Period: c20th
Lenin’s Tomb, the Second Version
05.09.2022
Lenin’s Tomb, the Second Version05.09.2022
– Niall Hobhouse and Markus Lähteenmäki
The following email exchange took place between Niall Hobhouse, founder of Drawing Matter, and Markus Lähteenmäki in July 2022. Dear Markus, Came across these here in the archive… from god knows where exactly. Thought you might have something to say – had forgotten that it was originally ‘dummied’ in wood.… Read More
Mies van der Rohe and the Universal Space Project
30.08.2022
Mies van der Rohe and the Universal Space Project30.08.2022
I must say that I was far more riveted by another Mies . . . who, in perfect International Style manner continued to insist on architecture and the production of truth as generated by a set of a priori and universalizing laws, and who was caught up in the entirely… Read More
Edifice
19.08.2022
Edifice19.08.2022
These slides were sent to us by Philippa Lewis in response to Gordon Shrigley’s article on render; photographs to expand on the possibilities of the material, some results purposeful and some incidentally beautiful. Gillian Darley and Philippa Lewis started Edifice in around 1987 – a stock library source for the… Read More
Turning Point: The US Embassy in Dublin
17.08.2022
Turning Point: The US Embassy in Dublin17.08.2022
This is an extract of the construction drawings produced by John M. Johansen’s office in 1963 for the cylindrical US Embassy in Dublin. It is a three-dimensional ink drawing of the external precast concrete structure, describing two single-storey bays in isolation. Viewed abstractly it could almost be an anatomical study,… Read More
Objects That Meet
15.08.2022
Objects That Meet15.08.2022
Revered objects that move about in design circles and are found in publications, museums, and galleries earn their status through persistence over time. Take two famous chairs, Gerrit Rietveld’s Red Blue chair of 1918–23 and Thomas Lee’s Adirondack chair of 1903. All chairs have met just by being chairs, but… Read More
W. R. Lethaby: Architecture, Mysticism and Myth
10.08.2022
W. R. Lethaby: Architecture, Mysticism and Myth10.08.2022
This is the first text in this series, where Hugh Strange visits key texts throughout W. R. Lethaby’s life. Here we start at the beginning with Architecture, Mysticism and Myth, first published in 1891. In many respects, and certainly in relation to his later output, William Richard Lethaby’s first book,… Read More
Power & Public Space 9: Ana Bonet Miró – Fun Palace
03.08.2022
Power & Public Space 9: Ana Bonet Miró – Fun Palace03.08.2022
– Matthew Blunderfield and Ana Bonet Miró
Power & Public Space is a podcast from Drawing Matter and the Architecture Foundation hosted by Matthew Blunderfield. You can find the full podcast series here. Or listen now: Since its conception in the 1960s, the Fun Palace has circulated widely in architecture culture, and mainly through its provocative collages, characterised… Read More
Power & Public Space 8: Markus LäHteenmäki – Lev Rudnev’s Monument to the Victims of the Revolution
29.07.2022
Power & Public Space 8: Markus LäHteenmäki – Lev Rudnev’s Monument to the Victims of the Revolution29.07.2022
– Matthew Blunderfield and Markus Lähteenmäki
Power & Public Space is a podcast from Drawing Matter and the Architecture Foundation hosted by Matthew Blunderfield. You can find the full podcast series here. Or listen now: Markus Lähteenmäki’s research explores, in part, how architecture became instrumental in the societal and cultural transformations that took place in revolutionary Russia. … Read More
Alberto Pérez-Gómez: Architecture as Drawing
28.07.2022
Alberto Pérez-Gómez: Architecture as Drawing28.07.2022
– 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
Power & Public Space 6: André Patrão – Eisenman, Derrida, and Chora L Works (Parc de la Villette)
22.07.2022
Power & Public Space 6: André Patrão – Eisenman, Derrida, and Chora L Works (Parc de la Villette)22.07.2022
– Matthew Blunderfield and André Patrão
Power & Public Space is a podcast from Drawing Matter and the Architecture Foundation hosted by Matthew Blunderfield. You can find the full podcast series here. Or listen now: Parc de la Villette was emblematic of the strong ties made between the disciplines of architecture and philosophy in the 1980s, where… Read More
Freddie Phillipson ‘The Ulysses Project’ – Review
18.07.2022
Freddie Phillipson ‘The Ulysses Project’ – Review18.07.2022
The exhibition of Freddie Phillipson’s drawings reconstructing the Dublin of James Joyce’s Ulysses opened on Bloomsday, helping to celebrate the centenary of the publication of the novel. The exhibition is essential viewing for anyone interested in how the European city and its architecture support a culture, and for anyone interested… Read More
