Tag: DMC
Alternative Histories: Dow Jones Architects on Robbrecht en Daem
15 March 2019
Alternative Histories: Dow Jones Architects on Robbrecht en Daem15 March 2019
Our starting point is a drawing by Robbrecht en Daem dated 2000: a sketch in red ink of a small pavilion which sits on a platform and is approached by a path raised off the ground. The pitched roof and the space of the platform create a horizontal emphasis, and… Read More
Alternative Histories: Bernd Schmutz on Jules Hardouin-Mansart
14 March 2019
Alternative Histories: Bernd Schmutz on Jules Hardouin-Mansart14 March 2019
Tripartite Typology Instead of a particular style or authorship, Jules Hardouin Mansart’s drawing seems as if anonymous, characterised by a strong typological rigour. We have projected its composition of three double units into a deep roof volume with varying facades, gables and profiles, built as a painted model which explores… Read More
Alternative Histories: Doorzon Interieurarchitecten on Stefano de Martino
13 March 2019
Alternative Histories: Doorzon Interieurarchitecten on Stefano de Martino13 March 2019
– Stefanie Everaert and Caroline Lateur
The first things to catch our eye in the beautiful drawing by Stefano de Martino were three or four small brightly coloured surfaces integral to the composition, and its abstraction provided an advantage. Our search for spatial qualities made us transform the abstract drawing into a small, three-dimensional object –… Read More
Alternative Histories: NP2F Architectes on Mario Sironi
13 March 2019
Alternative Histories: NP2F Architectes on Mario Sironi13 March 2019
Mario Sironi’s work touched us in its relation to an elementary geometry. He participated with other artists and architects in the construction of a minimalist and sober aesthetic. We drew a parallel with a pragmatic approach to define our production – solving complex problems with simple moves and clear geometries.… Read More
Alternative Histories: Lütjens Padmanabhan On Michael Graves
9 March 2019
Alternative Histories: Lütjens Padmanabhan On Michael Graves9 March 2019
In our office we use a thermos tea pot designed by Michael Graves in 1994. The pot is a joyful, exuberant object made of greenish, bluish plastic. Because of its clunkiness, it remains visible in the midst of our office chaos; it has a presence in friendly dialogue with the models… Read More
Alternative Histories: Johan Celsing Arkitektkontor on Erik Gunnar Asplund
9 March 2019
Alternative Histories: Johan Celsing Arkitektkontor on Erik Gunnar Asplund9 March 2019
Model The cast-epoxy model developed from reflections on Gunnar Asplund’s work of the mid-1930s. The yellowish tone of the epoxy touches on the soft curvatures and almost bodily character of Asplund’s shapes during these years. Some of his shapes are interpreted as sensual membranes that may adjust to the structure,… Read More
Alternative Histories: Office Winhov on Burnham & Co.
9 March 2019
Alternative Histories: Office Winhov on Burnham & Co.9 March 2019
Conversation piece in blue Daniel Hudson Burnham’s buildings are based on a classical order of well-proportioned elements with a strict load-bearing tectonic expression – a familiar architectural language still spoken today. But, as with all languages, this tectonic language gradually transforms as the context in which it is spoken changes. The… Read More
Alternative Histories: Studio Thys Vermeulen on Sergison Bates
9 March 2019
Alternative Histories: Studio Thys Vermeulen on Sergison Bates9 March 2019
Folly The drawing we received was a pencil drawing showing a vertical elevation of Sergison Bates’s Tower House in Nutley. This proposal for a vertical country house, as explained by the architects, refers to the memory of an old water tower that stood on the same spot. Unlike the lightness… Read More
Zaha Hadid: Kurfürstendamm
8 March 2019
Zaha Hadid: Kurfürstendamm8 March 2019
This is all Zaha’s hand. When she is drawing there is a directionality – you are looking from the top, at a plan, extruded or in perspective. These sketches are relatively preliminary but certainly not initial – they are too defined. She is developing a composition, but already thinking about… Read More
Alternative Histories: Rloaluarnad on Mario Sironi
7 March 2019
Alternative Histories: Rloaluarnad on Mario Sironi7 March 2019
The model is a theatre within a city block. A small volkshuis, a fun palace – a public interior with the shed as its inspirator. Meeting wall to wall with its neighbours, the theatre is a black box within the city block; to the rear is a light, interchangeable structure, clad… Read More
Gowan and Stirling
1 March 2019
Gowan and Stirling1 March 2019
This odd-shaped, yellowed analysis drawing by James Gowan, drawn directly onto heavy paper isn’t dated, and was probably added to years after the drawing was nearly complete. Ellis Woodman describes the drawing as ‘that drawing that James always kept in the box with his sketchbooks’. Unusually, when I first saw… Read More
Alternative Histories: Descloux Engelschall on Louis-François Trouard
28 February 2019
Alternative Histories: Descloux Engelschall on Louis-François Trouard28 February 2019
