Period: c20th
The Urban Fact: Aldo Rossi, Student Housing, Chieti
07.02.2022
The Urban Fact: Aldo Rossi, Student Housing, Chieti07.02.2022
– Kersten Geers, Stefano Graziani and Jelena Pancevac
The 1976 competition for student housing was part of a development scheme for the recently founded D’Annunzio University, a joint initiative by the neighbouring provinces of Chieti and Pescara in the Abruzzo region of southern Italy. The town of Chieti is located 200km northeast of Rome, on the ancient main… Read More
Postmodern Australia: Robert Pearce’s Drawings for Edmond and Corrigan
01.02.2022
Postmodern Australia: Robert Pearce’s Drawings for Edmond and Corrigan01.02.2022
Writing in Cities of Hope (1993), the historian Conrad Hamann relates that, on mentioning to Robert Venturi the name of the Australian postmodernist architect Peter Corrigan, the first words from Venturi’s mouth were ‘Oh God! Corrigan!’. Yet it must be made clear that to Corrigan, and to his wife and… Read More
The Measure of It: An Essay on Measured Drawings
31.01.2022
The Measure of It: An Essay on Measured Drawings31.01.2022
As a classical architect, George Saumarez Smith not only believes in producing something that is pleasing to the eye, but in the importance of precise measuring in architectural practice, that ‘…the important part of an architect’s role is to produce drawings as instructions to a builder’. The following excerpt is… Read More
The Architectural Models of Theodore Conrad: The ‘Miniature Boom’ of Mid-century Modernism (2021) – Review
25.01.2022
The Architectural Models of Theodore Conrad: The ‘Miniature Boom’ of Mid-century Modernism (2021) – Review25.01.2022
The historian and curator Teresa Fankhänel’s latest book and first monograph, The Architectural Models of Theodore Conrad: The ‘Miniature Boom’ of Mid-Century Modernism, takes a slightly different tack to the recent spell of research about models that has appeared on the shelves of historians and architects alike. For one, Fankhänel… Read More
Montage-Entourage; Or The Politics Of The Seam
24.01.2022
Montage-Entourage; Or The Politics Of The Seam24.01.2022
The following text is a version of chapter three from Reality Modeled After Images: Architecture and Aesthetics after the Digital Image by Michael Young, published by Routledge © 2021. Available from Routledge. Portions of this chapter were initially developed in the essay ‘The Aesthetic Recycling of Cultural Refuse’ published in Writing Architectures: Ficto-Critical Approaches… Read More
Álvaro Siza: The Adoration of the Magi
19.01.2022
Álvaro Siza: The Adoration of the Magi19.01.2022
Our story opens at the close of the Christmas season. It quite literally starts with an Epiphany, both chronologically and figuratively, a glimpse of Three Kings prompted by Niall Hobhouse’s holiday greetings. His somewhat precarious nativity scene, charmingly set upon Álvaro Siza’s yellow columns, reminded me of Sandro Botticelli’s Adoration… Read More
In the Archive: New and Found 2
12.01.2022
In the Archive: New and Found 212.01.2022
– Editors
Click on drawings to move and enlarge. The New and Found series is an informal miscellany, which allows us to show some recent acquisitions together with material in the archive or the libraries at Shatwell that you may not have seen before. New Julia Bloomfield recalls a dinner with Frank… Read More
Infinite Patterns in I. M. Pei’s Furniture Diagrams
12.01.2022
Infinite Patterns in I. M. Pei’s Furniture Diagrams12.01.2022
In 1969, the Cleo Rogers Memorial Library, designed by I. M. Pei & Partners, was completed in the small town of Columbus, Indiana. According to project architect Ken Carruthers, who was obsessed with the golden ratio, the building rigorously employs ancient proportional systems. Fully opaque on its east and west… Read More
Essex Coastal Cornice: Ex-Mould
11.01.2022
Essex Coastal Cornice: Ex-Mould11.01.2022
The cover of early editions of John Summerson’s book The Classical Language of Architecture features a curious drawing of a Doric entablature. To all intents and purposes the profile of the entablature is correct, but it has been extruded through the method of oblique projection. It is as if we… Read More
Between the Layers: Transparent Paper as a Modernist Architectural Design Environment
06.01.2022
Between the Layers: Transparent Paper as a Modernist Architectural Design Environment06.01.2022
The following is an excerpt from Fabio Colonnese’s essay, ‘Between the Layers: Transparent Paper as a Modernist Architectural Design Environment’, published in Digital Modernism Heritage Lexicon (Springer Tracts, 2021). The editors have prefaced this with a short summary of the full essay. The essay describes transparent paper and its operative… Read More
Working with Tony Fretton
04.01.2022
Working with Tony Fretton04.01.2022
In the early 1990s a number of architects, academics and artists came together in a rather fluid manner, meeting regularly in my Bloomsbury apartment. Tony Fretton was older than most of us and had already established a clear critical position. The conversations we had, and sometimes the arguments, were instructive… Read More
The Rural Homes of Marcelo Ferraz and Francisco Fanucci
13.12.2021
The Rural Homes of Marcelo Ferraz and Francisco Fanucci13.12.2021
Where our sertão remainsEvery happy little houseStill neighbors a streamAnd still harbors its arbors Where our sertão remainsEvery happy little homeCooks on the coal cookerThe wood stove’s still blown[…] Where sertão remainsEvery little house is gladfor on the evenings we get our Hail-MaryAnd the pleasure of being alone ‘Casinha feliz’,… Read More
