Period: c20th
W. E. B. Du Bois’ visionary infographics
02.06.2020
W. E. B. Du Bois’ visionary infographics02.06.2020
In 1900 W.E.B. Du Bois travelled to the Exposition Universelle in Paris to present the ‘American Negro’, an exhibition that sought ‘to give, in as systematic and compact a form as possible, the history and present condition of a large group of human beings’. In addition to Du Bois, then… Read More
Michael Graves’ Rooftop Village (1985)
01.06.2020
Michael Graves’ Rooftop Village (1985)01.06.2020
excerpted from The Critical Edge: Controversy in Recent American Architecture (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1985)
Architectural Typefaces
29.05.2020
Architectural Typefaces29.05.2020
It is a drawing of a C. A rather normal looking C, a bit condensed perhaps. Its thick and thin parts are distributed along a vertical axis, rather than a diagonal one, so in typographic terms it is a modern C. To me it also looks a bit British, because it only… Read More
Working with Asplund
29.05.2020
Working with Asplund29.05.2020
Asplund’s office was two floors up in an old building in Regeringsgatan, behind the NK department store. There were civil engineers there and Asplund collaborated with them as well. They worked on regional planning. Asplund’s office was a very smart room, a chapel for meditation you might say. It was… Read More
New Welfare Island (1978)
27.05.2020
New Welfare Island (1978)27.05.2020
In the appendix to Delirious New York, Rem Koolhaas’s retroactive manifesto for the island of Manhattan, the tacit logic of ‘Manhattanism’ is set free from its origins in the form of five architectural projects: The City of the Captive Globe, Hotel Sphinx, New Welfare Island, the Welfare Palace Hotel and the Floating Pool. Four of these projects are… Read More
Gallaratese & Fagnano Olona (1976)
26.05.2020
Gallaratese & Fagnano Olona (1976)26.05.2020
Two fragments of texts paired with two fragments of process. Writing in the May 1976 issue of Architecture + Urbanism, Rossi reflects on two projects: the Gallaratese Housing Complex, Milan and the Fagnano Olona in the Lombardy region. In both of the drawings placed alongside the architect’ s writing, the forms… Read More
Eisenman: House VI (1985)
21.05.2020
Eisenman: House VI (1985)21.05.2020
The design of House VI was partly the result of Eisenman’s attempt to reconcile linguistic theories with architectural design. His interest in the work of Noam Chomsky, especially his theories of syntax, led to the investigation of possible analogies between language and architecture, and particularly the syntactic aspects of architectural… Read More
Calculated Aesthetics
19.05.2020
Calculated Aesthetics19.05.2020
The floor plan of the Losone gymnasium (1990–1997) by Livio Vacchini is a computer drawing made through the repetition of four basic elements: a rectangular black solid, and three types of short lines – one vertical and two diagonals in opposite directions. The black solid is copied with equal distance… Read More
Hotel Sphinx (1978)
18.05.2020
Hotel Sphinx (1978)18.05.2020
In the appendix to Delirious New York, Rem Koolhaas’s retroactive manifesto for the island of Manhattan, the tacit logic of ‘Manhattanism’ is set free from its origins in the form of five architectural projects: The City of the Captive Globe, Hotel Sphinx, New Welfare Island, the Welfare Palace Hotel and the Floating Pool. Four of these projects are… Read More
L’Invasion de la Viande (1980)
14.05.2020
L’Invasion de la Viande (1980)14.05.2020
As part of an imagined intervention in the subterranean spaces of the redeveloped Les Halles, Jean Criton’s project describes the new Metro station invaded, in a sinister process of parthenogenesis, by the meat from the Pavillon de la Boucherie, which had stood on the site until its controversial demolition eight… Read More
Paul Robbrecht: Drawn Closer
12.05.2020
Paul Robbrecht: Drawn Closer12.05.2020
Initiatief 86 was important because (as Robbrecht en Daem) it was more or less our first real work for art. It was also an important moment for the Belgian art scene. That summer Jan Hoet curated Chambres d’Amis, exhibiting the work of 50 artists in homes across Ghent. At the… Read More
Wright & Lautner: The Divorce
12.05.2020
Wright & Lautner: The Divorce12.05.2020
Wright’s Eaglefeather (1941) – hilltop Malibu extravaganza for the filmmaker Arch Oboler – was running into trouble. Lloyd Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright’s son, oversaw construction drawings and supervision, but Lloyd was fired by Oboler in March 1941. Wright came to Los Angeles and arranged for Lautner to complete the project… Read More
Animals
05.05.2020
Animals05.05.2020
– James Gowan and Ellis Woodman
excerpted from The Architecture of James Gowan: Modernity and Reinvention (2008)
The Ultimate Climes of John Lautner (1986)
04.05.2020
The Ultimate Climes of John Lautner (1986)04.05.2020
Extracted, with permission, from Piecing Together Los Angeles: An Esther McCoy Reader, published by East of Borneo Books © 2012. The publication is available at East of Borneo.
