Tag: DMC
Hans Poelzig: Decorating the Empty Centre
01.06.2021
Hans Poelzig: Decorating the Empty Centre01.06.2021
‘Artists such as Poelzig, prevented from building in real life, have been driven to create Expressionist cinema architecture […] But in the long run, pasteboard fantasy creations […] can never be satisfying fodder for the architect; he has an inner urge to conceive and erect buildings in which real people… Read More
Le Palais de Darius a Persepolis
27.05.2021
Le Palais de Darius a Persepolis27.05.2021
This study of Le Palais de Darius a Persepolis was made by Pascal Coste (b. 1787 Marseille, France) in 1840 as part of an archeological survey of the Persian City of Persepolis. Through a combination of plan and perspective, Coste portrayed the symmetrical arrangement and elaborate construction of the ancient… Read More
Evocation of Solemnity: Temple of Minerva
19.05.2021
Evocation of Solemnity: Temple of Minerva19.05.2021
For the curious visitor that approaches the historic remains of the Temple of Minerva Medica in Rome, it will take a lot of effort to contextualize the building as it could have once been. That which before had allowed for a gentle processional approach to the ruin has now been… Read More
Keshi Ghat
13.05.2021
Keshi Ghat13.05.2021
Seeing is a reaching out, a kind of metaphorical touching that involves one’s whole being and is reciprocal. Amita Singh If you hadn’t read the title of the drawing, you would have probably guessed that this would have been a riverfront mosque in India. I did too. The courtyards reminding… Read More
Hans Hollein’s Immunological City
12.05.2021
Hans Hollein’s Immunological City12.05.2021
Hans Hollein’s city structures look awry to someone familiar with his retail work. In the time that these drawings were made, Hollein completed his UC Berkeley degree, travelled across the USA, and did an exhibition with Walter Pichler in Austria. His most influential visit was to the Native American pueblos.… Read More
Eric Gill On Designing War Graves (1919)
11.05.2021
Eric Gill On Designing War Graves (1919)11.05.2021
In 1918, when the First World War ended, Eric Gill was in his late forties and completing the Stations of the Cross for Westminster Cathedral. He was soon in demand to design and sculpt war memorials. Gill would create simple memorials listing the names of the fallen for both the… Read More
The Intention of Suspension: Peter Wilson’s Clandeboye Fish
10.05.2021
The Intention of Suspension: Peter Wilson’s Clandeboye Fish10.05.2021
A phenomenological reading of ‘bridge’ would not prioritise function (crossing) but this suspended moment. – Peter Wilson [1] A fish out of water, a lady in thought, floating ‘wilderness’. Things first have to be separated from each other so as to be united later on. [2] Peter Wilson’s drawings of… Read More
Insignificance 1: Discipline
04.05.2021
Insignificance 1: Discipline04.05.2021
The space of the architectural imagination resides within the discourses of line. This space defines the boundaries of a practice of conceptualising the laws of the place [1] whereby through an array of ordinances, the architectural line constitutes ‘the objects which it pretends only to describe realistically and to analyse… Read More
Notes on Architectural Education and Drawing
03.05.2021
Notes on Architectural Education and Drawing03.05.2021
The speed of transformation that characterises our contemporality is largely motivated by the development of the newest information technologies. The speed introduced by computation seems to be the promoter of the instability that reaches the conceptions of almost all professional and disciplinary fields since it imposes a pace of change… Read More
Bulgakov’s ‘Golden City’ (1923)
03.05.2021
Bulgakov’s ‘Golden City’ (1923)03.05.2021
This text is an excerpt from Mikhail Bulgakov’s series of short vignettes that appeared under the overarching title ‘Golden City’ and were serialised in the Berlin-based Russian migrant ‘Nakanune’ newspaper between 30 September and 14 October 1923. Bulgakov was commissioned to write an account of the first and only All-Russian… Read More
14 Wine Street, Bristol
29.04.2021
14 Wine Street, Bristol29.04.2021
Whilst leafing through the Drawing Matter collection, this drawing from 1885, by architect Henry Crisp, caught my eye. The drawing depicts a new shopfront and facade to be grafted on to the existing structure of 14 Wine Street, Bristol. Initially, the design struck me as remarkably contemporary and I came… Read More
Nobuo Sekine: Phase of Nothingness
27.04.2021
Nobuo Sekine: Phase of Nothingness27.04.2021
– Editors
With thanks to Nicholas Olsberg for sending us this tribute to Sekine written on the first anniversary of the artist’s death (linked here).
