Tag: housing
Dogma: Urban Villa – From Speculation to Collaboration
23.01.2025
Dogma: Urban Villa – From Speculation to Collaboration23.01.2025
On the north edge of Brussels city centre, the recently refurbished Gare Maritime was once Europe’s largest goods station. Located in the former industrial area known as ‘Tour & Taxis’, the vast nineteenth-century roof now shelters offices, indoor retail boulevards and enough left over space to host markets and events,… Read More
Peris+Toral Arquitectes: Modulus Matrix
13.12.2024
Peris+Toral Arquitectes: Modulus Matrix13.12.2024
‘We were asked for one image that illustrated our thinking. The half that’s in white shows the final floor plan. The black shows the process, superimposing all the possibilities as we developed the project, exploring different options until the final crystallised version.’ Peris+Toral Arquitectes have been awarded the RIBA International… Read More
A Poetic Peak: Architecture and planning at the AA in the 1930s
16.09.2024
A Poetic Peak: Architecture and planning at the AA in the 1930s16.09.2024
– Editors and John Summerson
In 2022, Drawing Matter acquired nearly 100 drawings by the architect and urban planner Elizabeth Chesterton. Mostly for projects done while studying at the Architectural Association (1933–38), the group includes drawing exercises, such as colour theory, sciography and graphic design, and a wide variety of buildings at different scales, from… Read More
Careful Crudeness
31.01.2024
Careful Crudeness31.01.2024
At first glance, this image is a mess. An aerial photograph onto which a pen drawing of an undistinctive, modernist building structure has been mounted. Gouache is smeared in a few places in a seemingly half-hearted attempt to hide parts of the photograph and soften the collision of the two… Read More
The City in Dispute (2023) – Review
10.04.2023
The City in Dispute (2023) – Review 10.04.2023
Climbing the majestic double staircase of the Palau de la Virreina, a building that hovers somewhere between the Baroque and the Rococo, one arrives at a small but intense exhibition on show at [La Virreina] Centre de la Imatge, Barcelona. Curated by María García Ruiz and Moisés Puente, it presents… Read More
Alison and Peter Smithson’s Collages as Reinventing Established Reality
24.02.2023
Alison and Peter Smithson’s Collages as Reinventing Established Reality24.02.2023
Alison and Peter Smithson often introduced figures that were protagonists in the news, such as Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio, French actor Gérard Philipe, and the first prime minister of Independent India, Jawaharlal Nehru into their architectural drawings for social housing projects—as in the case of their collages for the… Read More
The Work of Ernest and Esther Born: Models for the City House
18.11.2022
The Work of Ernest and Esther Born: Models for the City House18.11.2022
Ernest and Esther Born trained as architects at Berkeley in the early 1920s and worked with great distinction in all aspects of architecture and the allied arts, from graphics and illustration to display design and architectural photography. This project marks one of their first endeavours on returning to San Francisco… Read More
Materia 2: Corrugated Iron
14.07.2022
Materia 2: Corrugated Iron14.07.2022
This text is the second in a series by Gordon Shrigley titled ‘Materia’ in which the architect meditates on the physical and semiotic nature of a number of everyday construction products. Forthcoming texts will include thoughts on oxide-red paint, in-situ concrete, fired brick, plate glass and plastic. The first text… Read More
Workshop: On Siza’s March ’77 Sketchbook
22.06.2022
Workshop: On Siza’s March ’77 Sketchbook22.06.2022
This audio recording documents a workshop on Álvaro Siza’s Malagueira sketchbook delivered by Manuel Montenegro to Masters students from the School of Engineering and Architecture, Fribourg, and their tutors Patricia Guaita and Raffael Baur. The sketchbook is a record of Siza’s thoughts and responses over three days in 1977, on… Read More
Walter Segal, Self-Built Architect (2021) – Review
26.05.2022
Walter Segal, Self-Built Architect (2021) – Review26.05.2022
Given that architect Walter Segal was a Jewish immigrant, born in Berlin to Romanian parents, and a bit of a nomad, it seems unlikely that his best-known work would be confined entirely within London’s boroughs. Resident in the UK for perhaps longer than he had intended, it is in some… Read More
The Iterative Power of Architecture’s Absence
07.04.2022
The Iterative Power of Architecture’s Absence07.04.2022
In 1991, the Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron prepared a submission with the artist Remy Zaugg for the Berlin Morgen (‘Berlin Tomorrow’) exhibition organised by the Deutsches Architekturmuseum in Frankfurt, Germany. By surrounding Berlin’s Tiergarten with four new buildings, they proposed to restructure the park – then perceived as… Read More
The Urban Fact: Aldo Rossi, Student Housing, Chieti
07.02.2022
The Urban Fact: Aldo Rossi, Student Housing, Chieti07.02.2022
– Kersten Geers, Stefano Graziani and Jelena Pancevac
