Tag: theoretical & imaginary
DMJ – The Iconography of the Grid: Narrative and Architectural Storytelling in the Work of Superstudio
06.11.2026
DMJ – The Iconography of the Grid: Narrative and Architectural Storytelling in the Work of Superstudio06.11.2026
This article examines the architectural and narrative instrumentality of the grid in Superstudio’s Continuous Monument (1969) and related projects, from A Journey into the Realms of Reason (1967–69) to the Fundamental Acts (1972) and Adolfo Natalini’s unpublished An Entire Life (1972). While the grid has often been read as an emblem of rationalism, abstraction and totalising modernity, the… Read More
Body Architecture
26.10.2026
Body Architecture26.10.2026
– Silvia Groaz and Beatrice Lampariello
The human body has long served as architecture’s measure and meaning, shaping systems of proportions, theories of sensations, metaphors and ideas of function and health. Yet at the end of the Second World War, a seismic shift occurred. From the 1950s onwards, the body became the starting point for the… Read More
Collection Guide: OMA
23.10.2026
Collection Guide: OMA23.10.2026
OMA, the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, was officially founded on 1 January 1975 ‘to develop a mutant form of Urbanism – new types of architectural scenarios that will result in the rehabilitation of the metropolitan lifestyle.’ Its founding partners were two architect-artist couples: Elia Zenghelis (1937–2026) and Zoe Zenghelis (b.1938),… Read More
Thalia & Melpomene
16.10.2026
Thalia & Melpomene16.10.2026
It floats: Amid the haze, like a game or a dream, over an invented geography, toward the Grand Canal, the Po, the Paraná. Il Teatro del Mondo sways to nature’s rhythm.[1] Square in plan, it recalls both the Venetian carnivals and Shakespeare’s Globe. An entrance door on each side and vaporetti in the… Read More
The Analogous City: Panel
04.09.2026
The Analogous City: Panel04.09.2026
Having been asked to write about the panel exhibited at the Venice Biennale—entitled The analogous city, a joint work carried out with my friends Eraldo Consolascio, Bruno Reichlin and Fabio Reinhart—it is worthwhile, I feel, posing a few general questions that arise prior to experiments or results of this kind.… Read More
Reclaiming the Visual in Architectural Theory
31.08.2026
Reclaiming the Visual in Architectural Theory31.08.2026
Among the most influential books of architectural theory in the last three centuries is the Essai sur l’Architecture by Marc-Antoine Laugier, published in 1753. The book’s goal was to establish the foundational principles of architecture, and thus the rules for designing proper buildings. The author argued that these rules descend… Read More
Collection Guide: Cedric Price
03.08.2026
Collection Guide: Cedric Price03.08.2026
– Editors
Cedric Price (1934–2003) studied architecture at Cambridge University before receiving his diploma from the Architectural Association (AA) in 1957. He went on to teach at the AA and worked in the offices of Maxwell Fry and Denys Lasdun before founding his own practice in 1960. Though the majority of Price’s… Read More
Aleks Catina: The Pillars of Uncertainty
31.07.2026
Aleks Catina: The Pillars of Uncertainty31.07.2026
On his Instagram page, Aleks Catina declares that The Pillars of Uncertainty was ten years in the making, so begun in 2016. Joseph Kohlmaier had encouraged Catina to develop one of his seminars, called ‘The Problem of Irony’; and Kohlmaier designed and published the resulting attractive book (‘Preamble’, 11). Catina,… Read More
Three Drawings
24.07.2026
Three Drawings24.07.2026
This first drawing is not ours. It is a clumsy sketch that clients brought to our first meeting. Although not particularly legible, let alone well-proportionated, it carried the noble ambition of speaking about many things at once: it addressed everything, everywhere, all at once. Close inspection revealed three floor plans,… Read More
Eye, Hand and Mind: An Interview on the Drawing Process
23.07.2026
Eye, Hand and Mind: An Interview on the Drawing Process 23.07.2026
– Bryan Cantley and Helen Castle
The following conversation between Bryan Cantley and Helen Castle, publishing director at RIBA, was conducted on 30 December 2021 and has been adapted from a text, originally presented in Speculative Coolness: Architecture, Media, the Real, and the Virtual (Routledge, 2023). It traces the development of Cantley’s experimental drawing practice through Form:uLA—a body of work sustained since… Read More
Yes, And
20.07.2026
Atlases: Drawings on Newspaper
10.07.2026
Atlases: Drawings on Newspaper10.07.2026
My drawings are done on an unusual medium: newspapers. Around 2016, I began to draw on news–paper to try to counteract that inescapable status of newspapers themselves: conveying daily words that are often forgotten the next day, a condition reflected in an idiom of the English language—yesterday’s paper—used to refer… Read More