Order and Uncertainty in Architectural Drawing
26.04.2021
Order and Uncertainty in Architectural Drawing26.04.2021
How we look at architectural drawings is an inherently complicated topic. The issue arises from what we understand to appear and disappear on the page. The field of architecture has spent little time talking about what we see (and don’t see) on the surface of the drawing itself. One could… Read More
Leicester Engineering building: Two Architects (1964)
26.04.2021
Leicester Engineering building: Two Architects (1964)26.04.2021
Filmed in 1964, Ron Parks’ documentary on the newly completed Engineering Department at Leicester catches James Stirling and James Gowan at a moment of professional triumph and personal crisis. Their building was being applauded the world-over – Parks’ film had been commissioned by the American Institute of Architects, to mark its… Read More
Peter Märkli: My Facade Material
21.04.2021
Peter Märkli: My Facade Material21.04.2021
– Editors
The following quotations are from ‘Mein Stoff für Fassaden (My Facade Material)’, a lecture delivered online by Peter Märkli to open a series of five talks for the Architecture Foundation. The quotations are presented here in a loose fashion, some treated as aphorisms about design, others illustrated with drawings from… Read More
Shaping Landscape: Schinkel and Erratics
12.04.2021
Shaping Landscape: Schinkel and Erratics12.04.2021
It is the unique trait of the section drawing to fragment the singularity of built form, to allow the reading of a building as a series of individual pieces, and thereby delay our innate predilection for gestalt. Much like an erratic (in geology, an erratic is a material moved by geologic forces from… Read More
Hans Hollein: From a Distance
07.04.2021
Hans Hollein: From a Distance07.04.2021
On a page of Hans Hollein’s sketchbook, a cluster of adobe buildings climb slowly and modestly above the horizon, seeming to rise out of the earth. The sketch, produced in 1960 during the Austrian architect’s exploration of the western United States, feels unorthodox for Hollein, whose proclivity for radical, anti-Functionalist… Read More
Adam Bede’s ‘Discourse on Building’ (1859)
06.04.2021
Adam Bede’s ‘Discourse on Building’ (1859)06.04.2021
This speech on building – and architects – was made by Adam to Mr Poyser in Chapter 49 of George Eliot’s novel. It was pointed out to us by the Eliot scholar, Dermot Coleman, who added that ‘it is generally a safe bet that views on such matters expressed by Adam… Read More
André Arbus: Details Matter
29.03.2021
André Arbus: Details Matter29.03.2021
These presentation drawings – polished, finished, complete – were drawn by André Arbus in the 1950s. They are of a compact, open-plan apartment. Although they are not design drawings, they reveal a lot about the process of design. They communicate thought and care and suggest many drawings have come before them.… Read More
Working with Gowan: Housing at East Hanningfield
26.03.2021
Working with Gowan: Housing at East Hanningfield26.03.2021
The Site Plan was one of the Planning drawings prepared for submission to Chelmsford District Council and Essex County Council. It is A1 size and drawn on Wiggins Teape 112 gram ‘Gateway’ tracing paper. The East Hanningfield job was the first on which ‘A’ sized paper had been used in… Read More
Studio Mumbai’s Tape Drawing
25.03.2021
Studio Mumbai’s Tape Drawing25.03.2021
Rain falls from the sky as a five-month monsoon season sweeps across India. Often associated with abundance and blessing, rain is a sign of good prospects, particularly for Southwest Indian farmers who are dependent on rainfall for their crops. The Saatrasta-Mahindra tape drawing embodies the term ‘adapting to place’, as… Read More
Cedric Price: Urban Spaceman
22.03.2021
Cedric Price: Urban Spaceman22.03.2021
Laid down facing upwards and spread evenly on a neutral surface, 13 tin toys pose for a shot. Cedric Price’s robot collection – battery powered or clockwork, says the caption – includes a mechanical bird and rabbit, several spaceships, spacemen and robots. Their distinctive features intimate specific names, makers and… Read More
Haunted: Robert Smithson’s ‘My House is a Decayed House’
18.03.2021
Haunted: Robert Smithson’s ‘My House is a Decayed House’18.03.2021
The following text is excerpted from Dr. Suzaan Boettger’s research for her book in process, The Passions of Robert Smithson, Art and Life. Follow her on Instagram @NatrCultr, where images are tagged #UnknownSmithson. ‘History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors.’ If the sardonic analogy sounds like Robert Smithson, you’re close: it was written by his favorite… Read More
Insignificance 2: Distinction – Polysemy
19.05.2021
Insignificance 2: Distinction – Polysemy19.05.2021
– Gordon Shrigley
The following texts are excerpted from Gordon Shrigley, Insignificance: A short discourse on the physical and ideational economy of line within architectural representation (Solitude Editions, 1998). Now, twenty years after Insignificance was first published, Gordon Shrigley has revisited the publication for a series of postings on Drawing Matter. Each of these posts connect… Read More
insignificance (editorial series) DMC