Period: c20th
Luigi Moretti and Spazio: Eclecticism and Unity of Language
31 July 2024
Luigi Moretti and Spazio: Eclecticism and Unity of Language31 July 2024
In the newfound spirit that emerged at the end of the Second World War, Rome became the epicentre of a cultural renaissance. In a context marked by the dynamic interplay between the innovative language of the modern avant-garde and the city’s artistic heritage, Luigi Moretti emerged as a key figure… Read More
In the Archive: New and Found 4
26 July 2024
In the Archive: New and Found 426 July 2024
– Editors
Click on drawings to move. 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 a collection… Read More
Fabric Object: Diana Agrest and Mario Gandelsonas
25 July 2024
Fabric Object: Diana Agrest and Mario Gandelsonas25 July 2024
– Darell Wayne Fields, Anda French, Tessa Kelly, Paul Lewis and Michael Meredith
The small exhibition Fabric Object, curated by Michael Meredith and exhibited at the Princeton University School of Architecture between 7th March and 3rd May 2024, brought together seven projects from the early career of Diana Agrest and Mario Gandelsonas, of Agrest and Gandelsonas Architects. Short texts written by the Princeton School of Architecture faculty: Stan… Read More
Peter Wilson and Mark Dorrian in conversation – Part 2
22 July 2024
Peter Wilson and Mark Dorrian in conversation – Part 222 July 2024
– Mark Dorrian and Peter Wilson
This is the second part of an edited transcript of a conversion held in Thurloe Sq, London, on 25 July 2020. Peter Wilson’s exhibition ‘Indian Summer and Thereafter’ had opened at Betts Project the previous evening. Mark Dorrian: Moving on to the Villa Auto and Clandeboye projects, both were sited… Read More
Object of Desire — Haff Cross-Hatch Machine
18 July 2024
Object of Desire — Haff Cross-Hatch Machine18 July 2024
Leaving the Architectural Association and starting at Ahrends Burton and Koralek (ABK) in 1978 was a complete revelation to me. Here, instead of the layers of smudged graphite used to illustrate abstract drawings—as promoted by Dalibor Vesely for instance—graphite powder from your rotary pencil sharpener was used to shade the… Read More
Watchful Solitude: John Hejduk and Venice
15 July 2024
Watchful Solitude: John Hejduk and Venice15 July 2024
The Thirteen Watchtowers of Cannaregio (with Waiting House) and House for the Inhabitant Who Refused to Participate were conceived as an urban ensemble and laid the foundation for the later phase of John Hejduk’s work, which he described as an ‘architecture of pessimism’, and encompasses his best-known projects, such as… Read More
Relics of Electronic Hallucinations
11 July 2024
Relics of Electronic Hallucinations11 July 2024
During the 1950s and 1960s, the T-3 research group at the Los Alamos Nuclear Research Center produced the first drawings of what is now known as computational fluid dynamics. Using the prowess of early electronic computers—initially developed for the Manhattan Project, the T-3 lab, working under the auspices of the… Read More
Manufacturers Trust Bank
9 July 2024
Manufacturers Trust Bank9 July 2024
When one thinks of Manufacturers Trust Company and New York City architecture, the first image that comes to mind is Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill’s international style bank building on Fifth Avenue and 43rd Street from 1954. By that year, SOM with Gordon Bunshaft as a design partner were the architects… Read More
Gavin Stamp: Interwar, British Architecture 1919-1939
8 July 2024
Gavin Stamp: Interwar, British Architecture 1919-19398 July 2024
When the architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner was asked to draw up an inventory of interwar buildings that deserved to be placed on the Statutory List, the so-called ‘Pevsner 50’ that resulted was almost entirely composed of the whitest of white modernist buildings. Similarly, John Summerson argued that the only thing… Read More
OMA: Rotterdam—Child’s Crusade
28 June 2024
OMA: Rotterdam—Child’s Crusade28 June 2024
This is the third post, in a series of six, titled OMA CONVERSATIONS. The series is the result of a collaboration between Drawing Matter and architect Richard Hall who, over the past two years, has conducted twenty-three in-depth conversations with key collaborators working with OMA during its formative years. Drawing… Read More
Fabric Object: Diana Agrest and Mario Gandelsonas
27 June 2024
Fabric Object: Diana Agrest and Mario Gandelsonas27 June 2024
– Stan Allen, Beatriz Colomina, Michael Meredith, Jesse Reiser and Mark Wigley
The small exhibition Fabric Object, curated by Michael Meredith and exhibited at the Princeton University School of Architecture between 7th March and 3rd May 2024, brought together seven projects from the early career of Diana Agrest and Mario Gandelsonas, of Agrest and Gandelsonas Architects. Short texts written by the Princeton School of Architecture faculty: Stan… Read More