Collection Guide: Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc
06.07.2026
Collection Guide: Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc06.07.2026
The French Neo-Gothic architect Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (1814–1879) was one of the defining figures of nineteenth-century architecture worldwide. He transformed the restoration and interpretation of medieval monuments, championed structural rationalism, and reinvented drawing and publishing as tools for disseminating architectural knowledge. By the time of his death, he had become the… Read More
DMJ – SMS to Eternity
03.07.2026
DMJ – SMS to Eternity03.07.2026
Marlon and Elvis lived on opposite sides of Cutlers Wood.They were friends.They were immortal.One day Marlon sent Elvis an SMS: Marlon – Hey Elvis, cool cat, why don’t we see each other more often,We could talk about that geek Warhol who put us here! Elvis – Sure, but I am scared to… Read More
An Attardé Draftsman: Giacomo Beverati
02.07.2026
An Attardé Draftsman: Giacomo Beverati02.07.2026
‘In a certain sense the past is far more real, or at any rate more stable, more resilient than the present. The present slips and vanishes like sand between the fingers, acquiring material weight, only in its recollection’ —Andrei Tarkovsky Italian culture has always produced artists who were attardé, either… Read More
Unknown Hands
29.06.2026
Unknown Hands29.06.2026
The visual material presented here comes from an early phase of House of Fire, an installation created by Studio Paradigma Ariadné for the 2025 Chicago Architecture Biennale—long before the exhibition reached its final form. These images were never intended for display. They were test pieces, fragments, unsuccessful experiments, photocopies of photocopies:… Read More
Collection Guide: Peter Wilson & BOLLES+WILSON
22.06.2026
Collection Guide: Peter Wilson & BOLLES+WILSON22.06.2026
– Editors
Peter Wilson and Julia Bolles are the founding partners of Architekturbüro BOLLES+WILSON. Peter Wilson was born in Australia, he studied architecture at the University of Melbourne and the Architectural Association, where he later taught from 1974–1988 (Diploma Unit Master 1980–88). Julia Bolles was born in Münster and graduated from the Karlsruhe Institute of… Read More
Printed Matters
21.05.2026
Printed Matters 21.05.2026
Few objects stage anticipation as effectively as a box, especially one whose contents are revealed slowly, piece by piece. The sense of something concealed within prepares the viewer for an experience at once intimate and tactile, one that is focused by the box itself, but that—in the act of unpacking—becomes… Read More
Drawing Superpositions
15.05.2026
Drawing Superpositions15.05.2026
When drawing plans for a project that does not primarily form architectural space through solid mass, the question of what a line signifies becomes especially critical. This drawing faced the challenge of representing an object that produces light and sound, situated in the public space of Vårby Gård, a suburb… Read More
The House Stands Still While Life Moves
17.04.2026
The House Stands Still While Life Moves17.04.2026
The house has a floor sticky like honey; our feet cling to it and we cannot get away from it. The house is a rucksack so huge and full on our shoulders that every movement becomes impossible. The house is an unconditional refuge for those who fear all the mishaps… Read More
Desire and Pain: John Hejduk’s Thirteen Watchtowers of Cannaregio
13.04.2026
Desire and Pain: John Hejduk’s Thirteen Watchtowers of Cannaregio13.04.2026
– Mehrshad Atashi and Lida Badafareh
In his conversation with Don Wall in Mask of Medusa, John Hejduk recalls the programme of the Schatzalp sanatorium in Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. ‘[…] the hero is going up the mountain in a carriage in the deep snow, he sees the dead bodies of those who had died in the sanatorium… Read More
On Cedric Price
02.04.2026
On Cedric Price02.04.2026
Cedric Price’s thinking and work have had a very particular influence on my work, in the sense that some fundamental choices I have made as an architect have been deeply influenced by his philosophy. In this sense, it seems to me that Cedric Price was one of the few architects… Read More
Holger Kleine: Archimorphoses
02.11.2026
Holger Kleine: Archimorphoses02.11.2026
– Jörg Gleiter and Holger Kleine
The following two texts discuss drawings from Holger Kleine’s ‘Psychograms_Eight Antinomic Studies’ series. The first was written in response to Drawing Matter’s open call Visibility, and the Unseen. The second is reproduced, with permission, from Holger Kleine: Archimorphoses (Edition Axel Menges: Stuttgart and London, 2026). The publication accompanies the exhibition of the… Read More
and the Unseen Open Call: Visibility projection (axonometric isometric) theoretical & imaginary