Period: c19th

Protected: Retreat and Commemoration: Heath’s Court, 1878–82 – Part 3

Protected: Retreat and Commemoration: Heath’s Court, 1878–82 – Part 3

Nicholas Olsberg

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

Protected: Retreat and Commemoration: Heath’s Court, 1878–82 – Part 1

Protected: Retreat and Commemoration: Heath’s Court, 1878–82 – Part 1

Nicholas Olsberg

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

The Future of the Past: The ‘Round Church’, Cambridge

The Future of the Past: The ‘Round Church’, Cambridge

Nikolaus Pevsner

The war to restore to churches ritual and at the same time architectural dignity was waged by one man and one society, the man being a fervent convert to Catholicism, the society calling itself Catholic too, but meaning what is called Anglo-Catholic. They operated independently, but appreciated one another. The… Read More

DMJ – Brunel’s camera lucida

DMJ – Brunel’s camera lucida

Philip Steadman

In the Drawing Matter collection there is a camera lucida that belonged to Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806–1859) (Figs 1–4,6).[1] The camera lucida is an instrument for drawing from life, patented in 1806 by the versatile English chemist and physicist William Hyde Wollaston (1766–1828).[2] The term camera lucida (‘well-lit room’) is… Read More

In the Archive: New and Found 4

In the Archive: New and Found 4

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

Louis-Hippolyte Lebas at Drawing Matter

Louis-Hippolyte Lebas at Drawing Matter

Editors and Nicholas Olsberg

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 architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts from 1840; and leader of an… Read More

Architectural models and the oriental ideal of the Alhambra

Architectural models and the oriental ideal of the Alhambra

Asun González Pérez

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)

Design Drawings Damage Atlas (2023)

Neil Bingham

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

Return to the Archive

Hans-Dieter Nägelke

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

Glarner Wirtschaftsarchiv

Helen Thomas

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’

Schmitz and Drévet: The Egyptian Pavilions at the 1867 ‘Exposition Universelle’

Anja Segmüller

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

Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild at Waddesdon

Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild at Waddesdon

Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild

The following extract, a personal account by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, describes the imaginary and real processes of constructing and maintaining a country home, from the ground up, in late-19th-century England. Written for the Red Book in 1897, a family album of sorts, it is one of the key sources… Read More