Medium: text
Raffaello. Nato architetto (2023) – Review
30 October 2023
Raffaello. Nato architetto (2023) – Review30 October 2023
Architectural history is a delicate matter when it comes to exhibitions: especially, if the subject is a creator like Raphael (1487-1520) whose work as a designer, despite its relevance, survives in a dramatically fragmentary state. Thus, it can only be reconstructed by means of analytical philology, mostly using secondary sources,… Read More
Owen Jones and the V&A (2023) and Style and Solitude (2023) – Review
17 October 2023
Owen Jones and the V&A (2023) and Style and Solitude (2023) – Review17 October 2023
Now remembered almost only for The Grammar of Ornament (1856), Owen Jones, architect, designer, writer, publisher was regarded in his lifetime as one of the greats of British architectural and design culture, up with Pugin and Ruskin. Yet of his prolific output of some 60 buildings and interior schemes, nine… Read More
François Cointeraux: the Architect of the ‘Agricultural Proletariat’
5 October 2023
François Cointeraux: the Architect of the ‘Agricultural Proletariat’5 October 2023
François Cointeraux was born in Lyon in 1740 and was introduced to agriculture and construction at an early age through his family’s business ventures. When his uncle designated him the ‘universal heir’ of his company, Cointeraux inherited several buildings in Lyon and around 24 houses in the area. His marriage… Read More
Elbe and Marte
13 September 2023
Elbe and Marte13 September 2023
– Karen Lohrmann and Stefano de Martino
Elbe and Marte is the spatial and ecological adjustment of a 16th-century rural complex and experimental landscape in the Gulf of Naples. Set deep into the coastal hillside, it encompasses a massive work of geo-engineering with rock and stone walls across 30 vertical terraces. It is a survey of time… Read More
Designs on Democracy (2022) – Review
5 September 2023
Designs on Democracy (2022) – Review5 September 2023
‘This is not a book in which material has been selected on the basis of taste; quite the contrary. These are not buildings or personalities with which it has been easy to empathise, and I hope that this book is not read as a defence or an apology.’ With these words the… Read More
Denise Scott Brown ‘From Soane to the Strip’
1 September 2023
Denise Scott Brown ‘From Soane to the Strip’1 September 2023
The following text is an excerpt from Denise Scott Brown’s 2018 Soane Medal lecture, written by Thomas Weaver, and developed out of a series of conversations between Denise Scott Brown and Thomas Weaver in July 2018. I have never thought of myself as a photographer, only an architect and urbanist,… Read More
Comins x Shatwell Tea House
25 August 2023
Comins x Shatwell Tea House25 August 2023
– Various
Similar to the way the soil, climate, cultivar, and—of course—the tea maker come together to craft distinct and flavourful teas, numerous helping hands played an important role in the journey that culminated in the process and construction of the Comins x Shatwell Tea House. The most common question visitors have… Read More
Thinking Through Twentieth-Century Architecture (2023) – Review
17 August 2023
Thinking Through Twentieth-Century Architecture (2023) – Review17 August 2023
Philosophy has long played an influential part in architectural practice and discourse. In the last twenty years, several new publications have started to trace the histories of this phenomenon. Some, like Branko Mitrović’s Philosophy for Architects (2011), lay out introductory surveys of major figures, works, and ideas at the overlap… Read More
Chloethiel Woodard Smith
16 August 2023
Chloethiel Woodard Smith16 August 2023
In June 2023 Kathleen James-Chakraborty, Professor of Art History at University College Dublin, gave a talk about American modernist architect and urban planner Chloethiel Woodard Smith. Part of the series ‘Rethinking Architectural Legacies’ at the Zaha Hadid Foundation, the talk was titled ‘How to Succeed as a Woman: Chloethiel Woodard… Read More
Sant’Elia and Global Futurist Architecture
21 July 2023
Sant’Elia and Global Futurist Architecture21 July 2023
‘Found’ in the archive at Drawing Matter, this wild text by Marinetti on his friend and collaborator Sant’Elia seems not to have been previously translated. Its occasion was a commemorative exhibition of the young architect’s work organized in 1930 by the commune of his native city, Como, fourteen years after… Read More