Period: c20th
Twelve Thousand Seven Hundred Forty-Two KM of Continuum
4 October 2021
Twelve Thousand Seven Hundred Forty-Two KM of Continuum4 October 2021
There is a handwritten phrase in red ink at the bottom of this sketch, which reads in Italian: ‘for the continuous monument (genesis)’. This drawing is from one of Adolfo Natalini’s sketchbooks and depicts a series of studies about the earth. In the same sketchbook, he drew multiple sequences of… Read More
R for Representation
27 September 2021
R for Representation27 September 2021
When it comes to analysing the status and function of architectural and design models, the concept of representation is central because it underlines the core idea of what these artefacts are: they stand for something else. They are a symbol, a first materialisation, a placeholder for abstract ideas, for constructions… Read More
Survey: Le Corbusier, Roland Garros stadium
21 September 2021
Survey: Le Corbusier, Roland Garros stadium21 September 2021
In July 1958, one day before Faisal II was assassinated during the 14 July Revolution in Baghdad, the Iraqi Ministry of Development sent a telegram to Paris confirming Le Corbusier’s appointment to design the Olympic Stadium. Over the following months, while the programme and site were being clarified, his office… Read More
PC Harry Woodley: Plans of No 131 Cornwall Street, 1902
17 September 2021
PC Harry Woodley: Plans of No 131 Cornwall Street, 190217 September 2021
Extracted from Stories from Architecture: Behind the Lines at Drawing Matter by Philippa Lewis, published by MIT Press © 2021. Preorder the book here. The drawings around which Stories from Architecture are written are all part of the Drawing Matter collection. Some of the texts were first published as ‘Behind the Lines’. It was a short walk… Read More
Disney: The Architecture of Staged Realities
10 September 2021
Disney: The Architecture of Staged Realities10 September 2021
‘Project Life Cycle’ provides a brief look into the complex work behind the scenes of a Walt Disney Company production. It is a meticulous formalisation that maps the industrial-organisational apparatus of the life cycle of a Disney project. The creative process is abstracted into a sequence of decisions, a neatly… Read More
Capitol or Capital?
2 September 2021
Capitol or Capital?2 September 2021
From the Editors: 1. We have been re-reading Martin Pawley’s collected essays. Each comes as a rich reminder that here was the contrarian voice of the 1970s and 80s, whose commentary – on architecture, architects and contemporary society – ought to be replayed to readers now on a continuous, salutary,… Read More
Cosmos Street Revisited
31 August 2021
Cosmos Street Revisited31 August 2021
This response relates to a text by Oscar Binder and Nicholas Podlanha published by Drawing Matter in July 2021, which described and reconstructed (badly) a lost project by the deceased architect James Clark. In fact I am James Clark (decidedly not dead) and the project parodied in this less than… Read More
Superstudio: Finding the Horizon
12 August 2021
Superstudio: Finding the Horizon12 August 2021
Until not too long ago, I would be asked to explain to youngsters accustomed to digital graphics how I used to make montages. I felt like an archaeologist, explaining how, in the Palaeolithic era, Neanderthals used to make their tools. Across several workshops, I have realised that the techniques today… Read More
Besides, History (2018): Book Review
9 August 2021
Besides, History (2018): Book Review9 August 2021
It has a lot to do with misinterpretation. There is no real truth in history. Everything you see belongs to the past and you interpret it in your own way. Its related to visiting buildings, but also to an abstraction in how you re-represent architecture, appropriating it in your own… Read More
The H-plan: Breuer, Stirling, Gowan
5 August 2021
The H-plan: Breuer, Stirling, Gowan5 August 2021
The interesting note by Neil Jackson tying Gowan and his Isle of Wight House to the bi-nuclear plans of Breuer and then to Craig Ellwood’s Hillsborough House, reminds me of Stirling’s own early interest in Breuer, whose Connecticut work he saw during his 1948 internship in New York during his… Read More
Sketches from Algiers
2 August 2021
Sketches from Algiers2 August 2021
In October 1975 I returned to Cambridge to complete my architecture course. I had spent my year out in London with MacCormac and Jamieson, an exciting time as it was early days for this young practice and I was one of their very first assistants. In fact, I nearly didn’t… Read More
Steeling Stirling & Gowan’s Isle of Wight House
28 July 2021
Steeling Stirling & Gowan’s Isle of Wight House28 July 2021
The editors were thrilled to receive this response from Neil Jackson to our publication of drawings and literature relating to Stirling & Gowan’s Isle of Wight house. We are always interested in receiving comments and feedback from our readers: editors@drawingmatter.org. In taking the plan of the Stirling & Gowan’s Isle… Read More
Stirling & Gowan: The Isle of Wight House
21 July 2021
Stirling & Gowan: The Isle of Wight House21 July 2021
– 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 led 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
Leicester Engineering Building: Completed!
14 July 2021
Leicester Engineering Building: Completed!14 July 2021
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
Follow James Gowan, through his own photographs, as he inspects the construction progress of the Leicester Engineering Building. While these photographs may have been taken for immediate use at the time, they now serve as a permanent record of the temporary and internal structures that were later disassembled or concealed.… 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
– Tim Anstey and Mari Lending
Enjoyable finds in archives often emerge between the lines. Inside RIBA Collections, which is organised to form a narrative celebrating architects and their works, we found a gem of modern cultural history, consisting of three architectural plans and four letters (ten pages altogether, eight in transcript, two typed). [1] The… Read More
Keeping a Notebook
24 June 2021
Keeping a Notebook24 June 2021
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
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
An Overwhelming Concern with Shelter! (1966)
16 September 2021
An Overwhelming Concern with Shelter! (1966)16 September 2021
– Gustav Metzger
The International Dialogue on Experimental Architecture (IDEA) was held at New Metropole Arts Centre in Folkestone, Kent, 10–11 June 1966. The symposium was organised by Archigram and included contributions from Hans Hollein, Joe Weber, Yona Friedman, Cedric Price, Arthur Quarmsby, Anthony G. William and Reyner Banham. The following text is… Read More
DMC exhibition design theoretical & imaginary housing urban form