Materia 2: Corrugated Iron
14.07.2022
Materia 2: Corrugated Iron14.07.2022
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
Elia Zenghelis: The Image as Emblem and Storyteller
11.07.2022
Elia Zenghelis: The Image as Emblem and Storyteller11.07.2022
We recently arranged for Elia Zenghelis to give a presentation under the title ‘The Image as Emblem and Storyteller’ via the Architecture Foundation’s YouTube channel. The talk summarises a thesis that Elia has been continuously developing throughout his career: from OMA’s polemical early work, via decades as one of the… Read More
Sir Edwin Lutyens, by his Son
04.07.2022
Sir Edwin Lutyens, by his Son04.07.2022
We have republished below an extract from Robert Lutyens’ short biography of his father, published in 1942, while Robert was serving in the RAF and two years before Edwin died. The book itself is uncomfortable — an odd mixture of personal portrait, family background, and an attempt to at once… Read More
Jan Tschichold and El Lissitzky: Foto-Auge (Photo-eye)
29.06.2022
Jan Tschichold and El Lissitzky: Foto-Auge (Photo-eye)29.06.2022
Although not a member of the Deutscher Werkbund (DWB), Jan Tschichold was appointed to the selection committee for the Werkbund’s Film und Foto exhibition (FiFo), to be held in Stuttgart between May and June 1929. FiFo was one of the most ambitious attempts to showcase recent developments in photography. The… Read More
Hexenhaus (2021) – Review
27.06.2022
Hexenhaus (2021) – Review27.06.2022
‘THE FOREST THAT BUILT THE HOUSE’ There are two drawings for me that are significant in understanding the work of the Smithsons. Both are of Upper Lawn [1]. One is a drawing made by Peter Smithson of their Solar Pavilion in elevation, the other by Alison Smithson in plan. The… Read More
Roland Simounet: De La Verité en Architecture
24.06.2022
Roland Simounet: De La Verité en Architecture24.06.2022
For an artist, ‘getting down to work’ is an instinct carried out spontaneously. […] The first outpouring in the pages of the sketchbook, when thought turns into action, at the meeting point between a project and a site, is so strong sometimes, so commanding, that one has the feeling that… Read More
Workshop: On Siza’s March ’77 Sketchbook
22.06.2022
Workshop: On Siza’s March ’77 Sketchbook22.06.2022
This audio recording documents a workshop on Álvaro Siza’s Malagueira sketchbook delivered by Manuel Montenegro to Masters students from the School of Engineering and Architecture, Fribourg, and their tutors Patricia Guaita and Raffael Baur. The sketchbook is a record of Siza’s thoughts and responses over three days in 1977, on… Read More
The Ulysses Project: Architecture and the City through James Joyce’s Dublin: Part II
17.06.2022
The Ulysses Project: Architecture and the City through James Joyce’s Dublin: Part II17.06.2022
This is part two of two posts pairing Freddie Phillipsons’s drawings from The Ulysses Project with excerpts from James Joyce’s landmark novel. The drawings are on display at the Irish Architectural Archive, Dublin, until 19 August 2022. The exhibition is part of Ulysses100, an international programme of events celebrating 100 years… Read More
Growing up Modern: Childhoods in Iconic Homes (2021) – Review
13.06.2022
Growing up Modern: Childhoods in Iconic Homes (2021) – Review13.06.2022
What do our birthplaces do to us? Should those homes be considered modernist jewels, the pride of their architects and, sometimes, of their patrons, how would that particular experience be imprinted on their children? Growing up Modern is a highly personal book in which the authors, Julia Jamrozik and Coryn… Read More
Benjamin Wistar Morris and a new Metropolitan Opera House
10.06.2022
Benjamin Wistar Morris and a new Metropolitan Opera House10.06.2022
A recent acquisition of six drawings by the American architect Benjamin Wistar Morris reveals his long involvement with one of the most important urban projects of the twentieth century. Morris’s role in this project was a highlight of his career although he has not been widely associated with it. A… Read More
Krier/Culot: Architecture, language and process (1977)
07.09.2022
Krier/Culot: Architecture, language and process (1977)07.09.2022
– Robert Maxwell
The essay by Robert Maxwell linked below was sent to Drawing Matter by Celia Scott earlier this year. It was first published in Architectural Design, March 1977, as part of a longer feature titled ‘The Role of Ideology’, which discussed the theme through the writing of the architect and historian… Read More
urban form