Medium: drawing
The Future City
09.06.2021
The Future City09.06.2021
Antonio Sant’Elia foresees the technological cities of the mid to late 20th century. High-rise towers shooting skyward, train lines and highways articulated as horizontally streaking into vanishing points, and aeroplanes arriving and departing omnidirectionally. Similarly, Winold Reiss’s Future City: Study for a Mural, is an homage to technological advancement, and… Read More
Notes on The Palace of the Assembly and Museum at Chandigarh
07.06.2021
Notes on The Palace of the Assembly and Museum at Chandigarh07.06.2021
Drawing Matter was introduced to José Oubrerie by Stan Allen after publishing his text Just Begin in July 2020. Oubrerie worked for Le Corbusier on the Brazilian Pavillion at the Cité Universitaire in Paris in 1958 and in the Atelier at 35 Rue de Sèvres from 1959 to 1965. The… Read More
Cartographies of the Imagination
04.06.2021
Cartographies of the Imagination04.06.2021
– Kirsty Badenoch and Sayan Skandarajah
Drawing place is illusory. Maps may begin as transcriptions of a worldly order – a semblance of truth and objectivity – but in doing so, become acts of world-building that both belong to and are entirely removed from their starting point. In 2019, we first visited Shatwell Farm in the… Read More
An Everyday Detail
02.06.2021
An Everyday Detail02.06.2021
Representation of architectural design often focuses on a limited number of sources – artistic conceptual sketches and diagrams, dreamy computer-generated renders, or carefully curated photographs of the finished building. These three media capture the continuity of the concept and can stand on their own right. The mundane reality of architectural… Read More
Peekaboo! Stanford White and the Mystery Lantern for Madison Square Presbyterian Church
01.06.2021
Peekaboo! Stanford White and the Mystery Lantern for Madison Square Presbyterian Church01.06.2021
Up until the turn of the twentieth century architectural renderings tended to be created for clients early in the design process to give them an idea of how a proposed building would look. At that point however they began to be used more widely for publicity purposes as well, thanks… Read More
Pan Scroll Zoom 13: Tatiana Bilbao
01.06.2021
Pan Scroll Zoom 13: Tatiana Bilbao01.06.2021
– Tatiana Bilbao and Fabrizio Gallanti
This is the thirteenth 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, Fabrizio interviews Tatiana Bilbao about her teaching at Yale School of Architecture and… Read More
Hans Poelzig: Decorating the Empty Centre
01.06.2021
Hans Poelzig: Decorating the Empty Centre01.06.2021
‘Artists such as Poelzig, prevented from building in real life, have been driven to create Expressionist cinema architecture […] But in the long run, pasteboard fantasy creations […] can never be satisfying fodder for the architect; he has an inner urge to conceive and erect buildings in which real people… Read More
BOLLES+WILSON: Sketching-Over Albania
27.05.2021
BOLLES+WILSON: Sketching-Over Albania27.05.2021
Having devoted a number of years to techniques and images engendered by holding a wood encased rod of graphite, I some years ago experienced a sort of premature redundancy, noticing that those about me husbanding architecture were now mysteriously clutching not a pencil but a mouse. I had already technologically… Read More
Le Palais de Darius a Persepolis
27.05.2021
Le Palais de Darius a Persepolis27.05.2021
This study of Le Palais de Darius a Persepolis was made by Pascal Coste (b. 1787 Marseille, France) in 1840 as part of an archeological survey of the Persian City of Persepolis. Through a combination of plan and perspective, Coste portrayed the symmetrical arrangement and elaborate construction of the ancient… 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
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
biq: Revealing Construction
26.05.2021
biq: Revealing Construction26.05.2021
The French Modernist Auguste Perret is famously quoted as saying that ‘Construction is the mother tongue of the architect. The architect is a poet who thinks and speaks in terms of construction’. If this is the case, and given drawings are the primary communication tool for architects, it is perhaps… Read More
Superstudio & Piranesi: Zeno is Immortal
24.05.2021
Superstudio & Piranesi: Zeno is Immortal24.05.2021
It’s 1777 in the Italian region of Salerno, a man is resting on a massive Doric column, watching his two cows from the ruin of a temple where the weeds grow. This building was, a long time ago, considered as the house of Juno, goddess of fertility and the vital… Read More
