Period: c20th
Collection Guide: Zaha Hadid
15.12.2025
Collection Guide: Zaha Hadid15.12.2025
– Editors
Zaha Hadid was born in 1950 in Baghdad, Iraq. After studying mathematics at the American University in Beirut, Lebanon, from 1968 to 1971, she moved to London in 1972, where she studied architecture at the Architectural Association (AA). It was here that her work began to reference the Russian avant-garde,… Read More
The Lovell Health House: Richard Neutra’s Revolution in Building
04.12.2025
The Lovell Health House: Richard Neutra’s Revolution in Building 04.12.2025
‘Paris, 1927. I was in Lurçat’s studio on the rue Bonaparte looking for the first time at reproductions of the ‘Health House’ of Neutra. We young followers of the new architecture were both admiring and astounded by this signal of a revolution in building.’ Willy Boesiger, introducing Richard Neutra. Buildings and Projects (Zurich:… Read More
The Ingredients of the Pudding: Alison and Peter Smithson’s Christmas Cards
01.12.2025
The Ingredients of the Pudding: Alison and Peter Smithson’s Christmas Cards01.12.2025
Drawing Matter is pleased to publish the following text to mark the opening of ‘Come Deck the Halls!’, an exhibition celebrating the work of Alison and Peter Smithson at Roca London Gallery (5 December 2025 – 31 January 2026). The exhibition provides an insight into their architectural thinking through the… Read More
Protected: Summer Evenings on Sukhna Dam
28.11.2025
Protected: Summer Evenings on Sukhna Dam28.11.2025
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Tony Fretton: Everything I Saw Became Important (Exhibition + Talk)
24.11.2025
Tony Fretton: Everything I Saw Became Important (Exhibition + Talk)24.11.2025
– Editors
On Friday 7 November, Drawing Matter welcomed architects Tony Fretton and Benjamin Machin to the archive for a conversation to open the exhibition ‘Tony Fretton: Everything I Saw Became Important’. Anchored by seven ‘artefacts’ now in the Drawing Matter Collection, the conversation explores the roles of drawings, photography, and sketchbooks… Read More
Collection Guide: The Viennese School
18.11.2025
Collection Guide: The Viennese School18.11.2025
Drawing Matter’s collection of Viennese drawings from the 19th and early 20th century includes works by Franz Jakob Kreuter, Otto Wagner, Josef Hoffmann, Otto Schönthal, Emil Hoppe, and Friedrich Ohmann, among others. It was a time of great technological advance, social upheaval, cultural revolt, and changing attitudes to design. Considered as a group, the… Read More
Drawings of Architectures
13.11.2025
Drawings of Architectures13.11.2025
– Primitivo González and Niall Hobhouse
The exhibition Drawings of Architectures brings together Primitivo González’s private collection of original architectural drawings, sketches and notes, which González has been collecting for more than twenty-five years. The exhibition, designed by Ara, Noa and Primitivo González, includes drawings from Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto, Rafael Moneo, and Emilio Tuñón, among others, and is presented at the Patio Herreriano Museum in… Read More
Sin Centre: Sheen and Transparent Overlays
10.11.2025
Sin Centre: Sheen and Transparent Overlays10.11.2025
– Nat Chard and Michael Webb
Following a lively debate at Drawing Matter about the surface and support of Michael Webb’s isometric drawing of a car ramp, Nat Chard thought to ask Michael himself how he made it. Dear all, On Monday we had a conversation about one of Mike Webb’s Sin Centre drawings that had a print-like… Read More
In Palau, Sardinia, on the East Coast
03.11.2025
In Palau, Sardinia, on the East Coast03.11.2025
Anyone who has seen and contemplated certain beautiful and simple ancient Mediterranean houses, such as those found in Greece, Spain, Portugal and southern Italy, knows that modern examples rarely possess the wisdom and beauty of these anonymous, traditional dwellings. Wisdom, above all: the thickness of the walls, for coolness and… Read More
DMJ – From Team 4 to Foster Associates: Condensed Narratives and Expanded Storytelling
30.10.2025
DMJ – From Team 4 to Foster Associates: Condensed Narratives and Expanded Storytelling30.10.2025
The work of Team 4 Architects (1963–1967) and Norman and Wendy Foster’s continuation as Foster Associates (1967–1992) is typically examined through their built projects rather than through their extensive drawing repertoire and its imaginative potential. This article unpacks the narrative strategies employed by the two British practices, focusing on the… Read More
Collection Guide: Andrea Branzi & Archizoom Associati
27.10.2025
Collection Guide: Andrea Branzi & Archizoom Associati27.10.2025
– Rosie Ellison-Balaam and Francesco Fiammenghi
