Category: reviews
Luc Deleu & T.O.P. OFFICE: Future Plans, 1970–2020 (2021) – Review
07.07.2021
Luc Deleu & T.O.P. OFFICE: Future Plans, 1970–2020 (2021) – Review07.07.2021
Future Plans is one of those titles with double and ambiguous meanings. Not exactly as twofold as the most famous ‘The Architecture of the City’ but maybe leaving us equally free to choose. Is the term ‘future’ to be considered as an adjective or a subject? Does this book thus… Read More
Jesús Vassallo’s Epics in the Everyday (2019): Review & Excerpt
14.06.2021
Jesús Vassallo’s Epics in the Everyday (2019): Review & Excerpt14.06.2021
Review The compelling question of reality, or rather its representation as realism presented as an aesthetic category, acts as the organising principle of this interesting book. This is an investigation of the relationship between photography, architecture and the problem of realism, as its subtitle explains. Its author, Jesús Vassallo, immediately… Read More
The Zilsel Thesis: A Review of Strata: William Smith’s Geological Maps (2020): Review
04.05.2021
The Zilsel Thesis: A Review of Strata: William Smith’s Geological Maps (2020): Review04.05.2021
In a series of essays and lectures developed between 1939 and 1943, the philosopher of science Edgar Zilsel identified three distinct sources of knowledge in the Renaissance. In the late-medieval period, writes Zilsel, the traditional learning associated with the universities was still theological and scholastic in character. The texts preserved… Read More
Sébastien Marot’s Taking The Country’s Side (2019): Review & Excerpt
19.04.2021
Sébastien Marot’s Taking The Country’s Side (2019): Review & Excerpt19.04.2021
Review On the occasion of the publication of this book, and the associated exhibition, which was a part of the Lisbon Architecture Triennale of 2019, Sébastien Marot gave a talk that positioned his work about the Country’s Side in relation to Rem Koolhaas’s almost contemporaneous Guggenheim exhibition, Countryside. Marot was… Read More
Flores & Prats Sala Beckett International Drama Centre (2020): Review & Excerpts
30.03.2021
Flores & Prats Sala Beckett International Drama Centre (2020): Review & Excerpts30.03.2021
Review Making a book about making a building creates a special narrative challenge in the constant battle between reality and myth that vibrates through non-fiction publications and the ways in which we as readers engage with and interpret them. This is complicated even more when making a book about a… Read More
Stan Allen’s Situated Objects (2020): Review & Excerpt
24.02.2021
Stan Allen’s Situated Objects (2020): Review & Excerpt24.02.2021
Review Three times a week a package arrives in Somerset with another Practice Monograph, and the generous proposal that we might want to add it to the library at Drawing Matter. This is clearly an old story – somewhere we have a copy of one of John Soane’s endless books… Read More
Singing Songs of Piccadilly: Review
16.02.2021
Singing Songs of Piccadilly: Review16.02.2021
– Editors
Niall Hobhouse writes about The Buildings of Green Park by Andrew Jones. To purchase the book, click here. Green Park, a pair of anecdotes: 1. Queen Caroline – ‘What would it cost, Sir Robert, to close the Park to the public?’ Walpole – ‘May it please your Majesty, but Three Crowns –… Read More
68½ degrees, Sverre Fehn and the Nordic Pavilion: Review & Excerpt
26.05.2021
68½ degrees, Sverre Fehn and the Nordic Pavilion: Review & Excerpt26.05.2021
– Niall Hobhouse
Review By preserving the trees on the site within his pavilion in the Giardini, Sverre Fehn offered Venice an insight into a unique Nordic sensitivity towards nature and the environment. He tempered the harsh Mediterranean sun to evoke the horizontal light of the Baltic through a spectacularly innovative technical design… Read More
exhibition exhibition design