Writer: Niall Hobhouse

Madelon Vriesendorp

Madelon Vriesendorp

Niall Hobhouse and Madelon Vriesdendorp

Excerpted from Madelon Vreisendop in conversation with Niall Hobhouse, RIBA, 2 July 2018

Siza and the limits of representation

Siza and the limits of representation

Niall Hobhouse

Over the years in which the collection of Drawing Matter has been formed we have come to understand that the most productive discussion of architecture is actually about the precise relationship between the drawing and ‘its’ building. One good rule is that an architect with a powerful idea is always… Read More

Sans Humour?

Sans Humour?

Niall Hobhouse

It seems that architects are too self-conscious – or perhaps in need of being seen as permanently on duty – to portray themselves or what they do with much humour, let alone self-critical caricature. Edwin Lutyens is an honourable exception, even if his self-mockery ultimately becomes a public performance – a… Read More

Le Corbusier: Sketch for the Governor’s Palace, Chandigarh, India

Le Corbusier: Sketch for the Governor’s Palace, Chandigarh, India

Niall Hobhouse

Niall Hobhouse remembers that Jullian de la Fuente, the Chilean architect who worked with Le Corbusier, told him the story of how he came to own the twelve pages (of which one is shown) extracted from Le Corbusier’s sketchbook: In the late 1950s the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal… Read More

without irony 1

without irony 1

Niall Hobhouse

without irony 3

without irony 3

Niall Hobhouse

without irony 2

without irony 2

Niall Hobhouse

Ange-Jacques Gabriel

Ange-Jacques Gabriel

Niall Hobhouse

On occasion, an architectural drawing can serve as the surviving witness of a moving and complex historical event. Here, on a mutilated sheet of paper drawn in the middle of eighteenth century in the office of the most important architect of his day, we have the only record of a building on the… Read More

Charles Percier

Charles Percier

Niall Hobhouse

Design for a Samovar The drawing is preparatory for the samovar in silver-gilt, eventually executed in 1808 by Henry Auguste for Queen Hortense (Les Grands Orfevres de Louis XIII a Charles X, Paris 1965, p. 273). The piece bears the marks of the years 1795–8, and 1798–1809. The design was… Read More

On Collecting

On Collecting

Niall Hobhouse

The following text is an excerpt from a conversation between Niall Hobhouse and Farshid Moussavi, published in FunctionLab, Issue #14: Collecting. This thrill in informally assembling material of different types from different centuries and places into narratives that are new and unfamiliar is based on probing what can be learned… Read More

Alexander Pope: ‘et sibi’

Alexander Pope: ‘et sibi’

Niall Hobhouse

The great poet carefully instructs Francis Bird on the memorial tablet for his father – also Alexander Pope – to be placed in the north gallery of St Mary’s, Twickenham. Pope asks the sculptor to record his own respect for his father, to leave a space for his mother’s name… Read More

Future Scenarios, Part II

Future Scenarios, Part II

Niall Hobhouse and Nicholas Olsberg

FRAGMENTS: THE BUILDING SITE AND THE RUIN Louis-Jean Desprez turns to another legendary city of the ancient world — Alexander’s capital in Egypt — to advocate in a dream view of Alexandria in construction what great ambitions might be aroused in the new king of Sweden, after his predecessor, who… Read More