Medium: drawing

Bernat Klein Studio

Bernat Klein Studio

Neil Gillespie

Travelling north through the Borders over the years, regardless of route, a diversion along a twisting country road north of Selkirk was always on the cards. Navigating a dangerous bend in the road, no time to stop, was rewarded by a fleeting glimpse of an enigmatic presence amongst the trees.… Read More

Excuse My Dust, or the Air I Breathe: Notes on Architecture in the Archives

Excuse My Dust, or the Air I Breathe: Notes on Architecture in the Archives

Marco Moro

The following text is a partially revised version of that delivered and published in ‘Stoà Open Seminar. Emerging perspectives on teaching and research in architectural design’ (May 2024). It has since become the conceptual framework for a series of seminars held on the same subject at the School of Architecture… Read More

Protected: Teatro del Mondo

Protected: Teatro del Mondo

Vincenzo Moschetti

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

Protected: Drawing Al-Zaatari Syrian Refugee Camp

Protected: Drawing Al-Zaatari Syrian Refugee Camp

Mada Aldeeb

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

Protected: DMJ – The Field of Mars: The Mother of All Conspiracies

Protected: DMJ – The Field of Mars: The Mother of All Conspiracies

Adam Jasper

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

In the Archive: Maristella Casciato

In the Archive: Maristella Casciato

Maristella Casciato

From April to July, Maristella Casciato was Drawing Matter’s Visiting Scholar—our first in London. During her time in the archive, she made new discoveries and started many stimulating conversations. Among other things, she closely studied Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh Punjab Grille Capitol album, translated a selection of Gio Ponti’s illustrated letters,… Read More

Protected: Andrea Branzi & Archizoom Associati at Drawing Matter

Protected: Andrea Branzi & Archizoom Associati at Drawing Matter

Rosie Ellison-Balaam and Francesco Fiammenghi

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

Carlos Diniz: London 2025

Carlos Diniz: London 2025

Editors

‘As a piece of urban design [it] is simply abysmal. A wonderful opportunity to create a new place in London with innovative urban forms has been missed… The layout is simplistic and banal, the architecture lumpy and mediocre—the whole looks like a chunk of some ageing, tired and dreary US… Read More

Fabric Fabrications

Fabric Fabrications

Peter Wilson

Interpretation I am very grateful to Mark Dorrian for his reading of my 1977 drawing. [1] While at the time of its laborious production, the word shroud was not uppermost as my intended coding, I can now see that the dark, drawn folds have a real, symbolic or imaginary resonance—subsequently… Read More

A Machine is a House for Making a Living

A Machine is a House for Making a Living

Drawing Architecture Studio

‘Mobility’ has long been a theme in architecture. After observing everyday life in Chinese cities, we became interested in exploring an understanding of mobility, which is not primarily defined by motion, but by the practices of pausing and occupying urban space. The discovery comes from the vehicles used by street… Read More

DMJ – Riddle as Method, Transparency at Play: Aldo Van Eyck at Baambrugge

DMJ – Riddle as Method, Transparency at Play: Aldo Van Eyck at Baambrugge

Laura Harty

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

Typology: A conversation

Typology: A conversation

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

Urban Landscape

Mehdi Zannad

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

Melancholy Little Gardens

Melancholy Little Gardens

Todd Longstaffe-Gowan

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

Reading Between the Lines: The Language of Structural Engineers

Gina Morrow

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

Genius loci

Genius loci

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

Gio Ponti at Drawing Matter

Gio Ponti at Drawing Matter

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

Metabolism of a Dwelling

Paul Mosley

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

The Design Legacy of Tamar de Shalit and Arthur Goldreich

Amos Goldreich

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

DMJ – A Storyboard for the Fun Palace

Ana Bonet Miró

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

Architecture as Poetics of Knowledge. The São Salvador de Figueredo Parish Church by Paulo Providência

Peter Carl

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

Studio Ponis: The Crystal and the Flame

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

Le Corbusier at Drawing Matter

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

Trevor Dannatt’s Riyadh Mosque: A Study in Sacred Space and Cultural Juxtaposition

Majed Alghaemdi

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