Medium: drawing
DMJ – Riddle as Method, Transparency at Play: Aldo Van Eyck at Baambrugge
18.08.2025
DMJ – Riddle as Method, Transparency at Play: Aldo Van Eyck at Baambrugge18.08.2025
As work on site at the Orphanage (1956-1960) neared completion, Aldo van Eyck was busy exploring and expanding the reach of his ideas through a number of interlaced and mutually generative projects, editorial of Forum magazine (1959-63), contributions to the reorganisation and ultimate dissolution of CIAM (1954-1960) and the design of a… Read More
Protected: Fabric Fabrications
15.08.2025
Protected: Fabric Fabrications15.08.2025
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Typology: A conversation
13.08.2025
Typology: A conversation13.08.2025
– Richard Hall, Hans van der Heijden and Andreas Lechner
In Spring 2025, Hans van der Heijden and Andreas Lechner corresponded about books which each had recently published that deal with the issue of ‘type’ and the role of drawing in typological work.[1] Hans invited Richard Hall to join the conversation, widening the discussion to three generations working in three… Read More
Urban Landscape
07.08.2025
Urban Landscape07.08.2025
The following method for drawing urban landscapes was sent to us by Mehdi Zannad after his recent visit to Drawing Matter. It was first published by éditions Parenthèses in Topo-graphies in 2020. The view drawn by Mehdi is located near to the publisher’s office, which allowed him to scan each… Read More
Protected: Bernat Klein Studio
04.08.2025
Protected: Bernat Klein Studio04.08.2025
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Melancholy Little Gardens
04.08.2025
Melancholy Little Gardens04.08.2025
Lionel Wallace, the protagonist of H.G. Wells’s The Door in the Wall (1906), was haunted by the vision of an enchanted garden glimpsed in childhood. Having eluded the vigilant and authoritative care of his nursery governess, he found himself wandering aimlessly among the long grey West Kensington roads until he… Read More
Reading Between the Lines: The Language of Structural Engineers
28.07.2025
Reading Between the Lines: The Language of Structural Engineers28.07.2025
A version of the phrase ‘engineering drawing is a universal language of signs and symbols’ appears in countless engineering drawing textbooks starting in the early twentieth century and continues today. A particularly evocative iteration published in the 1960s states: ‘[Engineering drawing] is a universal language; for the reader may be… Read More
Gio Ponti at Drawing Matter
21.07.2025
Gio Ponti at Drawing Matter21.07.2025
– Maristella Casciato and Rosie Ellison-Balaam
Gio Ponti (1891-1979) was born in Milan, and while he had ambitions to become an artist, he enrolled in architecture at the Politecnico di Milano in 1913. He completed his studies in 1921 after serving in the war, and in the same year, he opened his firm. Ponti is often… Read More
Metabolism of a Dwelling
14.07.2025
Metabolism of a Dwelling14.07.2025
Surrounded by the world’s most advanced robotic technologies, electronic dance music, and solemn tonal soundscapes lies The Metabolic Home, an installation by Lydia Kallipoliti and Areti Markopoulou currently on view in the Arsenale at this year’s Venice Biennale. The project constructs a densely configured environment in which everyday domesticity—cooking, sleeping,… Read More
The Design Legacy of Tamar de Shalit and Arthur Goldreich
10.07.2025
The Design Legacy of Tamar de Shalit and Arthur Goldreich10.07.2025
After visiting the Tamart studio in Hoxton to see the collection of drawings by Tamar de Shalit and Arthur Goldreich, and the growing collection of furniture based on their designs, the editors asked Amos Goldreich to write this illustrated account of his parents’ remarkable lives both in South Africa and… Read More
DMJ – A Storyboard for the Fun Palace
07.07.2025
DMJ – A Storyboard for the Fun Palace07.07.2025
Each community, with its own pride, wit and resourcefulness, could make a toy, a microcosm, a small city, a university-of-the-streets, a street theatre, a science playground, an adventure playground for the young kids – a place for time-wasting, gossip, new-arguing, learning, promenading, dancing, eating and drinking, handling tools, paint, machinery…… Read More
Architecture as Poetics of Knowledge. The São Salvador de Figueredo Parish Church by Paulo Providência
03.07.2025
Architecture as Poetics of Knowledge. The São Salvador de Figueredo Parish Church by Paulo Providência03.07.2025
The book Architecture as Poetics of Knowledge is essential reading for anyone interested in Paulo Providência’s renovation of the parish church of São Salvador, Figueredo, 1992-2002, as well as for understanding his singular architectural poetics. A beautifully published suite of drawings (29 pages, including 4 foldouts) and photographs (34 pages) is supported… Read More
Studio Ponis: The Crystal and the Flame
02.07.2025
Studio Ponis: The Crystal and the Flame02.07.2025
– Irina Davidovici, Niall Hobhouse, Alex Pillen, Jonathan Sergison and Annarita Zalaffi
