Period: c20th
DMJ – Riddle as Method, Transparency at Play: Aldo Van Eyck at Baambrugge
18.08.2025
DMJ – Riddle as Method, Transparency at Play: Aldo Van Eyck at Baambrugge18.08.2025
As work on site at the Orphanage (1956-1960) neared completion, Aldo van Eyck was busy exploring and expanding the reach of his ideas through a number of interlaced and mutually generative projects, editorial of Forum magazine (1959-63), contributions to the reorganisation and ultimate dissolution of CIAM (1954-1960) and the design of a… Read More
Banana Ballpoint
14.08.2025
Banana Ballpoint14.08.2025
design for a ball-point pen to be the same size as a banana, in plastic with soft rubber skin, and in bold natural colour, technicolour preferably. based on the observation that a ‘peeled’ banana is good functional shape for writing—not unlike a quill pen nor much like one either. 1st… Read More
Protected: Le Corbusier, Album Punjab, 1951
04.08.2025
Protected: Le Corbusier, Album Punjab, 195104.08.2025
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Protected: Bernat Klein Studio
04.08.2025
Protected: Bernat Klein Studio04.08.2025
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Reading Between the Lines: The Language of Structural Engineers
28.07.2025
Reading Between the Lines: The Language of Structural Engineers28.07.2025
A version of the phrase ‘engineering drawing is a universal language of signs and symbols’ appears in countless engineering drawing textbooks starting in the early twentieth century and continues today. A particularly evocative iteration published in the 1960s states: ‘[Engineering drawing] is a universal language; for the reader may be… Read More
Gio Ponti at Drawing Matter
21.07.2025
Gio Ponti at Drawing Matter21.07.2025
– Maristella Casciato and Rosie Ellison-Balaam
Gio Ponti (1891-1979) was born in Milan, and while he had ambitions to become an artist, he enrolled in architecture at the Politecnico di Milano in 1913. He completed his studies in 1921 after serving in the war, and in the same year, he opened his firm. Ponti is often… Read More
The Design Legacy of Tamar de Shalit and Arthur Goldreich
10.07.2025
The Design Legacy of Tamar de Shalit and Arthur Goldreich10.07.2025
After visiting the Tamart studio in Hoxton to see the collection of drawings by Tamar de Shalit and Arthur Goldreich, and the growing collection of furniture based on their designs, the editors asked Amos Goldreich to write this illustrated account of his parents’ remarkable lives both in South Africa and… Read More
DMJ – A Storyboard for the Fun Palace
07.07.2025
DMJ – A Storyboard for the Fun Palace07.07.2025
Each community, with its own pride, wit and resourcefulness, could make a toy, a microcosm, a small city, a university-of-the-streets, a street theatre, a science playground, an adventure playground for the young kids – a place for time-wasting, gossip, new-arguing, learning, promenading, dancing, eating and drinking, handling tools, paint, machinery…… Read More
Architecture as Poetics of Knowledge. The São Salvador de Figueredo Parish Church by Paulo Providência
03.07.2025
Architecture as Poetics of Knowledge. The São Salvador de Figueredo Parish Church by Paulo Providência03.07.2025
The book Architecture as Poetics of Knowledge is essential reading for anyone interested in Paulo Providência’s renovation of the parish church of São Salvador, Figueredo, 1992-2002, as well as for understanding his singular architectural poetics. A beautifully published suite of drawings (29 pages, including 4 foldouts) and photographs (34 pages) is supported… Read More
Studio Ponis: The Crystal and the Flame
02.07.2025
Studio Ponis: The Crystal and the Flame02.07.2025
– Irina Davidovici, Niall Hobhouse, Alex Pillen, Jonathan Sergison and Annarita Zalaffi
On Friday 20 June, Drawing Matter welcomed Annarita Zalaffi, Jonathan Sergison, Irina Davidovici, and Alex Pillen to the archive for a conversation about the work of Studio Ponis in Sardinia, and Alberto Ponis and Annarita Zalaffi’s working relationship. The conversation marked the opening of an exhibition of drawings from the… Read More
Le Corbusier at Drawing Matter
26.06.2025
Le Corbusier at Drawing Matter26.06.2025
– Maristella Casciato and Nicholas Olsberg
Born in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, 1887-1865) trained in the fine and decorative arts before undertaking travels and varied apprenticeships to develop his architectural skills, opening a studio and teaching practice in La Chaux in 1912, and moving to Paris in 1917 to work principally as a… Read More
Trevor Dannatt’s Riyadh Mosque: A Study in Sacred Space and Cultural Juxtaposition
23.06.2025
Trevor Dannatt’s Riyadh Mosque: A Study in Sacred Space and Cultural Juxtaposition23.06.2025