To probe the long and multifaceted career of Andrea Branzi (1938–2023), one must first turn to his formative years at the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Florence in the early 1960s. At the time, the Florence School became the incubator of several of Italy’s postwar avant-garde groups, including… Read More
Lucien Hervé: A Photographer with Scissors
23.10.2025
Lucien Hervé: A Photographer with Scissors23.10.2025
We are thankful to Ross Anderson, who identified these statements Lucien Hervé made when interviewed by Hans Ulrich Olbrist, and which are pertinent to this contact sheet in the Drawing Matter Collection: ‘When Le Corbusier received me in his office one day, we talked for a long time; I remember that he… Read More
Reason for Drawings
20.10.2025
Reason for Drawings 20.10.2025
Have you ever wondered what would happen if a certain drawing did NOT exist? I am forever grateful to Cedric Price for doing this drawing. If he had not done it, my job of devising a way to order and organise materials for what became Cedric Price Works 1952-2003: a forward-minded retrospective (AA/CCA,… Read More
Le Corbusier, Album Punjab, 1951
13.10.2025
Le Corbusier, Album Punjab, 195113.10.2025
The following text first appeared in Maristella Casciato, Le Corbusier Album Punjab, 1951 (Zurich: Lars Müller Publications, 2024), 17–21. * Le Corbusier embarked on his first visit to the Indian state of Punjab in 1951 in anticipation of the planning and construction of Chandigarh. Included in his luggage was a notebook, which he… Read More
John Hejduk: Means, Ends
09.10.2025
John Hejduk: Means, Ends09.10.2025
Peter Eisenman was wrong… It is architecture, even if you can’t ‘get in it.’[1] But he was also right… ‘The tradition of the architect-writer is well precedented in the history of architecture.’[2] It might remain a question without an answer, though it is curious that on large, the once hyphenated… Read More
Ulrich Rückriem’s Anröchter Dolomit Projekt
29.09.2025
Ulrich Rückriem’s Anröchter Dolomit Projekt29.09.2025
A drawing for?A drawing of?Before?After?An explanation?An idea?An instruction?Precise?Approximate?Careful?Loose?For the artist?For us?For sale? A seemingly quiet drawing raises many questions. Ulrich Rückriem splits, saws and breaks stone. It is a process that defies determination through drawing—or perhaps one that is itself drawing. How can an idea be drawn for a material… Read More
Protected: John Pudney writes a prescription for… The Ideal City
24.09.2025
Protected: John Pudney writes a prescription for… The Ideal City24.09.2025
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Bernat Klein Studio
18.09.2025
Bernat Klein Studio18.09.2025
Travelling north through the Borders over the years, regardless of route, a diversion along a twisting country road north of Selkirk was always on the cards. Navigating a dangerous bend in the road, no time to stop, was rewarded by a fleeting glimpse of an enigmatic presence amongst the trees.… Read More
Excuse My Dust, or the Air I Breathe: Notes on Architecture in the Archives
15.09.2025
Excuse My Dust, or the Air I Breathe: Notes on Architecture in the Archives15.09.2025
The following text is a partially revised version of that delivered and published in ‘Stoà Open Seminar. Emerging perspectives on teaching and research in architectural design’ (May 2024). It has since become the conceptual framework for a series of seminars held on the same subject at the School of Architecture… Read More
Protected: Teatro del Mondo
09.09.2025
Protected: Teatro del Mondo09.09.2025
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Tolerance
04.09.2025
Tolerance04.09.2025
Too many people have talked about how profoundly the production of architecture has changed in the wake of the digital revolution. Far fewer have noted how architecture has resisted the seductive flourishes of digital production and maintained a dogged continuity with social and historical space. Bricks remain bricky even when… Read More
In the Archive: Maristella Casciato (Video)
01.09.2025
In the Archive: Maristella Casciato (Video)01.09.2025
From April to July, Maristella Casciato was Drawing Matter’s Visiting Scholar—our first in London. During her time in the archive, she made new discoveries and started many stimulating conversations. Among other things, she closely studied Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh Punjab Grille Capitol album, translated a selection of Gio Ponti’s illustrated letters,… Read More
The Many Lives of the Open Hand
08.12.2025
The Many Lives of the Open Hand08.12.2025
– Vikramaditya Prakash
Saturday afternoon, 4pm, the summer heat. My father revs up the engines of his Fiat 1100, his pride and joy. It is the early 1970s and I am in my pre-teens. Small for my age, I squeeze into the front seat, between my parents. I am not welcome in the… Read More
elevation industry & infrastructure DMC