Period: c20th
Aldo Rossi: Divination of a Drawing
18 January 2021
Aldo Rossi: Divination of a Drawing18 January 2021
‘With the instinct of a water-diviner, he begins to search, and that which is inside… begins to simmer to the surface.’ – Giorgio De Chirico This is a short meditation on an enigmatic drawing by Aldo Rossi. The drawing is framed as a stacked layering of three architectural elements whose… Read More
The Discreet Charm of the Bureaucratic
13 January 2021
The Discreet Charm of the Bureaucratic13 January 2021
When Henry-Russell Hitchcock drew a crooked line between the architecture of genius and the architecture of bureaucracy in a famous essay of 1947, he could hardly have predicted that within two decades, neo-avant-gardists around the world would embrace bureaucratic architecture because of its liberatory capacities—precisely the opposite reading of what… Read More
The Fun Palace: Light Adaptation
8 January 2021
The Fun Palace: Light Adaptation8 January 2021
Techniques of architectural drawing have been developed according to the physics of light and our perception of its effects. From the origins of two-dimensional representation – often mythologized in the act of tracing a projected silhouette on a flat surface – to practices of atmospheric simulation in rendering, recognized patterns of light have become essential in the communication of architecture’s spatial… Read More
The Values of Profiles (1951)
8 January 2021
The Values of Profiles (1951)8 January 2021
Provoked by the assertion of rational architecture, the beginnings of modern non-figurative art coincide in time with the exclusion from the world of living forms of cornices and profiles, the most evidently ‘abstract’ elements of ancient architecture. At least two reasons may be relevant to this singular phenomenon: one is… Read More
Writing Prize 2020: Architectural Apparitions
7 January 2021
Writing Prize 2020: Architectural Apparitions7 January 2021
Some dreams are never meant to see the light of day. Like a wild design that continually finds itself at the bottom of the roster, patiently waiting its turn to be a part of the city’s skyline, it either promises to burn a hole in the pocket of the investor,… Read More
Malagueira: Conflict Resolution (1983)
4 January 2021
Malagueira: Conflict Resolution (1983)4 January 2021
From my experience at Évora, I believe that participation – neither mystifying nor mystified – implies numerous and inevitable conflicts, conflicts which come out of the project. The general concept for the Malagueira district, the methods, the project itself, have indeed given rise to contradictory commentaries, even before our intervention:… Read More
Startha Éagsula: GKMP architects on Charles Moore
17 December 2020
Startha Éagsula: GKMP architects on Charles Moore17 December 2020
The sketch sections by Charles Moore are dense with ideas. They suggest an intriguing disparity between the exterior form and the interior space, a type of Baroque poché created by a thicket of lines. The structure is tree-like, with trunks and branches shaping the space of the undercroft. Our model… Read More
Writing Prize 2020: The Anatomy of an Oyster Theatre
14 December 2020
Writing Prize 2020: The Anatomy of an Oyster Theatre14 December 2020
In the beginning, there was only a shell. An empty shell. But we could already sense the contours of its elliptical shape, its multilayered protective envelope, stratified, laminated, like the bark of a tree (a). Slowly, the outer flaps of the carapace would move away from each other, vertically sweeping… Read More
Startha Éagsula: O’Donnell + Tuomey on Zaha Hadid
11 December 2020
Startha Éagsula: O’Donnell + Tuomey on Zaha Hadid11 December 2020
– Sheila O'Donnell and John Tuomey
Around the time she made this super-skinny scheme for Berlin, Zaha came to Dublin to lecture at the National Gallery. She showed her design for the Taoiseach’s House, breaking out of the walled garden in the Phoenix Park, alongside her breakthrough project for the Hong Kong Peak and other funny… Read More
Drawing, Collaging, Rendering
9 December 2020
Drawing, Collaging, Rendering9 December 2020
When the ‘hard-line drawing’ has become so synonymous with the image of the architect it is easy to forget that the convenience of the everyday pen is relatively recent. For most of the long history of the world’s second-oldest profession, pen, paint and ink were reserved for competition boards or… Read More
Startha Éagsula: t o b Architect on James Gowan
3 December 2020
Startha Éagsula: t o b Architect on James Gowan3 December 2020
There is a ramp;There is a staggering of volumes in plan and section, in out, in out;There is a tapering toward the top;The emphasis is on the public ambulatory spaces;There are people ambulating about;The proportion and judgement of the volumes appear to be empathetic to people;The undercroft condition is important… Read More
Collection of Sections
2 December 2020
Collection of Sections2 December 2020
The following drawings and commentaries have been excerpted from Visual Discoveries: A Collection of Sections (Oro Editions, 2020). The publication surveys the use of section drawings in the histories of architecture and other professions, from the 17th century to the present. More information on the book can be found here.… Read More
