecture Foundation hosted by Matthew Blunderfield. You can find the full podcast series here. Or listen now: Markus Lähteenmäki’s research explores, in part, how architecture became instrumental in the societal and cultural transformations that took place in revolutionary Russia. … Read More
Power & Public Space 7: Mabel O. Wilson – Memorial to Enslaved Labourers, University of Virginia
27.07.2022
Power & Public Space 7: Mabel O. Wilson – Memorial to Enslaved Labourers, University of Virginia27.07.2022
– Matthew Blunderfield and Mabel O. Wilson
Power & Public Space is a podcast from Drawing Matter and the Architecture Foundation hosted by Matthew Blunderfield. You can find the full podcast series here. Or listen now: In 2020 The Memorial to Enslaved Labourers opened at the University of Virginia, designed as a collaboration between Höweler+Yoon Architecture, Mabel O.… Read More
Power & Public Space 6: André Patrão – Eisenman, Derrida, and Chora L Works (Parc de la Villette)
22.07.2022
Power & Public Space 6: André Patrão – Eisenman, Derrida, and Chora L Works (Parc de la Villette)22.07.2022
– Matthew Blunderfield and André Patrão
Power & Public Space is a podcast from Drawing Matter and the Architecture Foundation hosted by Matthew Blunderfield. You can find the full podcast series here. Or listen now: Parc de la Villette was emblematic of the strong ties made between the disciplines of architecture and philosophy in the 1980s, where… Read More
Power & Public Space 5: Mark Wallinger – State Britain
20.07.2022
Power & Public Space 5: Mark Wallinger – State Britain20.07.2022
– Matthew Blunderfield and Mark Wallinger
Power & Public Space is a podcast from Drawing Matter and the Architecture Foundation hosted by Matthew Blunderfield. You can find the full podcast series here. Or listen now: Much of Mark Wallinger’s art exists in public space. He’s made films and performance pieces set in tube stations and airports, and… Read More
Power & Public Space 4: Jonas Žukauskas – Forest Parts
15.07.2022
Power & Public Space 4: Jonas Žukauskas – Forest Parts15.07.2022
– Matthew Blunderfield and Jonas Žukauskas
Power & Public Space is a podcast from Drawing Matter and the Architecture Foundation hosted by Matthew Blunderfield. You can find the full podcast series here. Or listen now: When we think about public space, we tend to consider the street, the plaza, the park or the square – urban spaces… Read More
Power & Public Space 3: Manuel Herz – Babyn Yar Synagogue
13.07.2022
Power & Public Space 3: Manuel Herz – Babyn Yar Synagogue13.07.2022
– Matthew Blunderfield and Manuel Herz
Power & Public Space is a podcast from Drawing Matter and the Architecture Foundation hosted by Matthew Blunderfield. You can find the full podcast series here. Or listen now: Last year the Swiss practice Manuel Herz Architects completed a wooden synagogue West of Kyiv at Babyn Yar, the site of one… Read More
Power & Public Space 2: Lauren Bon – Bending the River Back to the City
08.07.2022
Power & Public Space 2: Lauren Bon – Bending the River Back to the City08.07.2022
– Matthew Blunderfield and Lauren Bon
Power & Public Space is a podcast from Drawing Matter and the Architecture Foundation hosted by Matthew Blunderfield. You can find the full podcast series here. Or listen now: The concrete-lined LA River was built on top of a sprawling floodplain, which the land artist Lauren Bon seeks to reveal through… Read More
Power & Public Space 1: Liza Fior – The Dalston Eastern Curve Garden
06.07.2022
Power & Public Space 1: Liza Fior – The Dalston Eastern Curve Garden06.07.2022
– Matthew Blunderfield and Liza Fior
Power & Public Space is a podcast from Drawing Matter and the Architecture Foundation hosted by Matthew Blunderfield. You can find the full podcast series here. Or listen now: The Dalston Eastern Curve garden began as a meanwhile scheme, but over the past decade has embedded itself at the centre of… Read More
Jan Tschichold and El Lissitzky: Foto-Auge (Photo-eye)
29.06.2022
Jan Tschichold and El Lissitzky: Foto-Auge (Photo-eye)29.06.2022
Although not a member of the Deutscher Werkbund (DWB), Jan Tschichold was appointed to the selection committee for the Werkbund’s Film und Foto exhibition (FiFo), to be held in Stuttgart between May and June 1929. FiFo was one of the most ambitious attempts to showcase recent developments in photography. The… Read More
Workshop: On Siza’s March ’77 Sketchbook
22.06.2022
Workshop: On Siza’s March ’77 Sketchbook22.06.2022
This audio recording documents a workshop on Álvaro Siza’s Malagueira sketchbook delivered by Manuel Montenegro to Masters students from the School of Engineering and Architecture, Fribourg, and their tutors Patricia Guaita and Raffael Baur. The sketchbook is a record of Siza’s thoughts and responses over three days in 1977, on… Read More
Benjamin Wistar Morris and a new Metropolitan Opera House
10.06.2022
Benjamin Wistar Morris and a new Metropolitan Opera House10.06.2022
A recent acquisition of six drawings by the American architect Benjamin Wistar Morris reveals his long involvement with one of the most important urban projects of the twentieth century. Morris’s role in this project was a highlight of his career although he has not been widely associated with it. A… Read More
The Anatomy of the Architectural Book: Magical Moves
06.06.2022
The Anatomy of the Architectural Book: Magical Moves06.06.2022
In 1586 Domenico Fontana completed the extraordinary task, commissioned by Pope Sixtus V, of moving the Vatican obelisk. The structure was said to have a ‘mysterious magic of an unknown civilization’, accepted by Christians due to the belief that it had witnessed the martyrdom of Saint Peter. In this text, André… Read More
Les Fêtes de Nuit (1937)
30.05.2022
Les Fêtes de Nuit (1937)30.05.2022
This is the best concise account of the technical sophistication behind the light and water installations created along and beside the Seine, for the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (1937). We have added a group of gouache drawings by the architect René-André Coulon, made in the design phase for… Read More
Clancy Moore: Less is more
24.05.2022
Clancy Moore: Less is more24.05.2022
This linked text is part of an ongoing series that records the building projects undertaken at Shatwell Farm. For more on the Shatwell Project, click here.
William Dickinson’s Pocketbook: Rethinking Drawing & practice in Early C18th England
18.05.2022
William Dickinson’s Pocketbook: Rethinking Drawing & practice in Early C18th England18.05.2022
During the upheavals of the Civil War, Westminster Abbey had functioned as the church of the state for the Commonwealth. Upon the Restoration of Charles II, the Abbey resumed its historic role as the coronation church for English monarchs. [1] Parliament voted towards restoring the fabric, reinstituting its monarchical function… Read More
Heinz Isler Model
02.11.2022
Heinz Isler Model02.11.2022
– John Chilton and Paul Shepherd
This text was written by Paul Shepherd. The interjections, in italic, are additions by his friend and Heinz Isler expert John Chilton. If you go down to the woods today… Since our son was away on Scout camp all weekend, my plans for Sunday involved a much-needed lie-in and an… Read More
concept & diagram DMC