Period: c19th
A New Administration Center For Los Angeles (1936)
27 October 2020
A New Administration Center For Los Angeles (1936)27 October 2020
Excerpted from ‘Architect and Engineer’ 1936 January by William Hamilton.
Drawing, Collaging, Rendering
26 October 2020
Drawing, Collaging, Rendering26 October 2020
When the ‘hard-line drawing’ has become so synonymous with the image of the architect it is easy to forget that the convenience of the everyday pen is a relatively recent occurrence. For much of the long story of the world’s second oldest profession pen, paint and ink were reserved for… Read More
Soane’s Designs for Combe House, Continued
30 July 2020
Soane’s Designs for Combe House, Continued30 July 2020
When Drawing Matter recently reproduced a preliminary ground plan for Combe House near Gittisham, Devon, by John Soane, I had a moment’s sudden recollection. Ptolemy Dean’s penetrating analysis of this precious if battered sheet of paper – entirely in the astonishingly fluid and energetic hand of the architect – set me to search… Read More
The Birds’ Morning Hymn (1929)
10 July 2020
The Birds’ Morning Hymn (1929)10 July 2020
From a letter to The Times of April 18, 1929: At this season of the resurrection of Nature — that ever-fresh miracle — one thing happens that even keen bird-lovers seem hardly to appreciate to the full. I mean the birds’ Morning Hymn. We have all heard vaguely about ‘Bird… Read More
Notes on Port Royal, Jamaica
7 July 2020
Notes on Port Royal, Jamaica7 July 2020
By Paul Cox
My parents Oliver and Jean Cox were devoted ‘Jamaicophiles’, having worked on many projects in the country since the 1960s. One of the most enduring and absorbing was a proposed redevelopment of Port Royal as a renewal and upgrade of the historic city, rebuilding and restoring while making an interesting… Read More
Soane: Energy and Frustration
24 June 2020
Soane: Energy and Frustration24 June 2020
By Ptolemy Dean
This seemingly benign-looking plan is in fact a thrilling drawing. It shows Sir John Soane’s cerebral struggles in attempting to resolve a number of key competing design elements in the planning of a country house. The drawing exudes energy and frustration. The challenge of designing buildings symmetrically is hard work… Read More
Thomas Henry Wyatt’s Brook House
12 June 2020
Thomas Henry Wyatt’s Brook House12 June 2020
By Andrew Jones
There is no building that tells the social and aesthetic story of Park Lane better than Brook House. From its beginnings as a scrappy country lane (‘Tyburn Lane’) in the eighteenth century, Park Lane rose to become the millionaires’ row of the Victorian and Edwardian eras and went on in… Read More
The Decline of Architectural Drawing (1859)
11 May 2020
The Decline of Architectural Drawing (1859)11 May 2020
By C. H. Smith
The Royal Academy’s 1859 summer exhibition, combined with a number of architectural drawings on display in Conduit Street, left a less than positive impression on critic C. H. Smith. In an article published by The Builder, Smith describes what he sees as a decline in the quality of the architectural… Read More
Ruskin: Fairy Tales
22 April 2020
Ruskin: Fairy Tales22 April 2020
By John Ruskin
We all have a general and sufficient idea of imagination, and of its work with our hands and our hearts: we understand it, I suppose, as the imagining or picturing of new things in our thoughts; and we always show an involuntary respect for this power, wherever we can recognise… Read More
Summerson: The Little House
4 March 2020
Summerson: The Little House4 March 2020
– John Summerson, ‘Heavenly Mansions: An Interpretation of Gothic,’ in Heavenly Mansions, and other Essays on Architecture (New York: W. W. Norton, 1963), 1-3.
Raymond Erith On Soane at Tendring Hall
13 October 2020
Raymond Erith On Soane at Tendring Hall13 October 2020
By Pierre du Prey
The following notes were composed by Pierre du Prey to accompany his gift of the sketches pictured above to Drawing Matter, 16 September 2020. The circumstances surrounding two detailed sketches by Raymond Erithof the John Soane gate lodges at Tendring Hall, Suffolk, remain stronglyimpressed on the tablets of my memory.… Read More
sketch concept & diagram