Frank Lloyd Wright at Drawing Matter
25 June 2024
Frank Lloyd Wright at Drawing Matter25 June 2024
– Editors and Nicholas Olsberg
The Frank Lloyd Wright collection is of primary interest from 1936 to 1951, and especially for a small group of studies and presentations for the shaping of domestic space, dwelling within landscape, and interior fittings. There are also important isolated drawings for a prairie house, Midway Gardens, the Johnson Administration… Read More
Peter Wilson and Mark Dorrian in conversation – Part 1
20 June 2024
Peter Wilson and Mark Dorrian in conversation – Part 120 June 2024
– Mark Dorrian and Peter Wilson
This is the first part of an edited transcript of a conversion held in Thurloe Sq, London, on 25 July 2020. Peter Wilson’s exhibition ‘Indian Summer and Thereafter’ had opened at Betts Project the previous evening. Mark Dorrian: What led you to architecture to begin with, Peter? You began studying… Read More
Lapo Binazzi: Casa a Diacceto
10 June 2024
Lapo Binazzi: Casa a Diacceto10 June 2024
The design of Casa a Diacceto responds to the principle of ‘discontinuity’ theorised by Lapo Binazzi at the beginning of the 1970s: architecture can only be thought of and realised in fragments and pieces, there is no longer a coherent unity. The pieces are never invented, but are taken from… Read More
OMA: Elia Zenghelis—Watersheds
31 May 2024
OMA: Elia Zenghelis—Watersheds31 May 2024
This is the second post, in a series of six, titled OMA CONVERSATIONS. The series is the result of a collaboration between Drawing Matter and architect Richard Hall who, over the past two years, has conducted twenty-three in-depth conversations with key collaborators working with OMA during its formative years. Drawing… Read More
Begin again. Fail Better: Pichler and Hollein
29 May 2024
Begin again. Fail Better: Pichler and Hollein29 May 2024
This text by Matt Page will be included in the exhibition catalogue for Begin again. Fail Better: Preliminary drawings in architecture (and art). The exhibition opens on the 31st May 2024 at the Kunstmuseum Olten, and includes nearly 100 drawings from the Drawing Matter Collection. More information about the exhibition… Read More
Notes from Rome
23 May 2024
Notes from Rome23 May 2024
– Anna Kostreva and Diane Lewis
The following text first appeared in Conceiving the Plan: Nuance and Intimacy in Civic Space, ed. by Yael Hameiri Sainsaux (Milano: Skira editore, 2022), 192-195. Edited and transcribed by Anna Kostreva. In 1977, Diane Lewis had just graduated from The Cooper Union and was honored with a fellowship at the… Read More
Peter Wilson in the Empire of Signs
22 May 2024
Peter Wilson in the Empire of Signs22 May 2024
‘Geometric, rigorously drawn, and yet always signed somewhere with an asymmetrical fold or knot.’[1] While this could be a concise description of Peter Wilson’s work, it is in fact Roland Barthes writing in his book Empire of Signs (1970) about what he described as the Japanese ‘ecstasy of the package’.[2] Barthes was struck by… Read More
O.M. Ungers: Drawing a metaphor
17 May 2024
O.M. Ungers: Drawing a metaphor17 May 2024
– Diogo Lopes and Fanny Noël
This drawing emerged within the framework of a summer school in Berlin, organized by Oswald Mathias Ungers for his Cornell students in 1977. The project was developed by the German architect together with his assistants, Peter Riemann, Rem Koolhaas, Hans Kolhoff and Arthur Ovaska and it offers a vision for… Read More
John Hejduk’s Farm Library
15 May 2024
John Hejduk’s Farm Library15 May 2024
– Mehrshad Atashi and Lida Badafareh
Farm Library is one among the sixty-eight entities that John Hejduk designed for the Lancaster/Hanover Masque. It is a primitive round object, with a spiral staircase positioned in its centre, running from the ground to the top. The bookshelves of the library are aligned with the boundary of the building, maintaining a distance… Read More
Banham in Buffalo
13 May 2024
Banham in Buffalo13 May 2024
[Our] main emphasis in this course has been on using primary sources in studying architectural history. By this I mean that we have been using the building itself as the first source of information about the history of the building.[1] Reyner Banham moved to America in 1976 to take up… Read More
Resistance and the ‘Architecture of Pessimism’: John Hejduk’s House for the Inhabitant who Refused to Participate
5 August 2024
Resistance and the ‘Architecture of Pessimism’: John Hejduk’s House for the Inhabitant who Refused to Participate5 August 2024
– Anna Kostreva
Many people reach a point in their lives at which they realise that they should protest the status quo. Some people make the realisation but remain frustrated, stuck, or blocked from enacting the necessary change. How do we face, name, and act according to our most fundamental realisations and what… Read More
DMC theoretical & imaginary urban form