Evocation of Solemnity: Temple of Minerva
19.05.2021
Evocation of Solemnity: Temple of Minerva19.05.2021
For the curious visitor that approaches the historic remains of the Temple of Minerva Medica in Rome, it will take a lot of effort to contextualize the building as it could have once been. That which before had allowed for a gentle processional approach to the ruin has now been… Read More
Pan Scroll Zoom 12: Elizabeth Hatz
18.05.2021
Pan Scroll Zoom 12: Elizabeth Hatz18.05.2021
This is the twelfth 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, Elizabeth Hatz discusses her personal experience of the pandemic and its consequences for… Read More
To Assist
18.05.2021
To Assist18.05.2021
Computer Assisted Drawings (CAD) have existed since the mid-60s. A young Ivan Sutherland received a doctorate at MIT introducing Sketchpad, a device that by the means of an optical pen allowed the direct edition of graphical objects. Around the 35th century BC, someone was writing the first hieroglyph text over… Read More
Fernand Pouillon’s Survey of the Abbey of Le Thoronet
17.05.2021
Fernand Pouillon’s Survey of the Abbey of Le Thoronet17.05.2021
The following text by Oscar Mather is excerpted from Issue 6 of the Journal of Civic Architecture, edited by Patrick Lynch: https://www.canalsidepress.com/joca-issue-6/. Fernand Pouillon insisted throughout his life that his sole concern in architecture was construction, and he described himself as a maître d’œuvre, in a sense closest to the… Read More
Keshi Ghat
13.05.2021
Keshi Ghat13.05.2021
Seeing is a reaching out, a kind of metaphorical touching that involves one’s whole being and is reciprocal. Amita Singh If you hadn’t read the title of the drawing, you would have probably guessed that this would have been a riverfront mosque in India. I did too. The courtyards reminding… Read More
Hans Hollein’s Immunological City
12.05.2021
Hans Hollein’s Immunological City12.05.2021
Hans Hollein’s city structures look awry to someone familiar with his retail work. In the time that these drawings were made, Hollein completed his UC Berkeley degree, travelled across the USA, and did an exhibition with Walter Pichler in Austria. His most influential visit was to the Native American pueblos.… Read More
Bovenbouw Architectuur: One Paper Model and Three Paper Collages
12.05.2021
Bovenbouw Architectuur: One Paper Model and Three Paper Collages12.05.2021
The layers found in Bovenbouw Architectuur’s collages are analogous to the layering in their architecture – there to be unravelled by those willing to search. Sometimes ruinous, never complete, they are a representation of uncanny worlds where chimneystacks become doors, tyres become classical pediments and windows are adorned with eyelashes.… Read More
Eric Gill On Designing War Graves (1919)
11.05.2021
Eric Gill On Designing War Graves (1919)11.05.2021
In 1918, when the First World War ended, Eric Gill was in his late forties and completing the Stations of the Cross for Westminster Cathedral. He was soon in demand to design and sculpt war memorials. Gill would create simple memorials listing the names of the fallen for both the… Read More
Medieval Masons and Tracing-floors
10.05.2021
Medieval Masons and Tracing-floors10.05.2021
The tracing-floors of York Minster offer a rare glimpse into the relationship between drawing and the Cathedral, the most iconic monument to medieval Gothic. Tucked away into the loft of a small vestibule connecting the North Transept to the Chapter House, the Mason’s Lodge, as it is known, is one… Read More
The Intention of Suspension: Peter Wilson’s Clandeboye Fish
10.05.2021
The Intention of Suspension: Peter Wilson’s Clandeboye Fish10.05.2021
A phenomenological reading of ‘bridge’ would not prioritise function (crossing) but this suspended moment. – Peter Wilson [1] A fish out of water, a lady in thought, floating ‘wilderness’. Things first have to be separated from each other so as to be united later on. [2] Peter Wilson’s drawings of… Read More
I Cut Mount Fuji Every Day
31.05.2021
I Cut Mount Fuji Every Day31.05.2021
– Marie-Henriette Desmoures
With a circumference of approximately 10cm, I compress the majestic mountain. I pressure it between my fingers and the board and I slice. The contours fall on the board; in a matter of minutes, they will turn once more into a fragrant and luminous mountain. The emotional downpour induced by… Read More
topographic/cartographic drawing matter writing prize 2020 nature