Period: c20th
Leicester Engineering Building: Completed!
14 July 2021
Leicester Engineering Building: Completed!14 July 2021
By James Gowan
In this pendant piece to Leicester Engineering Building: Under Construction, follow James Gowan, once again, as the photographer of his own architecture. The text below is transcribed from an annotated typescript titled ‘Aspects of Humanism’, July 1989, archived at Drawing Matter. The text was published in Architecture Today as ‘Anatomy… Read More
Leicester Engineering Building: Under Construction
8 July 2021
Leicester Engineering Building: Under Construction8 July 2021
By James Gowan
This is the first of three posts publishing material found in the James Gowan archive, now part of the Drawing Matter Collection. The second post will be a companion to this one, and reproduces photographs of the completed Engineering Building; the third assembles archival material relating to the Isle of… Read More
Luc Deleu & T.O.P. OFFICE: Future Plans, 1970–2020 (2021) – Review
7 July 2021
Luc Deleu & T.O.P. OFFICE: Future Plans, 1970–2020 (2021) – Review7 July 2021
Future Plans is one of those titles with double and ambiguous meanings. Not exactly as twofold as the most famous ‘The Architecture of the City’ but maybe leaving us equally free to choose. Is the term ‘future’ to be considered as an adjective or a subject? Does this book thus… Read More
Letter to the Editors: What I see in drawings today…
5 July 2021
Letter to the Editors: What I see in drawings today…5 July 2021
All the discussions, observations or decisions, concerning any of the projects of Aldo Rossi, by clients, city mayors, commissions or whoever had to approve or express a comment, were always made over his first sketch. There you had everything, the building – or whatever was the project for – was… Read More
The Cottage at Bromley
28 June 2021
The Cottage at Bromley28 June 2021
By Tim Anstey and Mari Lending
Text, drawings and models by Pernille Ahlgren. Enjoyable finds in archives often emerge between the lines. Inside the RIBA drawings collection, which is organised to form a narrative celebrating architects and their works, we found a little gem of modern cultural history, consisting of three architectural plans and four letters… Read More
Keeping a Notebook
24 June 2021
Keeping a Notebook24 June 2021
By Simon Unwin
Looking into other people’s notebooks is to witness moments of creative exploration and growth. A graphic facility in others can provoke envy, but being given access into someone else’s mind and seeing where it wanders is always stimulating. As the examples published by Drawing Matter illustrate, architects’ notebooks harbour many… Read More
From Diderot to Tokyo: Mechanical, Subjective and Digital Time
23 June 2021
From Diderot to Tokyo: Mechanical, Subjective and Digital Time23 June 2021
By Peter Wilson
The absolute precision and technical specificity of Diderot’s encyclopaedia plates, particularly those devoted to Horlogerie, mark a critical moment in the transition from speculative to operative science, from the pre-industrial to a modernist ontology of technical instrumentalisation. Here on these pages, artisan craft is ransomed to the immanent logic of… Read More
Folding Landscapes: The Maps of Tim Robinson
23 June 2021
Folding Landscapes: The Maps of Tim Robinson23 June 2021
While walking the land, I am the pen on the paper; while drawing this map, my pen is myself walking the land. I wanted to short circuit the polarities of objectivity and subjectivity, and try keep faith with reality. – Robinson We should maintain an awareness of the stories hidden… Read More
Architectural Drawing (1983)
22 June 2021
Architectural Drawing (1983)22 June 2021
This essay was first published in the catalogue for Drawings by Architects (25 February – 3 April 1983), held at the ICA in London. A period piece, for sure, the text sits at the cusp of changing attitudes to the display and value attributed to architect’s drawings. In recent years… Read More
26 Kingly Street Co-Op
21 June 2021
26 Kingly Street Co-Op21 June 2021
By Editors
Throughout the 1960s, the Artists’ Own Gallery at 26 Kingly Street in Soho held exhibitions, events and gigs. It was run by a group of artists, including Keith Alban and his wife, Hazel, who exhibited her work there. Malcolm McLaren presented the first public showing of his work at the Gallery… Read More
The Language of Architecture: Peter Märkli’s system of proportion
15 June 2021
The Language of Architecture: Peter Märkli’s system of proportion15 June 2021
By Stacey Lewis
Peter Märkli’s hand-drawn section of the ancient monument Hagia Sophia (532–7) is part of a working process developed alongside his design work. The output is a collection of investigative drawings that document sacred archetypal buildings, and articulate his resolved thesis that ‘architecture has a language’. The weight of the drawing… Read More
Stirling & Gowan: The Isle of Wight House
21 July 2021
Stirling & Gowan: The Isle of Wight House21 July 2021
By James Gowan, J. M. Richards, Laurent Stalder, James Stirling and Ellis Woodman
This first impetus for this article was provided by Laurent Stalder’s discussion of the sectional perspective drawing for the Isle of Wight house, reproduced here, which lead us to J. M. Richards’ seminal essay, and then onward through the literature. In addition, we asked the Deutsches Architekturmuseum and the Canadian… Read More
plan section domestic