Medium: drawing
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
Writing Prize 2021: Reading Material
23.09.2021
Writing Prize 2021: Reading Material23.09.2021
This is a narrative of listening: listening to materials, processes, place and self. When you sit in a room and read a book you are not looking at your environment – you perceive, touch, and smell its atmosphere and presence. Inadvertently, you register the space that surrounds you. During the initial… Read More
PC Harry Woodley: Plans of No 131 Cornwall Street, 1902
17.09.2021
PC Harry Woodley: Plans of No 131 Cornwall Street, 190217.09.2021
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’. It was a short walk… Read More
An Overwhelming Concern with Shelter! (1966)
16.09.2021
An Overwhelming Concern with Shelter! (1966)16.09.2021
The International Dialogue on Experimental Architecture (IDEA) was held at New Metropole Arts Centre in Folkestone, Kent, 10–11 June 1966. The symposium was organised by Archigram and included contributions from Hans Hollein, Joe Weber, Yona Friedman, Cedric Price, Arthur Quarmsby, Anthony G. William and Reyner Banham. The following text is… Read More
John Nash: Designs for Langham House, ca. 1812–1816
06.09.2021
John Nash: Designs for Langham House, ca. 1812–181606.09.2021
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’. Nash… Read More
Pan Scroll Zoom 17: Monadnock
01.09.2021
Pan Scroll Zoom 17: Monadnock01.09.2021
– Job Floris and Fabrizio Gallanti
This is the seventeenth 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. Here, Fabrizio interviews Job Floris, co-founder of Mondanock, about their teaching studios at the EFPL and Harvard… Read More
Cosmos Street Revisited
31.08.2021
Cosmos Street Revisited31.08.2021
This response relates to a text by Oscar Binder and Nicholas Podlanha published by Drawing Matter in July 2021, which described and reconstructed (badly) a lost project by the deceased architect James Clark. In fact I am James Clark (decidedly not dead) and the project parodied in this less than… Read More
Survey: John Goldicutt, Temple of Vespasian
25.08.2021
Survey: John Goldicutt, Temple of Vespasian25.08.2021
Climbing and surveying the ruins of Rome was potentially dangerous, and there are reports of near-fatal accidents involving falls from height. George Wightwick, who would be employed by Soane on his return from Italy, advised students ‘not to risk [their] neck in measuring, for the thousandth time, a Roman ruin’.… Read More
Piranesi Unbound (2020): Review
19.08.2021
Piranesi Unbound (2020): Review19.08.2021
There is much to admire in this sequel to Heather Hyde Minor’s Piranesi’s Lost Words (Penn State, 2015), which sets out to ‘explore new territory by reimagining his artistic production in terms of his books’. Whereas Lost Words drew attention to Piranesi as an author who combined texts and images… Read More
Survey: Piazza Grande, Gubbio, Perugia
18.08.2021
Survey: Piazza Grande, Gubbio, Perugia18.08.2021
– Biba Dow
This painting was made in the early evening in the main square of the medieval town of Gubbio, in central Italy (Perugia). Reached by climbing up narrow winding streets, the Piazza Grande opens out as a belvedere to the southwest, looking across rooftops to the plain below the Apennine foothills.… Read More
Craving Primal Architecture
17.08.2021
Craving Primal Architecture17.08.2021
‘Architecture does not only respond to the functional and conscious intellectual and social needs of today’s city dweller; it must also remember the primordial hunter and farmer concealed in the body. Our sensations of comfort, protection and home are rooted in the primordial experiences of countless generations.’ [1] – Juhani Pallasmaa… Read More
Besides, History (2018): Book Review
09.08.2021
Besides, History (2018): Book Review09.08.2021
It has a lot to do with misinterpretation. There is no real truth in history. Everything you see belongs to the past and you interpret it in your own way. Its related to visiting buildings, but also to an abstraction in how you re-represent architecture, appropriating it in your own… Read More
The H-plan: Breuer, Stirling, Gowan
05.08.2021
The H-plan: Breuer, Stirling, Gowan05.08.2021
The interesting note by Neil Jackson tying Gowan and his Isle of Wight House to the bi-nuclear plans of Breuer and then to Craig Ellwood’s Hillsborough House, reminds me of Stirling’s own early interest in Breuer, whose Connecticut work he saw during his 1948 internship in New York during his… Read More
Sketches from Algiers
02.08.2021
Sketches from Algiers02.08.2021
In October 1975 I returned to Cambridge to complete my architecture course. I had spent my year out in London with MacCormac and Jamieson, an exciting time as it was early days for this young practice and I was one of their very first assistants. In fact, I nearly didn’t… Read More
Steeling Stirling & Gowan’s Isle of Wight House
28.07.2021
Steeling Stirling & Gowan’s Isle of Wight House28.07.2021
The editors were thrilled to receive this response from Neil Jackson to our publication of drawings and literature relating to Stirling & Gowan’s Isle of Wight house. We are always interested in receiving comments and feedback from our readers: editors@drawingmatter.org. In taking the plan of the Stirling & Gowan’s Isle… Read More
The Order of Terror
28.09.2021
The Order of Terror28.09.2021
– Deanna Petherbridge
This text is the fourth in a series by artist Deanna Petherbridge in which she comments on a number of her recent pen and ink drawings. The drawings use imagined architectural imagery as a metaphorical means to deal with complex subject matter about social and political issues. Read the introduction to the series, here.… Read More
art practice drawing as metaphor (series)