Drawing on the Nolli Plan
01.05.2020
Drawing on the Nolli Plan01.05.2020
Every January, when John and I visit Rome, I bring a set of A3 photocopies of the Nolli plan (Giambattista Nolli’s Nuova Topografia di Roma, 1748). I don’t bring the whole map – it stretches to twelve sheets, each about A2 in size – so before arriving I am already editing… Read More
Louis Kahn: Notes on a Scrap of Paper
30.04.2020
Louis Kahn: Notes on a Scrap of Paper30.04.2020
This scrap of paper, perhaps scooped up from the floor or a waste basket in Louis Kahn’s studio on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia, shows a single sketch – spidery lines outlining a modest block and strange openings. Beginning drawing in 1958 Kahn searched for a design of a new building… Read More
Grounded: Plans & Planning
29.04.2020
Grounded: Plans & Planning29.04.2020
– Richard Hall and Niall Hobhouse
The following is part of an email exchange between Niall Hobhouse and Richard Hall in response to Richard’s text on James Gowan and John Hejduk, One Thing Leads to Another. Niall Hobhouse: When you have time, I thought it would be interesting to encourage you to think about why it is… Read More
Shape
28.04.2020
Shape28.04.2020
Shape calls attention to things and their meanings. Architects, whether they mean to or not, give shape to things, and the people who see or inhabit those things, whether in full consciousness or not, respond to these shapes. The dimensions of this response are somewhat difficult to measure, since they… Read More
Haiku
28.04.2020
Haiku28.04.2020
Here John Cage is writing in November 1950 to Cecil Smith, the Editor of Musical America, in passionate defence of Eric Satie, who had been attacked in the journal in an article by Abraham Skulsky. In 1948, Cage had delivered a controversial talk at Black Mountain College, titled ‘Defense of Satie,’… Read More
Cadbury-Brown: Royal College of Art Extension
28.04.2020
Cadbury-Brown: Royal College of Art Extension28.04.2020
The counter-reformation did not last long. In the end I think what reconciled us was that everything I attempted failed. By way of diversion from internal dissension, like any politician, I switched to foreign affairs. There were two things which, as an architect, I was expected to achieve for the… Read More
Space
27.04.2020
Space27.04.2020
Space in architecture is a special category of free space, phenomenally created by the architect when he gives a part of free space shape and scale. Its first two dimensions – width and breadth – are responsive mainly to functional imperatives in the narrow sense, but the manipulation of its… Read More
Daria’s Aria
23.04.2020
Daria’s Aria23.04.2020
Between 1939 and 1941 the French-born, Milan-based editor Daria Guarnati published seven volumes of a series called Aria d’Italia. Each issue formed a substantial monograph on a distinct facet of Italian life and culture. The inaugural Christmas edition was followed by the evocatively titled issues ‘Italy through Colour’, ‘Mediterranean Summer’, ‘The… Read More
Instead of an Article (1958)
03.06.2020
Instead of an Article (1958)03.06.2020
– Alvar Aalto
‘As I cannot write an article, this dialogue is intended to replace it. It is only partially authentic, but that, of course, is also the case with the classical dialogues.’ Alvar Aalto in Arkkitehti-Arkitekten (1958): Sigfried Giedion: ‘What do I see, old friend, are you planning to write?’ Alvar Aalto:… Read More
humour & satire