Saudi Arabia’s Quest for Modern Identity and the Urban Transformation of Riyadh Beginning in the 1960s, Saudi Arabia embarked on an ambitious building programme, resulting in numerous architectural projects recognised internationally for their remarkable scale as well as their innovative architectural and engineering solutions.[1] This extensive initiative gained substantial momentum from… Read More
AnnaRita Zalaffi: The Engineer at the Heart of Alberto Ponis’ Work
19.06.2025
AnnaRita Zalaffi: The Engineer at the Heart of Alberto Ponis’ Work19.06.2025
In April, Alex Pillen interviewed AnnaRita Zalaffi over the course of a day at her home in Palau, Sardinia. This text, which focuses on AnnaRita’s early life and her creative collaboration with her husband and professional partner Alberto Ponis, is published to coincide with the exhibition ‘The Crystal and the… Read More
From the Poetics of Reality to the Poetics of Memory
16.06.2025
From the Poetics of Reality to the Poetics of Memory16.06.2025
Aldo Rossi’s conception of context underwent a significant transformation over the course of his architectural career, shifting from an emphasis on place to a preoccupation with memory.[1] This evolution is most discernible in his drawings. A comparative close reading of two works—an untitled drawing from 1950 and Composizione con S. Carlo–Città e Monumenti from 1970—reveals… Read More
The Craft of Carpentry: Drawing Life from Japan’s Forests
12.06.2025
The Craft of Carpentry: Drawing Life from Japan’s Forests12.06.2025
The Craft of Carpentry exhibition at Japan House London is striking for showing an ongoing craft tradition and architectural culture that appears to be both attuned to history and inherently adaptable. A fellow visitor to the exhibition told me about his father who had been a sukiya carpenter, building their… Read More
Protected: Tolerance
10.06.2025
Protected: Tolerance10.06.2025
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
We are the Power: Posters from Paris, May 68
23.05.2025
We are the Power: Posters from Paris, May 6823.05.2025
Against Pairing Drawing Matter generously responded to my request to loan two items from their collection to be used as realia in an exhibition of May 1968 posters at Tank Magazine’s showroom on Great Portland Street. The items (DMC 2465 and 2302) are both lithographs in black and red, and… Read More
N.B. These Drawings Were From Memory
19.05.2025
N.B. These Drawings Were From Memory19.05.2025
After entering Smart’s Place, and climbing the steep staircase of treads (that become increasingly high and shallow until all the tension in my body was focused on my toes gripping and my weight not leaning back*), I arrived at the space of Drawing Matter where Rosie had indiscriminately laid out… Read More
Hans van der Laan’s Instruments of Thought: Proportion, Architecture, Analogy (2025)
16.05.2025
Hans van der Laan’s Instruments of Thought: Proportion, Architecture, Analogy (2025)16.05.2025
Introduction A steady trickle of works on Dom Hans Van der Laan has appeared in the years since his passing in 1991. Most important among these, Richard Padovan has presented a compelling argument for the significance of Van der Laan’s theory of proportion through a series of texts, including Dom… Read More
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe at Drawing Matter
13.05.2025
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe at Drawing Matter13.05.2025
– Editors and Nicholas Olsberg
The drawings archive held by Mies at the time of his death was placed in the Museum of Modern Art, and his correspondence and papers at the Library of Congress. They constitute a comprehensive record of his works after the opening of his practice in the United States, especially for… Read More
Fine Art and Commercial Architecture
08.05.2025
Fine Art and Commercial Architecture08.05.2025
Architects are touchy about whether they are making art or not. At a conference in Santa Monica several years ago Cesar Pelli was very concerned that his architecture be considered art. This is an ambiguity of European usage. As one of ‘the arts,’ architecture is an art. Visual art is… Read More
Jean Tinguely: La Vittoria
02.05.2025
Jean Tinguely: La Vittoria02.05.2025
– Editors
In 1970 Pierre Restany and Guido Le Noci, director of the Apollinaire gallery, decided to celebrate, with the help of the municipality of Milan, the tenth anniversary of the foundation of the Nouveaux Réalistes group. On 27 November, ten years after Yves Klein published his single-issue newspaper Le Dimanche 27… Read More
Sourcing Superstudio
04.07.2025
Sourcing Superstudio04.07.2025
– Martha Cruz
On the 21st page of Natalini’s 12th sketchbook (DMC 2141) there is a list of buildings and landmarks. It feels quite disparate at first. It begins as a chronological list of architecture’s greatest and most recognisable hits: Stonehenge… the Colosseum… the Uffizi… the Taj Mahal… Crystal Palace… the Eiffel Tower.… Read More
sketch sketchbook DMC