Tag: nature
Fernando Higueras: The Volcano, The Flower, and The Dromedary
9 May 2022
Fernando Higueras: The Volcano, The Flower, and The Dromedary9 May 2022
From eighteenth century primitive huts to the rise of barn living in the 1970s, buildings have served as the conceptual boundary between primordial formlessness and the organised world. But what if architecture begins with the very nature that it was invented to exclude? In 1971, the Madrilenian architect Fernando Higueras… Read More
A Short History of Alberto Ponis on the Sardinian Coast
15 November 2021
A Short History of Alberto Ponis on the Sardinian Coast15 November 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
Sigurd Lewerentz: Architect of Death and Life (2021): Review and Excerpts
15 November 2021
Sigurd Lewerentz: Architect of Death and Life (2021): Review and Excerpts15 November 2021
The new monograph Sigurd Lewerentz: Architect of Death and Life has arrived, published by ArkDes and Park Books to accompany the exhibition that opened in Stockholm in October 2021 curated by ArkDes director Kieran Long with scenography by Caruso St John Architects (open until August 2022). As an excellent preparation… Read More
Hélène Binet: The Intimacy of Making, Three Historical Sites in Korea (2021): Review
25 October 2021
Hélène Binet: The Intimacy of Making, Three Historical Sites in Korea (2021): Review25 October 2021
By Helen Thomas
What is a myth, today? I shall give at the outset a first, very simple answer, which is perfectly consistent with etymology: myth is a type of speech.– Roland Barthes, Mythologies, 1957 This seemingly simple book is a thought-provoking collection of things. There is a lot of room for implication… Read More
Superstudio & Piranesi: Zeno is Immortal
24 May 2021
Superstudio & Piranesi: Zeno is Immortal24 May 2021
It’s 1777 in the Italian region of Salerno, a man is resting on a massive Doric column, watching his two cows from the ruin of a temple where the weeds grow. This building was, a long time ago, considered as the house of Juno, goddess of fertility and the vital… Read More
Shaping Landscape: Schinkel and Erratics
12 April 2021
Shaping Landscape: Schinkel and Erratics12 April 2021
By Tom Cookson
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 – at least momentarily – for gestalt. Much like an erratic (in geology, an erratic is a material… Read More
Drawing Sacred Forests and Courtyards in South Benin
29 January 2021
Drawing Sacred Forests and Courtyards in South Benin29 January 2021
The following conversation between the editors of Accattone and Quentin Nicolaï was first published in Accattone 6 (2019). It documents research carried out by Quentin Nicolaï in Abomey, Benin, between January 2014 and June 2018. Drawing Matter would like to thank the author and the magazine’s editors for allowing us reproduce… Read More
Pan Scroll Zoom 6: Emily Wettstein
18 January 2021
Pan Scroll Zoom 6: Emily Wettstein18 January 2021
By Fabrizio Gallanti and Emily Wettstein
This is the sixth in a series of texts edited by Fabrizio Gallanti on the challenges in the new world of online architectural teaching and, particularly, on the changing role of drawings in presentations and reviews. In this episode Fabrizio interviews Emily Wettstein, Design Critic in Landscape Architecture at Harvard University GSD. The… Read More
Anna Atkins: Laying Out the Blueprints
21 December 2020
Anna Atkins: Laying Out the Blueprints21 December 2020
They began to bloom on websites a couple of years or so ago – stretching out on social media, unfurling in the arts sections. Pale alien shapes suspended in deep blue: something like lightning flattened in a flower press; a sleeping creature emerging from a cloud of coral; a spectral… Read More
William Heath Robinson ‘Tightening the Green Belt’
26 November 2020
William Heath Robinson ‘Tightening the Green Belt’26 November 2020
On 22 March 1921, The Times reported on ‘the urgent need of a green belt being preserved round London.’ It was the first recorded use of the phrase. By the time William Heath Robinson came to makes sketches for ‘Tightening the Green Belt’ (c.1935–47), the urban ring o’ roses was familiar enough… Read More
Tree Speech
7 November 2020
Tree Speech7 November 2020
By Sylvia Lavin
The following text is the fourth of a series of four essays on trees in architectural drawings by Sylvia Lavin. The essays were first published in Log 49 (Summer 2020). Drawing Matter would like to thank the author and the journal’s editors for allowing us reproduce the essays on www.drawingmatter.org.… Read More
I Cut Mount Fuji Every Day
31 May 2021
I Cut Mount Fuji Every Day31 May 2021
By Marie-Henriette Desmoures
With a circumference of approximately 10cm, I compress the majestic mountain. I pressure it between my fingers and the board and I slice. The contours fall on the board; in a matter of minutes, they will turn once more into a fragrant and luminous mountain. The emotional downpour induced by… Read More
topographic/cartographic drawing matter writing prize 2020 nature