Tag: religion
C.S. Peach and the Cruciform Design of the Cathedral
5 April 2024
C.S. Peach and the Cruciform Design of the Cathedral5 April 2024
In view here is a startling watercolour by Charles Stanley Peach, titled Plan of a Church Constructed on Divine Principles (1910)—his pictorial articulation of the cruciform layout of the Christian Cathedral. Architectural aspects are overlayed upon two images of Jesus. The first with his arms splayed wide, hands pinned to… Read More
The Religious Architecture of Alvar, Aino and Elissa Aalto (2023) — Review
26 January 2024
The Religious Architecture of Alvar, Aino and Elissa Aalto (2023) — Review26 January 2024
There is an ongoing debate within the field of theology and the arts concerning to what degree ‘theology’ must guide the discussion. Those on one side of the divide argue that unless the terms are clearly staked out within traditional discourses and literature in theology, we do not know what… Read More
Capilla Pajaritos
24 August 2023
Capilla Pajaritos24 August 2023
The following text was written by Alberto Cruz as an account of the project for a small chapel outside of Santiago (1952–3; first published in Spanish in 1954). It describes an unfolding process of design, framed around the guiding principles of observation, act, and, form—the key tenets of Cruz’s architectural… Read More
Frank Lloyd Wright: Memorial to the Soil
31 July 2023
Frank Lloyd Wright: Memorial to the Soil31 July 2023
The renderings for Frank Lloyd Wright’s unbuilt Memorial to the Soil (1936) show the project’s incorporation of earth berms as a major component of its design. In a sense, the earth itself became architecture. About his design, as inscribed on the pencil drawing above, Wright wrote that the project was… Read More
William Butterfield: Forms and Transformations
10 July 2023
William Butterfield: Forms and Transformations10 July 2023
This text was first published in DMJournal No.1: The Geological Imagination (2023). Print copies of the Journal, and subscriptions for the first three issues, are now available through our online bookshop. We are currently accepting abstracts for the third issue of DMJournal. Find more information here. The town of Torquay dates from the days when… Read More
Hardman & Co.
9 June 2023
Hardman & Co.9 June 2023
My interest in seeing the Hardman & Co. drawings at Drawing Matter was quite personally motivated as I feel a connection to the company. Partially, because I come from Birmingham where the company was based, and because I visited the studios informally in the 1980s with my parents. I was… Read More
‘A free composition of bodies’: the Härlanda Church
30 May 2023
‘A free composition of bodies’: the Härlanda Church30 May 2023
Peter Celsing won the competition to design the Härlanda Church, Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1952, and the church was completed seven years later in 1959. The design of the project is a fragmented list of reflections by the architect in the account reproduced below—which was first drafted on receipts from the… Read More
Gothic Sublime
1 December 2022
Gothic Sublime1 December 2022
For the past two years, our Writing Prize has attracted a large number of thoughtful texts from participants all over the world. This year we partnered with the Architecture Foundation to sponsor one of their three writing prize categories. The Drawing Matter category, titled ‘Architecture and Representation’, invited entrants to… Read More
Oscar Niemeyer’s Cathedral in Brasília
30 November 2022
Oscar Niemeyer’s Cathedral in Brasília30 November 2022
For the past two years, our Writing Prize has attracted a large number of thoughtful texts from participants all over the world. This year we partnered with the Architecture Foundation to sponsor one of their three writing prize categories. The Drawing Matter category, titled ‘Architecture and Representation’, invited entrants to… Read More
Drawing Conversations: Letters to Clients
26 October 2022
Drawing Conversations: Letters to Clients26 October 2022
In October 1925 Le Corbusier wrote to his client Madame Meyer a remarkable letter about his proposal with Pierre Jeanneret for her villa. It combined drawings with a highly scripted text that carefully guided her through each space, from the entrance to the roof garden. Like the pioneers of early… Read More
Gurdwara
1 September 2022
Gurdwara1 September 2022
Sikhism is the fifth-largest organised religion in the world. The gurdwara (a door to the guru, a teacher), sometimes referred to as the Sikh temple, is a place of worship for those of the Sikh faith. As a typology, it is under-explored in architectural academia – thought to be a… Read More
Power & Public Space 3: Manuel Herz – Babyn Yar Synagogue
13 July 2022
Power & Public Space 3: Manuel Herz – Babyn Yar Synagogue13 July 2022
– Matthew Blunderfield and Manuel Herz
Power & Public Space is a podcast from Drawing Matter and the Architecture Foundation hosted by Matthew Blunderfield. You can find the full podcast series here. Or listen now: Last year the Swiss practice Manuel Herz Architects completed a wooden synagogue West of Kyiv at Babyn Yar, the site of one… Read More
