Medium: drawing
The Temple of Flora, Stourhead: A Paradise Revisited
09.12.2021
The Temple of Flora, Stourhead: A Paradise Revisited09.12.2021
In 1744 Henry Hoare employed Henry Flitcroft to design a temple for his magnificent Palladian gardens at Stourhead: The Temple of Flora, which was built by William Privett in 1744–5. Excerpted below is an account of the temple’s history taken from Dudley Dodd’s book, Stourhead: Henry Hoare’s Paradise Revisited (2021). Purchase… Read More
Movements of the Drawing Hand
08.12.2021
Movements of the Drawing Hand08.12.2021
How can you study the movements of the drawing hand? Although completed drawings can be interpreted, much the same way graphologists analyse the sequencing and flow of handwriting, can we see an architecture in the movements of the drawing hand? Can we be inside a drawing, and witness, as paper… Read More
Analoge Architektur: Fire Station Project
08.12.2021
Analoge Architektur: Fire Station Project08.12.2021
This drawing of the roof level of a fire station, designed as a student work in 1986, was for the ‘Analoge Architektur’ exhibition at the Architektur Forum Zurich. [1] While the drawing is the work of an individual, it was inconceivable without the competitive and collegial development of a drawing… Read More
Drawing Parallels: John Hejduk’s Wall House 1
06.12.2021
Drawing Parallels: John Hejduk’s Wall House 106.12.2021
The following text is extracted, with permission, from Drawing Parallels: Knowledge Production in Axonometric, Isometric and Oblique Drawings by Ray Lucas, published by Routledge © 2020. Available here. Drawing Parallels explores the uses of parallel projection in the work of five twentieth century architects: James Stirling, JJP Oud, Peter Eisenman, John Hejduk,… Read More
In the Archive: New and Found
01.12.2021
In the Archive: New and Found01.12.2021
– Editors
Click on drawings to move and enlarge. The New and Found series is an informal miscellany, which allows us to show some recent acquisitions together with material in the archive or the libraries at Shatwell that you may not have seen before. New On the digital planchest this time is… Read More
The I’Ansons: A Dynasty of London Architects & Surveyors
30.11.2021
The I’Ansons: A Dynasty of London Architects & Surveyors30.11.2021
The following excerpt from Peter Jefferson Smith’s The I’Ansons: A Dynasty of London Architects & Surveyors (2019) charts the involvement of three generations of the I’Anson dynasty (Edward Sr [1775–1853]; Edward Jr [1812–1888]; and Edward Blakeway [1843–1912]) in the design of the Corn Exchange in Mark Lane, City of London.… Read More
Pan Scroll Zoom 18: Wolff Architects
17.11.2021
Pan Scroll Zoom 18: Wolff Architects17.11.2021
– Fabrizio Gallanti, Ilze Wolff and Heinrich Wolff
This is the eighteenth in a series of texts edited by Fabrizio Gallanti on the challenges in the new world of online architectural teaching and, particularly, on the changing role of drawings in presentations and reviews. In this episode, Heinrich Wolff and Ilze Wolff of Wolff Architects discuss the production of their drawings,… Read More
The Urban Fact: Aldo Rossi, The School, Fagnano Olona
16.11.2021
The Urban Fact: Aldo Rossi, The School, Fagnano Olona16.11.2021
– Kersten Geers, Stefano Graziani and Jelena Pancevac
This is part one of two excerpts chosen from The Urban Fact: A Reference Book on Aldo Rossi. The second text, on Aldo Rossi’s Student Housing in Chieti, completed in 1976, will be available soon. Please see the end of the page for more information on this publication. The Olona… Read More
A Short History of Alberto Ponis on the Sardinian Coast
15.11.2021
A Short History of Alberto Ponis on the Sardinian Coast15.11.2021
Alberto Ponis was born in Genoa in 1933. He took his architecture degree in Florence in 1960. His father, Mario Alberto, had founded the M.I.T.A. (Manifattura Italiana Tappeti Artistici) in 1926 in Nervi, near Genoa. The company’s building was built by Luigi Daneri in 1940. Gio Ponti, Arnaldo Pomodoro and… Read More
The Pursuit of Gothic
10.11.2021
The Pursuit of Gothic10.11.2021
William Gilpin notoriously suggested that the ruins of Tintern Abbey could be improved by ‘a mallet judiciously used’. [1] The next generation saw in the architecture of the Middle Ages something more than an assortment of ornamental landscape features, but it did not begin to understand it. Uvedale Price, whose… Read More
Frank Lloyd Wright, House for Edith Carlson, 1939, Part II
07.11.2021
Frank Lloyd Wright, House for Edith Carlson, 1939, Part II07.11.2021
Extracted from Stories from Architecture: Behind the Lines at Drawing Matter by Philippa Lewis, published by MIT Press © 2021. Order the book here. The drawings around which Stories from Architecture are written are all part of the Drawing Matter collection. Some of the texts were first published as ‘Behind the Lines’. My dear Miss Carlson, By… Read More
The Italian Job: Anthony Salvin, Sir John Benson and the Royal Cork Yacht Club, Cóbh
27.10.2021
