Tag: domestic

Jaume Mayol / TEd’A Arquitectes: Drawn Closer

Jaume Mayol / TEd’A Arquitectes: Drawn Closer

Sarah Handelman and Jaume Mayol

This drawing for a house in Mallorca joins a number of sketches we made to understand the project. Each space is made of separate elements. To understand the space you need to dive into each element, and to understand each element you need to be in the space. To draw… Read More

Gallaratese & Fagnano Olona (1976)

Gallaratese & Fagnano Olona (1976)

Aldo Rossi

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)

Eisenman: House VI (1985)

Kathleen Enz Finken

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

Wright & Lautner: The Divorce

Wright & Lautner: The Divorce

Nicholas Olsberg

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

On plans

On plans

John Meunier

Plans, unlike many other architectural drawings, bear little or no relationship to what the building looks like, but they are crucial. First, they are essential as instructions for those involved with the construction of a building. Without a plan, the bits and pieces of a building could not be properly… Read More

The Ultimate Climes of John Lautner (1986)

The Ultimate Climes of John Lautner (1986)

Esther McCoy

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.

One Thing Leads to Another

One Thing Leads to Another

Richard Hall

Architecture rarely results from a singular eureka moment or a spontaneous act of genius. The myth of the napkin sketch is precisely a myth. The lucidity it suggests is essential, but it is seldom instantaneous or hermetic. It comes from work. In architecture, this work is of a special kind,… Read More

Where Words Fail

Where Words Fail

Cyril Babeev and Matt Page

This drawing, a sketched site plan annotated in cursive old-Russian, was published in May 1903 in the Saint Petersburg-based architecture magazine Zodchiy (Зодчій). [1] The plan describes a nearly-square plot sited perpendicular to a street (ulitza, улица) and divided into three areas: a house, represented by a white void; a garden in the… Read More

Web of Intrigue

Web of Intrigue

Michael Webb

Searching the internet for the drawings of Michael Sorkin, one comes across a lengthy list of the projects that have emerged from his eponymously titled studio. Halfway down the list can be found an exotic beauty of a drawing soberly captioned thus: House of the Future. 1999. Coloured Pencil, Hand… Read More

Gowan on the English House

Gowan on the English House

James Gowan

When asked to write for Zodiac about his villa at Chester, built in 1982 for the furniture magnate Chaim Schreiber, James Gowan choses Robert Lorimer and Edwin Lutyens as his references. It is clear that he identifies with Lorimer particularly – another Scotsman, asked to build a house for a good client… Read More

Behind the Walls

Behind the Walls

Matt Page

Albert, an artist known only by his first name, thinks about buildings in ways similar to an architect. As he draws, he imagines the structures on the page having a future life in bricks and mortar, considering as he does so whether the audience for his drawings will ask themselves,… Read More

‘I chose a distant meadow’: The House that Neutra Built

‘I chose a distant meadow’: The House that Neutra Built

Stephen Bayley

There are several curiosities in the plan of this classic modernist house by Richard Neutra. First, more area is allowed for dogs than for music. Second, there is a two-car garage, but a separate parking-space for a Rolls-Royce. Here is fine discrimination. But fine discrimination is exactly what you would… Read More