On a handrail
30 November 2020
On a handrail30 November 2020
What drew me to the drawings Tony made, and the handrail itself, is the line it treads between standardisation and customisation. The way in which, for instance, standard sections of steel are bundled together and expressed to form thicker newel posts or to hold the glazing panels of the balustrade.… Read More
William Heath Robinson ‘Tightening the Green Belt’
26 November 2020
William Heath Robinson ‘Tightening the Green Belt’26 November 2020
On 22 March 1921, The Times reported on ‘the urgent need of a green belt being preserved round London.’ It was the first recorded use of the phrase. By the time William Heath Robinson came to makes sketches for ‘Tightening the Green Belt’ (c.1935–47), the urban ring o’ roses was familiar enough… Read More
Aldo Rossi: the First Sketch and the Final Drawing
25 November 2020
Aldo Rossi: the First Sketch and the Final Drawing25 November 2020
The following letter was sent to the Drawing Matter editors by Andrea Leonardi, a member of Rossi’s office for nine years. A few days ago my dear friend Maurizio Diton, sent me an article he wrote for you in October 2019, ‘The Office Copier and Baptism by Colour: Working… Read More
Outside In
23 November 2020
Outside In23 November 2020
Music plays from behind a curtain. Lights come on and you see that the curtain runs along two sides of a carpet whose centre hosts a leopard skin cushion. There is a chair at one side of the carpet and at the opposite end, a single column. Not before long… Read More
Sigurd Lewerentz: Siting the Axonometric
17 November 2020
Sigurd Lewerentz: Siting the Axonometric17 November 2020
One way to think about an axonometric drawing is as a perspective with the vanishing point at infinity. This means that the lines of projection are parallel, which assures dimensional consistency. Early treatises, for example, spoke of parallel projection as analogous to shadows cast by the sun; not, strictly speaking,… Read More
Writing Prize 2020: Appropriation and Drawing
13 November 2020
Writing Prize 2020: Appropriation and Drawing13 November 2020
Similar to many of Rossi’s drawings, the Urban Fragment presents us with a collection of his most cherished forms – a primordial tower, the hand of a saint, and fragments of his own projects, such as the Gallaratese 2 housing complex in Milan and the Cemetery of San Cataldo. In… Read More
Startha Éagsula: Steve Larkin Architects on Walter Pichler
12 November 2020
Startha Éagsula: Steve Larkin Architects on Walter Pichler12 November 2020
This text has been excerpted from Startha Éagsula / Alternative Histories (2020), a companion catalogue to Alternative Histories (2019) and published to accompany the third installation of Alternative Histories at the Irish Architectural Archive. Startha Éagsula / Alternative Histories is now available to purchase from Drawing Matter’s bookshop, here. Friedrich… Read More
Paolo Portoghesi: the Field Theory
9 November 2020
Paolo Portoghesi: the Field Theory9 November 2020
Architects mediate the complexity of the world and their ideas through different instrumental modalities. Whether perspective drawings, proportional relationships, descriptive geometry, material prototypes, scaled models, maquettes or three-dimensional models – models serve the purpose of collecting and indexing information into measurable and rational systems so that the architectural project can… Read More
Writing Prize 2020: To Measure a Croissant
9 November 2020
Writing Prize 2020: To Measure a Croissant9 November 2020
‘Through modesty, restraint, and measured discipline, immeasurable delights are made possible.’ James Corner, Taking Measures Across the American Landscape (1996) C. To measure a croissant, we might: 1.1 Evaluate all ingredients involved: flour, sugar, milk, yeast, salt and butter. 1.2 Count the number of folds the butter and dough must… Read More
Tree Speech
7 November 2020
Tree Speech7 November 2020
The following text is the fourth of a series of four essays on trees in architectural drawings by Sylvia Lavin. The essays were first published in Log 49 (Summer 2020). Drawing Matter would like to thank the author and the journal’s editors for allowing us reproduce the essays on www.drawingmatter.org.… Read More
Writing Prize 2020: Hugh Casson’s ‘Diary’
6 November 2020
Writing Prize 2020: Hugh Casson’s ‘Diary’6 November 2020
Hugh Casson did it in the car. He did in in the Opera House, in Westminster Abbey and at the Buckingham Palace Garden Party. He did it in Goa, Mykonos and at Loughborough University. Wherever he went, whatever he saw, he drew. He drew to keep his eyes keen and… Read More
Architecture at the Edge
13 January 2021
Architecture at the Edge13 January 2021
– Craig Moller and Marco Moro
The following is a conversation between Marco Moro and Craig Moller, New Zealand-born architect and author of the drawing pictured above. Moller made the drawing while in a design studio taught by Mark Wigley in 1985, while the latter was about to finish his doctoral thesis within the newly established… Read More
projection (axonometric isometric) presentation autographicals (editorial project)