Period: c21st
Engraving Shadows
19.02.2026
Engraving Shadows19.02.2026
In all relief printmaking techniques such as woodcut (in which cuts are made along the plank of a smooth piece of wood) and linocut (involving, like woodcuts, steel gouges with U- and V-shaped cutting tips), as well as wood engraving and even the humble potato-cut, what you leave uncut on… Read More
Protected: DMJ – Death Masks
18.02.2026
Protected: DMJ – Death Masks18.02.2026
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Protected: And in the shadows, the section fades
16.02.2026
Protected: And in the shadows, the section fades16.02.2026
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Het woonpalazzo – The Residential Palazzo
16.02.2026
Het woonpalazzo – The Residential Palazzo16.02.2026
Open any book by a Dutch architect and you are bound to come across H. P. Berlage—the forefather from whom sprang everything, albeit indirectly, from the Amsterdam School to Der Stijl and who is revered for his contribution at all scales from the details of his buildings to his town… Read More
John Hejduk, Object/Subject Riga
13.02.2026
John Hejduk, Object/Subject Riga13.02.2026
I began photographing John Hejduk’s work at the beginning of my interest in photography, when I knew little about his work and about architecture in general. Yet photographing John Hejduk came to me in a very natural way. His work, being so unique, had no visual references, and that gave… Read More
Architecture that Does not Perform
02.02.2026
Architecture that Does not Perform02.02.2026
A trip with our studio EBBA to Cambridge for our Christmas party resurfaced a familiar feeling. Moving through the city with its colleges, courts, libraries and streets, it became apparent how often architects expect things to perform. Buildings are read for what they signify, how clearly they express an idea… Read More
Heinrich Kulka and Adolf Loos
23.01.2026
Heinrich Kulka and Adolf Loos23.01.2026
On 7th July 2025, an exhibition dedicated to architect Heinrich Kulka opened at the Ringturm Exhibition Centre in Vienna, titled Heinrich Kulka (1900–1971) – The Spatial Plan as a Design Method, focusing on Kulka’s European work, both with Adolf Loos and as an independent architect. It was curated by architect and writer… Read More
On Measurement: A Survey of Florence
12.01.2026
On Measurement: A Survey of Florence12.01.2026
The following text is an extract from a longer essay entitled ‘De re mensura: Surveying Practice in Quattrocento Painting’—which the author completed at the Warburg Institute in the autumn of 2025—looking at Renaissance perspective painting to consider how practices of surveying informed the development of perspective as an artistic and intellectual pursuit. *… Read More
Tracing Shadows: A Workshop Primer
05.01.2026
Tracing Shadows: A Workshop Primer05.01.2026
Here, Mark Dorrian examines the theoretical history of the shadow and its evolving role in architectural drawing. The text acts as a word-and-image primer for the third colloquium event, jointly hosted by the RIBA and V&A Drawings Collections, and Drawing Matter, which will take place later this month—a day of… Read More
DMJ – The Story of the Raft: Architectural Narrations of Disaster, Despair and Delight
18.12.2025
DMJ – The Story of the Raft: Architectural Narrations of Disaster, Despair and Delight18.12.2025
Architectural stories, almost by definition, construct narratives combining image and text. It is these combinations of the visual and the verbal that make architectural stories particularly compelling and memorable. ‘The Story of the Pool’ (1976) by Rem Koolhaas is a case in point. The script, written by Koolhaas, tells of… Read More
To Table
11.12.2025
To Table11.12.2025
To table is to create the conditions for collective presence through food, space, event, and ritual; it is to host a gathering where practices and events—ranging from the everyday to the ceremonial, the spontaneous to the planned—become acts of social meaning-making. Also, as a verb, ‘to table’ conventionally carries a dual… Read More
This is Tomorrow
02.12.2025
This is Tomorrow 02.12.2025
The following text is excerpted from the catalogue of the exhibition Theo Crosby: One Hundred Lives, which is on view at Osh Gallery London until the 11th December 2025. Curated by Pentagram’s Michael Bierut and researcher Tess McCann, the exhibition focuses on the life and work of Theo Crosby, one of the founding… Read More
Drawings of Architectures
13.11.2025
Drawings of Architectures13.11.2025
– Primitivo González and Niall Hobhouse
The exhibition Drawings of Architectures brings together Primitivo González’s private collection of original architectural drawings, sketches and notes, which González has been collecting for more than twenty-five years. The exhibition, designed by Ara, Noa and Primitivo González, includes drawings from Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto, Rafael Moneo, and Emilio Tuñón, among others, and is presented at the Patio Herreriano Museum in… Read More