The 1976 competition for student housing was part of a development scheme for the recently founded D’Annunzio University, a joint initiative by the neighbouring provinces of Chieti and Pescara in the Abruzzo region of southern Italy. The town of Chieti is located 200km northeast of Rome, on the ancient main… Read More
Álvaro Siza: The Adoration of the Magi
19.01.2022
Álvaro Siza: The Adoration of the Magi19.01.2022
Our story opens at the close of the Christmas season. It quite literally starts with an Epiphany, both chronologically and figuratively, a glimpse of Three Kings prompted by Niall Hobhouse’s holiday greetings. His somewhat precarious nativity scene, charmingly set upon Álvaro Siza’s yellow columns, reminded me of Sandro Botticelli’s Adoration… Read More
The Rural Homes of Marcelo Ferraz and Francisco Fanucci
13.12.2021
The Rural Homes of Marcelo Ferraz and Francisco Fanucci13.12.2021
Where our sertão remainsEvery happy little houseStill neighbors a streamAnd still harbors its arbors Where our sertão remainsEvery happy little homeCooks on the coal cookerThe wood stove’s still blown[…] Where sertão remainsEvery little house is gladfor on the evenings we get our Hail-MaryAnd the pleasure of being alone ‘Casinha feliz’,… Read More
El Croquis 208: DOGMA familiar/unfamiliar 2002–2021 (2021): Review
29.11.2021
El Croquis 208: DOGMA familiar/unfamiliar 2002–2021 (2021): Review29.11.2021
As one of the most prominent architecture publications in the world, El Croquis has long been a prestige showcase for the upper echelon of architectural practices. Its publication format, with each issue typically devoted to a specific practice, lends El Croquis more the air of an exclusive monograph series than… Read More
Álvaro Siza: Seven Early Sketchbooks
22.11.2021
Álvaro Siza: Seven Early Sketchbooks22.11.2021
– Niall Hobhouse, Manuel Montenegro and Álvaro Siza
These films were made over four hours on the afternoon of Sunday 25 March 2018 in Álvaro Siza’s studio in Rua do Aleixo outside Porto. I had flown to Portugal that morning with the seven sketchbooks which we were to look through with Manuel Montenegro. Manuel and I had conceived… Read More
A Short History of Alberto Ponis on the Sardinian Coast
15.11.2021
A Short History of Alberto Ponis on the Sardinian Coast15.11.2021
Alberto Ponis was born in Genoa in 1933. He took his architecture degree in Florence in 1960. His father, Mario Alberto, had founded the M.I.T.A. (Manifattura Italiana Tappeti Artistici) in 1926 in Nervi, near Genoa. The company’s building was built by Luigi Daneri in 1940. Gio Ponti, Arnaldo Pomodoro and… Read More
Alberto Ponis on Casa Scalesciani
27.10.2021
Alberto Ponis on Casa Scalesciani27.10.2021
The site chosen by Juan S., an Argentinian with a penchant for Italy, was almost alarmingly steep and sheer above the sea. Even the path leading to it was perilous, and trodden with bated breath. During our long conversations about where the house would be built, we were not so… Read More
An Overwhelming Concern with Shelter! (1966)
16.09.2021
An Overwhelming Concern with Shelter! (1966)16.09.2021
The International Dialogue on Experimental Architecture (IDEA) was held at New Metropole Arts Centre in Folkestone, Kent, 10–11 June 1966. The symposium was organised by Archigram and included contributions from Hans Hollein, Joe Weber, Yona Friedman, Cedric Price, Arthur Quarmsby, Anthony G. William and Reyner Banham. The following text is… Read More
Sketches from Algiers
02.08.2021
Sketches from Algiers02.08.2021
In October 1975 I returned to Cambridge to complete my architecture course. I had spent my year out in London with MacCormac and Jamieson, an exciting time as it was early days for this young practice and I was one of their very first assistants. In fact, I nearly didn’t… Read More
Drawing the Brunswick Centre
19.07.2021
Drawing the Brunswick Centre19.07.2021
In the 1960s, when I was a penniless AA student, I used to produce perspective drawings for various offices to help pay the rent. Among them were the Smithsons, for whom I did several of the Economist, mainly interiors; Colquhoun and Miller, the chemistry building at Holloway College; YRM and… Read More
Diagrams: Hans van der Heijden in Conversation with Richard Hall
05.05.2021
Diagrams: Hans van der Heijden in Conversation with Richard Hall05.05.2021
Hans van der Heijden is an Amsterdam-based architect. He co-founded biq in 1994 with Rick Wessels before establishing his own office, Hans van der Heijden Architect, in 2014. During this timeframe he has developed a recognisable and idiosyncratic drawing repertoire, the origins of which can be traced back to his… Read More
Elizabeth Chesterton & Tomorrow Town: A New Town Thesis by Architectural Association Students
10.03.2025
Elizabeth Chesterton & Tomorrow Town: A New Town Thesis by Architectural Association Students10.03.2025
– Mary Mitchell
In 1999, I was an undergraduate at Edinburgh University studying Architectural History when I undertook a work placement at the university archives. Here I was asked to help organise an uncatalogued collection received from the Patrick Geddes Centre at the Outlook Tower. Within this collection were 12 portfolios. Portfolio 7… Read More
theoretical & imaginary civic & municipal housing urban form DMC student work