Stories from Architecture: Behind the Lines at Drawing Matter
13.12.2021
Stories from Architecture: Behind the Lines at Drawing Matter13.12.2021
– Adrian Forty, Niall Hobhouse and Philippa Lewis
This film was recorded in the Drawing Matter archive on the afternoon of Friday 28 November. It records a conversation between Philippa Lewis, Adrian Forty and Niall Hobhouse, about some of the drawings behind Philippa’s new book, Stories from Architecture: Behind the Lines at Drawing Matter (2021). The film was… Read More
Analoge Architektur: Fire Station Project
08.12.2021
Analoge Architektur: Fire Station Project08.12.2021
This drawing of the roof level of a fire station, designed as a student work in 1986, was for the ‘Analoge Architektur’ exhibition at the Architektur Forum Zurich. [1] While the drawing is the work of an individual, it was inconceivable without the competitive and collegial development of a drawing… Read More
Drawing Parallels: John Hejduk’s Wall House 1
06.12.2021
Drawing Parallels: John Hejduk’s Wall House 106.12.2021
The following text is extracted, with permission, from Drawing Parallels: Knowledge Production in Axonometric, Isometric and Oblique Drawings by Ray Lucas, published by Routledge © 2020. Available here. Drawing Parallels explores the uses of parallel projection in the work of five twentieth century architects: James Stirling, JJP Oud, Peter Eisenman, John Hejduk,… Read More
In the Archive: New and Found
01.12.2021
In the Archive: New and Found01.12.2021
– Editors
Click on drawings to move and enlarge. The New and Found series is an informal miscellany, which allows us to show some recent acquisitions together with material in the archive or the libraries at Shatwell that you may not have seen before. New On the digital planchest this time is… Read More
The Philips Pavilion: Models as Structural Expression
23.11.2021
The Philips Pavilion: Models as Structural Expression23.11.2021
The following text discusses the use of models as an integral part of the architectural process. It is excerpted from Matthew Mindrup’s article on the roles of models in the design of the Sydney Opera House and Iannis Xenakis and Le Corbusier’s Philips Pavilion for the 1958 World’s Fair (arq:… Read More
Álvaro Siza: Seven Early Sketchbooks
22.11.2021
Álvaro Siza: Seven Early Sketchbooks22.11.2021
– Niall Hobhouse, Manuel Montenegro and Álvaro Siza
These films were made over four hours on the afternoon of Sunday 25 March 2018 in Álvaro Siza’s studio in Rua do Aleixo outside Porto. I had flown to Portugal that morning with the seven sketchbooks which we were to look through with Manuel Montenegro. Manuel and I had conceived… Read More
The Urban Fact: Aldo Rossi, The School, Fagnano Olona
16.11.2021
The Urban Fact: Aldo Rossi, The School, Fagnano Olona16.11.2021
– Kersten Geers, Stefano Graziani and Jelena Pancevac
This is part one of two excerpts chosen from The Urban Fact: A Reference Book on Aldo Rossi. The second text, on Aldo Rossi’s Student Housing in Chieti, completed in 1976, will be available soon. Please see the end of the page for more information on this publication. The Olona… Read More
A Short History of Alberto Ponis on the Sardinian Coast
15.11.2021
A Short History of Alberto Ponis on the Sardinian Coast15.11.2021
Alberto Ponis was born in Genoa in 1933. He took his architecture degree in Florence in 1960. His father, Mario Alberto, had founded the M.I.T.A. (Manifattura Italiana Tappeti Artistici) in 1926 in Nervi, near Genoa. The company’s building was built by Luigi Daneri in 1940. Gio Ponti, Arnaldo Pomodoro and… Read More
Sigurd Lewerentz: Architect of Death and Life (2021): Review and Excerpts
15.11.2021
Sigurd Lewerentz: Architect of Death and Life (2021): Review and Excerpts15.11.2021
The new monograph Sigurd Lewerentz: Architect of Death and Life has arrived, published by ArkDes and Park Books to accompany the exhibition that opened in Stockholm in October 2021 curated by ArkDes director Kieran Long with scenography by Caruso St John Architects (open until August 2022). As an excellent preparation… Read More
Frank Lloyd Wright, House for Edith Carlson, 1939, Part II
07.11.2021
Frank Lloyd Wright, House for Edith Carlson, 1939, Part II07.11.2021
Extracted from Stories from Architecture: Behind the Lines at Drawing Matter by Philippa Lewis, published by MIT Press © 2021. Order 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’. My dear Miss Carlson, By… Read More
Writing Prize 2021: Itsuko Hasegawa, Capturing an Infinite Distance
04.11.2021
Writing Prize 2021: Itsuko Hasegawa, Capturing an Infinite Distance04.11.2021
Negatives Of the 120,027 items included in the archives of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, 16,010 are part of the collection called ‘Architecture’, and 22,877 are filed as ‘Negative film’. Astonishingly, only one entry sits in both: ‘Ensemble de 12 négatifs couleur (4 pour le projet Bizan, 6 pour le… Read More
Charles Jencks: Architect in the Jumping Universe
25.01.2022
Charles Jencks: Architect in the Jumping Universe25.01.2022
– Lily Jencks
Gardens have always been the location to contemplate and speculate on man’s place in nature. Gardens bring the macrocosm into the microcosm by the necessity of being a living place, connecting to the wider rhythms, ecological networks, or the even more abstract forces that create our world. When Charles and… Read More
theoretical & imaginary landscape interior DMC