Tag: politics

Branzi, Observed: Autocatalytic, Earnestly Jaded

Branzi, Observed: Autocatalytic, Earnestly Jaded

Julian Escudero Geltman

Andrea Branzi died on 9 October 2023 aged 84. The impact of one of his seminal works, No-Stop City, has been felt far and wide within architectural discourse. Since its production between 1967 and 1972, the drawings and collages of No-Stop City have haunted the camps within architectural academia that… Read More

Mapping Cities: Barcelona and Paris

Mapping Cities: Barcelona and Paris

Dibujantes CNT and Grand Marnier

Prompted by the publication of Laurence Le Bras and Emmanuel Guy’s text on Guy Debord’s situationist maps of Paris, a closer look at two ways to represent the experience of a city…

François Cointeraux: the Architect of the ‘Agricultural Proletariat’

François Cointeraux: the Architect of the ‘Agricultural Proletariat’

Anja Segmüller

François Cointeraux was born in Lyon in 1740 and was introduced to agriculture and construction at an early age through his family’s business ventures. When his uncle designated him the ‘universal heir’ of his company, Cointeraux inherited several buildings in Lyon and around 24 houses in the area. His marriage… Read More

Porto: Paving Work on Rua de António Sardinha

Porto: Paving Work on Rua de António Sardinha

Ivo Martins

In the photograph on the left from 1939, found in the municipal digital archive, Porto’s civic centre is still under construction. The image captures half-paved new roads, with curious people milling around the freshly built City Hall. Viewing this photograph recalls the collages of Fernando Barroso and Mário Ramos, where… Read More

Le Corbusier: The ‘Open hand’ as an expression of freedom?

Le Corbusier: The ‘Open hand’ as an expression of freedom?

Marianna Charitonidou

Le Corbusier placed particular emphasis on the notion of freedom. In Où en est l’architecture?, he declares: ‘I accept a poem only if it is made of “words in freedom”’. [1] In the same text, Le Corbusier describes his conception of art as ‘individual manifestation of freedom’. [2] In Sur… Read More

Lenin’s Tomb, the Second Version

Lenin’s Tomb, the Second Version

Niall Hobhouse and Markus Lähteenmäki

The following email exchange took place between Niall Hobhouse, founder of Drawing Matter, and Markus Lähteenmäki in July 2022. Dear Markus, Came across these here in the archive… from god knows where exactly. Thought you might have something to say – had forgotten that it was originally ‘dummied’ in wood.… Read More