Period: c19th
The Wessex Project: Thomas Hardy, Architect: Part III
6 January 2023
The Wessex Project: Thomas Hardy, Architect: Part III6 January 2023
This is the final of three extracts, each a series of vignette studies; they are all taken from Kester Rattenbury’s fascinating full-length study: The Wessex Project: Thomas Hardy, Architect, which approaches the great author from the perspective of his first career as a young architect in London and Dorset. As he… Read More
The Wessex Project: Thomas Hardy, Architect: Part II
21 December 2022
The Wessex Project: Thomas Hardy, Architect: Part II21 December 2022
This is the second of three extracts, each a series of vignette studies, that we will publish over the next few weeks; they are all taken from Kester Rattenbury’s fascinating full-length study: The Wessex Project: Thomas Hardy, Architect, which approaches the great author from the perspective of his first career as… Read More
The Wessex Project: Thomas Hardy, Architect: Part I
12 December 2022
The Wessex Project: Thomas Hardy, Architect: Part I12 December 2022
This is the first of three extracts, each a series of vignette studies, that we will publish over the next few weeks; they are all taken from Kester Rattenbury’s fascinating full-length study: The Wessex Project: Thomas Hardy, Architect, which approaches the great author from the perspective of his first career as… Read More
Gothic Sublime
1 December 2022
Gothic Sublime1 December 2022
For the past two years, our Writing Prize has attracted a large number of thoughtful texts from participants all over the world. This year we partnered with the Architecture Foundation to sponsor one of their three writing prize categories. The Drawing Matter category, titled ‘Architecture and Representation’, invited entrants to… Read More
W. R. Lethaby: The Builder’s Art and the Craftsman
24 October 2022
W. R. Lethaby: The Builder’s Art and the Craftsman24 October 2022
This is the second text in this series, where Hugh Strange visits key texts throughout W. R. Lethaby’s life. Dissatisfied with his first book, Architecture, Mysticism and Myth, a year later William Lethaby indicated a significant shift in thinking with the essay, ‘The Builder’s Art and the Craftsman’. The text… Read More
Stendhal’s Autobiography: La Vie de Henri Brulard
14 October 2022
Stendhal’s Autobiography: La Vie de Henri Brulard14 October 2022
Soft childish snow swirled on the sidewalk in New York. Lecture given, Christmas presents bought, two hours before the bus to Newark. Outside a bookstore a stall of paperbacks to clear, and there it is, the New York Review of Books’ paperback edition of La Vie du Henri Brulard, Stendhal’s autobiography of… Read More
In the Archive: Petit, Lebas, Fontaine, Le Corbusier and Kolář
4 October 2022
In the Archive: Petit, Lebas, Fontaine, Le Corbusier and Kolář4 October 2022
Click on drawings to move and enlarge. In this series, Drawing Matter invites visitors to write about material in the archive or the libraries at Shatwell that they have viewed as part of their research. In The Library at Night, Alberto Manguel likens a library to a human brain and… Read More
William Burges: Architectural drawing
25 August 2022
William Burges: Architectural drawing25 August 2022
– Editors
William Burges was elected to the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1860 and to its council in 1862. The text reproduced below is the transcript of the paper he delivered upon joining the RIBA. Reproduced from Transactions v.9-11(1858–1861), digitised by the University of Illinois, here.
Alberto Pérez-Gómez: Architecture as Drawing
28 July 2022
Alberto Pérez-Gómez: Architecture as Drawing28 July 2022
– Mark Dorrian and Alberto Pérez-Gómez
Drawing Matter is delighted to present three texts by Alberto Pérez-Gómez on architecture and its representation, the first writings by him to be carried on the Drawing Matter website. The first, ‘Architecture as Drawing’, is an early essay that initially appeared in the Journal of Architectural Education in 1982, a… Read More
Time’s Witness. History in the Age of Romanticism (2021) – Review
25 July 2022
Time’s Witness. History in the Age of Romanticism (2021) – Review25 July 2022
Anxious Objects At some point in the annals of Western scholarship it was judged that the past could be restituted not only from textual sources but also from objects, that the material of history was equally important as its written archive. This major shift in historical approach was largely brought… Read More
Materia 2: Corrugated Iron
14 July 2022
Materia 2: Corrugated Iron14 July 2022
This text is the second in a series by Gordon Shrigley titled ‘Materia’ in which the architect meditates on the physical and semiotic nature of a number of everyday construction products. Forthcoming texts will include thoughts on oxide-red paint, in-situ concrete, fired brick, plate glass and plastic. The first text… Read More
W. R. Lethaby: The Church of Sancta Sophia, Constantinople
28 November 2022
W. R. Lethaby: The Church of Sancta Sophia, Constantinople28 November 2022
– Hugh Strange
This is the third text in this series, where Hugh Strange visits key texts throughout W. R. Lethaby’s life. William Lethaby’s second book, The Church of Sancta Sophia, Constantinople: A Study of Byzantine Building, published in 1894, could hardly have started on its subject more emphatically, ‘Sancta Sophia is the most… Read More
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