The Anatomy of the Architectural Book: Magical Moves
6 June 2022
The Anatomy of the Architectural Book: Magical Moves6 June 2022
In 1586 Domenico Fontana completed the extraordinary task, commissioned by Pope Sixtus V, of moving the Vatican obelisk. The structure was said to have a ‘mysterious magic of an unknown civilization’, accepted by Christians due to the belief that it had witnessed the martyrdom of Saint Peter. In this text, André… Read More
William Dickinson’s Pocketbook: Rethinking Drawing & practice in Early C18th England
18 May 2022
William Dickinson’s Pocketbook: Rethinking Drawing & practice in Early C18th England18 May 2022
During the upheavals of the Civil War, Westminster Abbey had functioned as the church of the state for the Commonwealth. Upon the Restoration of Charles II, the Abbey resumed its historic role as the coronation church for English monarchs. [1] Parliament voted towards restoring the fabric, reinstituting its monarchical function… Read More
The Iterative Power of Architecture’s Absence
7 April 2022
The Iterative Power of Architecture’s Absence7 April 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
Entering the Imperial Palace
16 March 2022
Entering the Imperial Palace16 March 2022
‘What a subject for John Martin!’ exclaimed a passer-by, as the hungry flames flickered up York Minster. Maybe they had in mind his apocalyptic painting The Fall of Nineveh, exhibited that same year at the Western Exchange on Old Bond Street and reproduced widely as a mezzotint print. Unbeknown to… 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
The Pursuit of Gothic
10 November 2021
The Pursuit of Gothic10 November 2021
William Gilpin notoriously suggested that the ruins of Tintern Abbey could be improved by ‘a mallet judiciously used’. [1] The next generation saw in the architecture of the Middle Ages something more than an assortment of ornamental landscape features, but it did not begin to understand it. Uvedale Price, whose… Read More
Peekaboo! Stanford White and the Mystery Lantern for Madison Square Presbyterian Church
1 June 2021
Peekaboo! Stanford White and the Mystery Lantern for Madison Square Presbyterian Church1 June 2021
Up until the turn of the twentieth century architectural renderings tended to be created for clients early in the design process to give them an idea of how a proposed building would look. At that point however they began to be used more widely for publicity purposes as well, thanks… Read More
Medieval Masons and tracing-floors
10 May 2021
Medieval Masons and tracing-floors10 May 2021
The tracing-floors of York Minster offer a rare glimpse into the relationship between drawing and the Cathedral, the most iconic monument to medieval Gothic. Tucked away into the loft of a small vestibule connecting the North Transept to the Chapter House, the Mason’s Lodge, as it is known, is one… Read More
The Architecture of Nothingness: Analysing Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple
12 April 2021
The Architecture of Nothingness: Analysing Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple12 April 2021
The Architecture of Nothingness: Drawing the Drawings As architects we have learned to read drawings almost instantly. At a glance we see what the spaces feel like, what it will be like to move around the building and perhaps even get a sense of the appropriateness of the structure. This ‘presentational’ way… Read More
Stanley Peach: Church Plan based on the Figure of Christ
8 March 2021
Stanley Peach: Church Plan based on the Figure of Christ8 March 2021
Charles Stanley Peach’s watercolour over pencil painting is executed by overlaying two forms of religious representation: figural images over a church plan reflecting a ceiling plan. The figurative depictions narrate accounts of Christianity through various portrayals of Christ; the most prominent being God, benevolent, and Jesus crucified. Other portraits of… Read More
Re-presenting the Rococo
24 February 2021
Re-presenting the Rococo24 February 2021
In October 2017, I travelled to the outskirts of Munich to spend three days in the company of Johann Michael Fischer’s church of St Michael at Berg am Laim with the purpose of presenting it in drawings and photographs. The trip was sponsored by the Drawing Matter Trust and was intended to act as… Read More
Hans Hollein & Spiritual Expression in Architecture
22 September 2023
Hans Hollein & Spiritual Expression in Architecture22 September 2023
– C.M. Howell
The defining characteristics of modern architecture took shape against a host of disorientating shifts in the 19th century. On the theoretical side, the instantiation and development of aesthetics as an autonomous realm strained a sacred harmony between beauty, truth, and goodness. On the practical side, technological, social, and cultural advancements… Read More
religion DMC theoretical & imaginary