The Italian Job: Anthony Salvin, Sir John Benson and the Royal Cork Yacht Club, Cóbh27.10.2021
Anthony Salvin (1799–1881) was a noted English architect of country houses and a pioneer restorer of historic monuments. In the latter sphere, he undertook significant interventions at Windsor and Alnwick Castles and at the Tower of London. For example, he is largely responsible for the way we see the yards… Read More
Alberto Ponis on Casa Scalesciani
27.10.2021
Alberto Ponis on Casa Scalesciani27.10.2021
The site chosen by Juan S., an Argentinian with a penchant for Italy, was almost alarmingly steep and sheer above the sea. Even the path leading to it was perilous, and trodden with bated breath. During our long conversations about where the house would be built, we were not so… Read More
Álvaro Siza: Fast and Slow Lines
20.10.2021
Álvaro Siza: Fast and Slow Lines20.10.2021
Álvaro Siza began working on the ‘Quinta da Malagueira’ project in 1977. In his sketchbooks, he would doodle iterations of the proposal over and over, together with other observational scenes, figures, calculations, and schedules. The sketches have various line qualities. Some are steadier, thicker in the middle, and thinner at… Read More
Writing Prize 2021: Savinien Petit’s Chapelle a deux salles avec luminaire
18.10.2021
Writing Prize 2021: Savinien Petit’s Chapelle a deux salles avec luminaire18.10.2021
When art crosses paths with the language of architecture, odd things can occur. Savinien Petit was an academic painter who is little-known today. Conventional even for his own time, his taste at times did not exceed drawing children in clouds, but mostly he created religious scenes in traditional frescoes for churches, work which was… Read More
The Hidden Horizontal. Cornices in Art and Architecture: Exhibition Review
18.10.2021
The Hidden Horizontal. Cornices in Art and Architecture: Exhibition Review18.10.2021
Architecture is never an easy topic for exhibitions, because the level of knowledge and pre-existing interest of the public is difficult to gauge. A show devoted specifically to a single architectural detail, seen across a historic panorama, is even more challenging. But this is the ambition of ‘The Hidden Horizontal:… Read More
The Metropolitan Opera House, NYC: Invisible guests
15.10.2021
The Metropolitan Opera House, NYC: Invisible guests15.10.2021
The purpose of poetry is to remind ushow difficult it is to remain just one person, for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors, and invisible guests come in and out at will.– Czesław Miłosz, from Ars Poetica? My father, Tad Leski, was an architect and designer for Wallace… Read More
Lines, Drawings, the Human Condition
13.10.2021
Lines, Drawings, the Human Condition13.10.2021
– Tim Ingold, Momoyo Kaijima, Andreas Kalpakci and Anh-linh Ngo
This conversation between Tim Ingold, Momoyo Kaijima, Andreas Kalpakci and Anh-linh Ngo was first published, in German translation, in issue 238 of ARCH+ (March 2020). Drawing Matter would like to thank the editors of ARCH+ for allowing us to publish the original English version of the text. Momoyo Kaijima: With… Read More
Doodles: Stirling Wilford and Associates, 1984–2000
12.10.2021
Doodles: Stirling Wilford and Associates, 1984–200012.10.2021
The architectural trajectory of James Stirling has always been considered that of the individual genius, whilst acknowledging his close links to certain educational and working companions: his lifetime maestro Colin Rowe; the partners James Gowan and Michael Wilford, and the Associates, Laurence Bain and Russell Bevington. Without diminishing the importance and the inspirational role of… Read More
Henri Guerbois: Department Store in King Street, 1921
05.10.2021
Henri Guerbois: Department Store in King Street, 192105.10.2021
Extracted from Stories from Architecture: Behind the Lines at Drawing Matter by Philippa Lewis, published by MIT Press © 2021. Preorder the book here. The drawings around which Stories from Architecture are written are all part of the Drawing Matter collection. Some of the texts were first published as ‘Behind the Lines’. Having peered at the rather… Read More
Twelve Thousand Seven Hundred Forty-Two KM of Continuum
04.10.2021
Twelve Thousand Seven Hundred Forty-Two KM of Continuum04.10.2021
There is a handwritten phrase in red ink at the bottom of this sketch, which reads in Italian: ‘for the continuous monument (genesis)’. This drawing is from one of Adolfo Natalini’s sketchbooks and depicts a series of studies about the earth. In the same sketchbook, he drew multiple sequences of… Read More
In Defence of Metaphor
09.12.2021
In Defence of Metaphor09.12.2021
– Deanna Petherbridge
This text concludes Deanna Petherbridge’s series Drawing as Metaphor. The complete series will appear as a printed publication in the new year, designed by Studio Christopher Victor; the drawings will be on show at the Art Space Gallery (84 St Peter’s Street, London N1 8JS) in an exhibition titled Deanna Petherbridge: Drawing… Read More
art practice drawing as metaphor (series)