Period: c19th
In the Archive: New and Found 4
26 July 2024
In the Archive: New and Found 426 July 2024
– Editors
Click on drawings to move. 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 a collection… Read More
Protected: The Future of the Past: The ‘Round Church’, Cambridge
22 July 2024
Protected: The Future of the Past: The ‘Round Church’, Cambridge22 July 2024
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Louis-Hippolyte Lebas at Drawing Matter
27 May 2024
Louis-Hippolyte Lebas at Drawing Matter27 May 2024
– Editors and Nicholas Olsberg
To view the complete Drawing Matter Collections of Louis-Hippolyte Lebas, click here. French architect Louis-Hippolyte Lebas (1782–1867) trained with Percier and Fontaine, whose assistant he remained for some years; working in Paris, both independently and in collaboration with Éloi Labarre and others from the mid 1820s; professor of history of… Read More
Architectural models and the oriental ideal of the Alhambra
20 May 2024
Architectural models and the oriental ideal of the Alhambra20 May 2024
The Alhambra architectural models reflect the circumstances in which they were created, during the last years of the Romantic movement, when artists and patrons were fascinated by the diffuse idea of the ‘Orient’, somewhat embodied by the Alhambra. This part-myth, part-real palace was the ultimate destination for Romantic travellers and… Read More
Design Drawings Damage Atlas (2023)
15 April 2024
Design Drawings Damage Atlas (2023)15 April 2024
Snap, crackle, pop. Oh, that horrible sound of unravelling a roll of architectural drawings on old dried-up tracing paper from the nineteenth century. Slowly unfurling the brown brittle sheet, it cracks and shatters, little bits drop off in flakes, littering the table and floor like confetti. The experience feels like… Read More
Return to the Archive
12 January 2024
Return to the Archive12 January 2024
In the mellow warmth of September 2023, I, in my capacity as the Director of the Museum of Architecture at the Technical University Berlin, found myself in the unpretentious village of Mikoszewo, Poland. There, where the Vistula River gracefully concludes its journey into the arms of the sea, I stood,… Read More
Glarner Wirtschaftsarchiv
8 January 2024
Glarner Wirtschaftsarchiv8 January 2024
Through an unprepossessing door tucked into the corner of two buildings located at the edge of a precinct both rural and industrial is the entrance to the kind of magic world that archives often hide. Founded 20 years ago by Dr. Sybill Kindlimann of the influential local family, Blumer, the… Read More
Schmitz and Drévet: The Egyptian Pavilions at the 1867 ‘Exposition Universelle’
15 December 2023
Schmitz and Drévet: The Egyptian Pavilions at the 1867 ‘Exposition Universelle’15 December 2023
The 1867 Paris Exposition Universelle was one of the most frivolous and lavish events in late-19th-century European history. Erected along the Champs-de-Mars, it encompassed a huge, covered arena surrounded by dozens of pavilions and gardens.[1] It was conceived by Napoleon III to showcase of industrial and technological progress, to promote… Read More
The ‘indispensable ingredients of sublimity’: Smirke and Papworth’s Designs for the Wellington Testimonial
20 November 2023
The ‘indispensable ingredients of sublimity’: Smirke and Papworth’s Designs for the Wellington Testimonial20 November 2023
In 2001, the Irish Architectural Archive (IAA) acquired at auction an item described in the catalogue as ‘Architectural Drawing, possibly by Robert Smirke, of Wellington Monument, Phoenix Park’. The unsigned, undated drawing is a perspective view of an obelisk, the base of which is a four-faced distyle Doric temple. This… Read More
The Manufacture of architecture: Joseph Paxton and the development of the Great Stove
9 November 2023
The Manufacture of architecture: Joseph Paxton and the development of the Great Stove9 November 2023
This film is part of series of posts of selected papers from the study symposium at Shatwell Farm, hosted by Drawing Matter and convened by KU Leuven and TU Delft on 27 and 28 April 2023. More about the symposium, and other films and written papers, can be found here. Joseph… Read More
DMJ — Of Lines Terrestrial and Occult: Friedrich Gilly, Alberto Sartoris, Adolphe Appia, and the Matter of Perspective
2 October 2023
DMJ — Of Lines Terrestrial and Occult: Friedrich Gilly, Alberto Sartoris, Adolphe Appia, and the Matter of Perspective2 October 2023
This essay discusses three enigmatic one-point perspective drawings. The first was made by the precocious Prussian architect and teacher Friedrich Gilly, the second by Alberto Sartoris as a young student of architecture in Geneva, and the third by the relatively unknown modern Swiss scenographer Adolphe Appia. These drawings have been… Read More