On Friday 20 June, Drawing Matter welcomed Annarita Zalaffi, Jonathan Sergison, Irina Davidovici, and Alex Pillen to the archive for a conversation about the work of Studio Ponis in Sardinia, and Alberto Ponis and Annarita Zalaffi’s working relationship. The conversation marked the opening of an exhibition of drawings from the… Read More
Le Corbusier at Drawing Matter
26.06.2025
Le Corbusier at Drawing Matter26.06.2025
– Maristella Casciato and Nicholas Olsberg
Born in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, 1887-1865) trained in the fine and decorative arts before undertaking travels and varied apprenticeships to develop his architectural skills, opening a studio and teaching practice in La Chaux in 1912, and moving to Paris in 1917 to work principally as a… Read More
Trevor Dannatt’s Riyadh Mosque: A Study in Sacred Space and Cultural Juxtaposition
23.06.2025
Trevor Dannatt’s Riyadh Mosque: A Study in Sacred Space and Cultural Juxtaposition23.06.2025
Saudi Arabia’s Quest for Modern Identity and the Urban Transformation of Riyadh Beginning in the 1960s, Saudi Arabia embarked on an ambitious building programme, resulting in numerous architectural projects recognised internationally for their remarkable scale as well as their innovative architectural and engineering solutions.[1] This extensive initiative gained substantial momentum from… Read More
From the Poetics of Reality to the Poetics of Memory
16.06.2025
From the Poetics of Reality to the Poetics of Memory16.06.2025
Aldo Rossi’s conception of context underwent a significant transformation over the course of his architectural career, shifting from an emphasis on place to a preoccupation with memory.[1] This evolution is most discernible in his drawings. A comparative close reading of two works—an untitled drawing from 1950 and Composizione con S. Carlo–Città e Monumenti from 1970—reveals… Read More
The Craft of Carpentry: Drawing Life from Japan’s Forests
12.06.2025
The Craft of Carpentry: Drawing Life from Japan’s Forests12.06.2025
The Craft of Carpentry exhibition at Japan House London is striking for showing an ongoing craft tradition and architectural culture that appears to be both attuned to history and inherently adaptable. A fellow visitor to the exhibition told me about his father who had been a sukiya carpenter, building their… Read More
Kasuri Nomad Horizon
09.06.2025
Kasuri Nomad Horizon09.06.2025
This actor-network diagram traces the journey from raw materials to eventual disposal for Kasuri Nomad Horizon, a furniture set crafted from Bingo Kasuri, a traditional Japanese cotton fabric. Created for the Distillation of Architecture: 家具 exhibition at the Architectural Association School of Architecture from the 17th January to the 7th… Read More
Painting Architecture in Early Renaissance Italy
05.06.2025
Painting Architecture in Early Renaissance Italy05.06.2025
Livia Lupi’s book Painting Architecture in Early Renaissance Italy: Innovation and Persuasion at the Intersection of Artistic and Architectural Practice addresses a topic of recurring interest to readers of DM and DMJournal: the relation of actual to pictorial representations of architecture and its ornament in early fifteenth-century Italy. Harvey Miller has adorned… Read More
DMJ – Francesco di Giorgio’s Opusculum de Architectura as Self-Portrait
26.05.2025
DMJ – Francesco di Giorgio’s Opusculum de Architectura as Self-Portrait26.05.2025
Francesco di Giorgio’s Opusculum de architectura (London, The British Museum, ms. 197.b.21) is one of the most enigmatic records of the architect’s celebrated career as a designer of machines. Born in the Sienese workshop and completed with an eloquent Latin dedication at the court of Urbino, the manuscript’s 195 unique drawings are both… Read More
The Eternal Change – The Coming of a Ruin
22.05.2025
The Eternal Change – The Coming of a Ruin22.05.2025
During the spring of 2024, I was fortunate to spend some time in Rome as a fellow at the Danish Institute. My agenda was to delve deeper into the importance of water in the eternal city—having chosen the Italian capital as the context of this investigation due to the significant… Read More
N.B. These Drawings Were From Memory
19.05.2025
N.B. These Drawings Were From Memory19.05.2025
After entering Smart’s Place, and climbing the steep staircase of treads (that become increasingly high and shallow until all the tension in my body was focused on my toes gripping and my weight not leaning back*), I arrived at the space of Drawing Matter where Rosie had indiscriminately laid out… Read More
Genius loci
24.07.2025
Genius loci24.07.2025
– Mehdi Zannad
This text was first published in French in d’a | d’architectures (no 322,11 December 2024) as a review of the exhibition Trompe-l’oeil, from 1520 to the present day, which was on show at the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris from 17 October 2024 to 2 March 2025. * It is difficult to distinguish between the… Read More
plan presentation theoretical & imaginary