ICA x Drawing Matter: exploring utopias through archives

[Image 1] Haus-Rücker-Co, Changer, 1972. Hand coloured lithograph, 600 × 749 mm. © Drawing Matter Collection

[Image 2] Adolfo Natalini (1941–2020), The Continuous Monument, New York, Sketchbook 12, page 74, 1969. © Drawing Matter Collection

[Image 3] Archizoom Associata, Homogeneous Housing Diagram – Hypothesis of a non-figurative Architectural Language, 1969–1972. © Drawing Matter Collection

[Image 4] Global Tools © Drawing Matter Collection

[Image 5] Constant (1920–2005), Frontispiece for New Babylon, 1963. Lithograph, 155 × 200 mm.

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À ne pas manquer

Urban utopias: archives and imaginaries for thinking about the future

We invited Wouter Van Acker, Emmanuelle Chiappone-Piriou and Léone Drapeaud (Traumnovelle) to select visuals from the Drawing Matter collection on the theme of architectural utopias. Each of them then extended this selection with a critical reflection.

→ Wouter Van Acker [image 1] explores the critical imagination in the work of Zünd-Up and Haus-Rücker-Co in a text published on Drawing Matter. Read more: Zünd-Up's Great Vienna War of Dreams sur Drawing Matter (EN)

→ Emmanuelle Chiappone-Piriou [image 2 to 4] looks at the richness of the Italian ‘radical season’ and its impact on the reinvention of architecture and the city in the 1960-70s.

« Together, these three images tell the story(ies) of the Italian ‘radical season’ and its attempt to reinvent architecture, the city and life (1960s-70s). Utopian, dystopian, realistic, pop or critical - terms generally used to describe their projects, that fail to capture the plurality of ideas and desires that ran through them. Seen today, they remind us that the city is at the heart of attempts to reinvent life, whether we confront it or abandon it. While the radicals initially embraced the metropolitan condition to reveal its mutations, amplifying them ad absurdum - the city as a form of physical and abstract existence, captured at the time in the midst of the emergence of mass media and information theory, as well as the anthropological mutations brought about by capitalist modes of production and economic logics - they then (temporarily) left it. This exodus is a moment of collective reinvention and celebration of lifelong learning, aimed at reconnecting architecture with life itself. » – Emmanuelle Chiappone-Piriou

→ Léone Drapeaud (Traumnovelle) highlights a drawing [image 5] by the Situationist artist and architect Constant, imagining an urbanism of the future, a ‘New Babylon’ composed mainly of Brechtian banners.

A discussion about utopias

These issues will be discussed in greater depth at the Que peuvent pour nous les utopies urbaines ?, Thursday 20 March 2025 at the Mundaneum (Mons).

By combining archives, critical texts and contemporary debates, we will explore how utopias have influenced history and continue to fuel architectural and social thought today.

As part of Temps d'Archi #11 Utopies, ICA collaborated with Drawing Matter, a London-based archive. Drawing on works from their collection, this collaboration fuelled a reflection on imaginary constructions, urban speculation and their current legacies, giving rise to a conference and a critical exploration led by our guests.

Find out more:

Drawing Matter explores the role of drawing in architectural thought and practice through publications, exhibitions and workshops for students and practitioners. At the heart of their activities is the Drawing Matter collection, which brings together several thousand architectural and design drawings from around the world, dating from the Renaissance to the present day.

Their website drawingmatter.org is a growing repository of new and historical writing on drawing. It currently contains over 1,200 texts (with at least two additions per week) and is visited by 650 readers per day. Many texts deal with material in the Drawing Matter collection, while others examine drawings and objects archived elsewhere and made by practitioners working today.

Archi #11 Utopias, the ICA collaborated with Drawing Matter, a London-based archive. Drawing on works from their collection, this collaboration fuelled a reflection on imaginary constructions, urban speculation and their current legacies, giving rise to a conference and a critical exploration led by our guests.

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