The Architect of Impossible Physics
06.11.2025
The Architect of Impossible Physics06.11.2025
More than once, when describing the processes involved in creating these drawings, my listener has responded with two words in particular: loading and channelling. I thought I would and should elaborate. The initial first gestures, lines, squiggles, scratches, smudges and randomisations of the mark making inform the start to the work in these… Read More
Drawing Al-Zaatari Syrian Refugee Camp
16.10.2025
Drawing Al-Zaatari Syrian Refugee Camp16.10.2025
This drawing depicts, from above, the Al-Zaatari Syrian refugee camp in neighbouring Jordan, as of May 2013. Each square drawn is not a symbol: it is a tent. Drawing the camp by hand was important for many reasons: each line looks the way it is from years of individual layered knowledge, where one’s… Read More
Building with Writing
02.10.2025
Building with Writing02.10.2025
Stan Allen’s exhibition Building with Writing, an installation documenting 40 years of writing and drawing practice, is currently presented at the Graham Foundation as part of the 2025 Chicago Architecture Biennial, led by Florencia Rodríguez, Artistic Director, and Igo Kommers Wender, Associate Curator. The exhibition was curated by Michael Meredith, with… Read More
Vor-textu(r)al Translations from Building to Drawing
22.09.2025
Vor-textu(r)al Translations from Building to Drawing22.09.2025
Architecture emerges somewhere in the interval between the first mark of drawing and building; it is from this interstitial space that potential stirs, waiting to be swept up in bouts of differential combustion. In this sense, architecture is neither drawing nor building but something that exceeds both, while transforming their… Read More
Bernat Klein Studio
18.09.2025
Bernat Klein Studio18.09.2025
Travelling north through the Borders over the years, regardless of route, a diversion along a twisting country road north of Selkirk was always on the cards. Navigating a dangerous bend in the road, no time to stop, was rewarded by a fleeting glimpse of an enigmatic presence amongst the trees.… Read More
Excuse My Dust, or the Air I Breathe: Notes on Architecture in the Archives
15.09.2025
Excuse My Dust, or the Air I Breathe: Notes on Architecture in the Archives15.09.2025
The following text is a partially revised version of that delivered and published in ‘Stoà Open Seminar. Emerging perspectives on teaching and research in architectural design’ (May 2024). It has since become the conceptual framework for a series of seminars held on the same subject at the School of Architecture… Read More
Neglected Dimensions: Rough Sketches for Public Space
11.09.2025
Neglected Dimensions: Rough Sketches for Public Space 11.09.2025
Neglected Dimensions: Rough Sketches for Public Space by Paul Carter mediates between graphic form and text, movement-tracking, and place-making to delineate the interstices of public space: what escapes its formal description and what falls outside official design. The book responds to pertinent concerns about the interface between the designers of public… Read More
Tolerance
04.09.2025
Tolerance04.09.2025
Too many people have talked about how profoundly the production of architecture has changed in the wake of the digital revolution. Far fewer have noted how architecture has resisted the seductive flourishes of digital production and maintained a dogged continuity with social and historical space. Bricks remain bricky even when… Read More
Fabric Fabrications
27.08.2025
Fabric Fabrications27.08.2025
Interpretation I am very grateful to Mark Dorrian for his reading of my 1977 drawing. [1] While at the time of its laborious production, the word shroud was not uppermost as my intended coding, I can now see that the dark, drawn folds have a real, symbolic or imaginary resonance—subsequently… Read More
A Machine is a House for Making a Living
25.08.2025
A Machine is a House for Making a Living25.08.2025
‘Mobility’ has long been a theme in architecture. After observing everyday life in Chinese cities, we became interested in exploring an understanding of mobility, which is not primarily defined by motion, but by the practices of pausing and occupying urban space. The discovery comes from the vehicles used by street… Read More
Chatter: Richard Wentworth with Roger Malbert, Rowan Moore and Marina Warner (Video)
20.02.2026
Chatter: Richard Wentworth with Roger Malbert, Rowan Moore and Marina Warner (Video)20.02.2026
– Editors
Drawing Matter’s 2026 Public Programme launched with Chatter, an informal evening that encouraged conversation around drawings and objects from the collection. For Chatter #1, we collaborated with the artist Richard Wentworth to select drawings and objects that relate to his work and interests. For the evening, material from different contexts,… Read More
DMC