the duplicity becomes entity.the backside becomes frontside.the theatrical becomes ordinary.the disguise becomes a dress.the barracks become dwellings.the chimera becomes concrete.the rock becomes textile.the drapes become stone.the boulder becomes the domino.the domino becomes history.the tent remains. – Descloux Engelschall, 2018
Alternative Histories: Schneider Türtscher on Álvaro Siza
28 February 2019
Alternative Histories: Schneider Türtscher on Álvaro Siza28 February 2019
Accumulation – arranged, adjusted, rearranged and painted / grey cardboard, corrugated cardboard, spruce sticks, pencil, glue, acrylic paint white, acrylic paint red, clear lacquer / 20 x 22.8 x 14.3 cm. – Claudio Schneider, Michaela Türtscher
Alternative Histories: East Architecture on Otto Wagner
28 February 2019
Alternative Histories: East Architecture on Otto Wagner28 February 2019
Otto Wagner’s self-initiated design for the Capuchin Church and Imperial Crypt in Vienna reveals a powerful civic pride and belief in the role of architecture to improve lives. His monument was more than a symbol of mass and space; its claddings and dressings were dramatically intended for social effect. The… Read More
Alternative Histories: Taka Architects on Peter Märkli
28 February 2019
Alternative Histories: Taka Architects on Peter Märkli28 February 2019
Peter Märkli’s sketch of the plan for Haus Kuehnis seems to describe a compact building with a different front and back and interior rooms made specific through spatial divisions, decoration and architectural order. We know Markli’s house – with its stout singular form and enigmatic approach to order and decoration… Read More
Alternative Histories: Ryan W Kennihan Architects on John Nash
24 February 2019
Alternative Histories: Ryan W Kennihan Architects on John Nash24 February 2019
1. The architecture of John Nash (1752-1835) may be said to oscillate between two distinct approaches depending on location. On the one hand, he creates an architecture in the city that is ordered, symmetrical, proportioned and rational (see Park Crescent, Hanover Terrace or the garden front of Buckingham Palace), on… Read More
Alternative Histories: Stephen Bates on Henry Thomas Cadbury-Brown
22 February 2019
Alternative Histories: Stephen Bates on Henry Thomas Cadbury-Brown22 February 2019
Reading Jim Cadbury-Brown’s transcript of ‘Ideas of Disorder’ delivered at the Architectural Association in 1959, it is clear just how far he had moved from his functionalist modern movement origins towards a more expressive and instinctive idea of what architecture could be and mean. The drawing of a first scheme… Read More
Alternative Histories: 31/44 Architects on William Butterfield
22 February 2019
Alternative Histories: 31/44 Architects on William Butterfield22 February 2019
Dear Sir William, Thank you for forwarding your drawing concerning the proposed alterations to Heath Court, Otter-St-Mary. It is indeed an exciting project. We heard rumour that (y)our client is actually the wealthiest family in Britain. We understand that came with a certain expectation of what their home would be… Read More
Alternative Histories: Carmody Groarke on Haus-Rücker-Co
22 February 2019
Alternative Histories: Carmody Groarke on Haus-Rücker-Co22 February 2019
Ashtray Our interest in Haus-Rücker-Co’s drawing lies less in the technological implications that created the artificial environment and focusses instead on the spatial tension created between Mies van der Rohe’s Haus Lange and the heart-shaped bubble that surrounds it. The drawing removes reference to the context, within and outside the… Read More
Boompjes I
22 February 2019
Boompjes I22 February 2019
In the 1980s, the city of Rotterdam asked OMA to study its high-rise building and to illustrate their findings in a planning proposal. The site, selected in consultation with the Rotterdam Planning Department, was situated on Maasboulevard, near the Maasbridge – an angle between the river and the lower city grid, a ‘hinge’… Read More
Roosevelt Island
17 February 2019
Roosevelt Island17 February 2019
The Roosevelt Island competition was sponsored by New York State Urban Development Corporation for the urbanisation of an island in the East River of Manhattan. The city grid served as a formal generator for the building types, adapted with controlling geometry to the proportions of the island’s topography. There are… Read More
Alternative Histories: Conen Sigl Architekten on Giuseppe Chiantarelli
16 February 2019
Alternative Histories: Conen Sigl Architekten on Giuseppe Chiantarelli16 February 2019
Pompeiian Mausoleum for Extinct Animals (Associations about a mural painting of the Casa Pseudourbana in Pompeii) The painted structure on the plaster makes the wall appear as filigree and light – crumbled plaster shows the massive masonry behind, the actual construction of the wall. With a little bit of paint,… Read More
Alternative Histories: Christ & Gantenbein on Louis Kahn
16 February 2019
Alternative Histories: Christ & Gantenbein on Louis Kahn16 February 2019
Louis Kahn’s drawing is a floor plan, a typical plan. It is characterised by the stark expression of the poché. The coal-coloured stains lend the drawing the quality of a painting. Their roughness contrasts with the minuscule dots suggesting the mullions of the facade. It’s a sketch on paper, not on… Read More