21 January 2017, In 08:44 Out 20:16

The exhibition 21 January 2017, In 08:44 Out 20:16, curated from the Drawing Matter Collection by Elizabeth Diller and Tina di Carlo and designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, opened at the Princeton University School of Architecture and will run through Monday, May 8.

30,000 sheets of paper, 11 hours and 32 minutes, a collector, a curator, an architect, and her associate, this exhibition is the product of a day spent with the Drawing Matter Collection located at the Shatwell Farmyard, Somerset, England, two hours to the west of London. The collection ranges from the sixteenth century to the present day and has been assembled by Niall Hobhouse over the past 20 years to explore the boundaries of architectural representation. 

The team convened in the archive on January 21, 2017 between 8:44am and 8:16pm to embark upon what could be considered a delirious dérive with no preconceptions, no rules, and no clear objectives except to make a selection of drawings before the fading of natural light at sunset and dinnertime. They began with the drawings themselves, led as much visually and historically, as through chance encounters provoked through the alphabetical system of the plan chests. Thematics, categories, sets of relations, bodies of work and key drawings began to emerge. The process was intuitive and grew out of the impromptu logic of the day, in which they detected patterns, consistencies, juxtapositions, and attributes of drawing that crossed historical periods around which to assemble their selection. 

The 186 drawings retrieved from the collection are presented at the Princeton University School of Architecture as first lines of inquiry that begin with the immediacy of the drawing itself, to provoke discourse, a deeper look and further investigation. The exhibition includes works by Asplund, Aureli, Boshier, Constant, Corbusier, Dali, Debord, Finsterlin, Fuller, Jungmann, La Pietra, Lautner, Maerkli, Mies, Percier, Poelzig, Price, Rossi, Sangallo, Schinkel, Sironi, Siza, Stirling, Superstudio, Webb, and van Hee, among others.

This is the inaugural exhibition of Drawing Matter in the United States and the first exhibition Elizabeth Diller (Founding Partner of Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Professor at the Princeton University School of Architecture) has curated for the School.