The must-have novelties nobody needed
Richard Loncraine and Peter Broxton, designers of surreal ‘executive toys’ in the 1960s, reveal the frailty and vanity of a time when ‘poets, pop stars and miniskirts were everywhere’
Resolute, dignified and intelligent: Elizabeth II inspired loyalty from the start
Alexander Larman describes how, from 1945 onwards, the House of Windsor set about rebranding itself after a decade of crisis both internal and external
The eccentric genius behind Big Ben
One test of great architecture is whether it, and the city it stands in, can be recognised from its silhouette…
The crimes of Le Corbusier
We can all sympathise with his desire to end bad, ugly new building, but too many of his own projects have had to be scrapped for functional reasons
Purpose built
Hugh Pearman examines a wide range of building types apart from houses, including museums, theatres, schools, shopping malls, palaces and places of worship
The story of architecture in 100 buildings
Witold Rybczynski’s majestic survey takes us from Brittany in 4,800 BC to Bilbao’s Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Gehry
Why are heritage enthusiasts so stubbornly hidebound?
Even if notions of beauty are treacherously fugitive, and even if interpretations of history are nowadays subject to revision by…
Must we now despise colonial architecture too?
Here’s a thing. A disturbing book about disturbing cities. And it’s full of loaded questions. Like Hezbollah, the publisher uses…
Enjoy your beloved car while you can
Remember ashtrays in cars? Soon cars will themselves become objects of wet-eyed nostalgic reverie. A thrilling era of propelling ourselves,…
Stylish and useful: why the Anglepoise remains a design classic
The tide of survival bias has retreated and left the Anglepoise a design classic. Its contemporaries from the mid-1930s, a…
The country house is dead: that’s why we love it so
The true English disease is Downton Syndrome. Symptoms include a yearning for a past of chivalry, grandeur and unambiguously stratified…
How we did the locomotion: A Brief History of Motion, by Tom Standage, reviewed
Audi will make no more fuel engines after 2035. So that’s the end of the Age of Combustion, signalled by…
The disgraceful decision to remove Liverpool’s heritage status
Unesco has cancelled the ‘World Heritage Status’ of the Necropolis at Memphis and the Giza Pyramid because a Radisson Blu…
The magnificent fiasco of Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House
John Ruskin believed the most beautiful things are also the most useless, citing lilies and peacocks. Had he known about…
Is it farewell to the handshake?
Ella Al-Shamahi is a Brummie, born to a Yemeni Arab family. From a strict Muslim upbringing she transitioned (evidently con…
Roy Strong’s towering egotism is really rather engaging
Stephen Bayley recalls his (mainly enjoyable) encounters with the flamboyant former museum director
High-speed trains, planes and automobiles are increasingly redundant
Should the world be faster or slower? This is a question relevant to global economics, politics and culture. But not…
The 747 was the last moment of romance in air travel
I felt a genuine pang when British Airways announced that it was retiring its fleet of Boeing 747s, the largest…
René Dreyfus: the racing driver detested by the Nazis
I have driven a racing car. On television, it looks like a smooth and scientific matter. It is not. A…
Clean lines and dirty habits: the Modernists of 1930s Hampstead
With its distinctive hilly site and unusually coherent architecture (significantly, most of it domestic rather than civic), Hampstead has always…
Plumbing the mysteries of poltergeists
This is a paranormal book — by which I mean it exists in a truly out of the ordinary netherworld…
There’s something hot about a hat
When an American describes a woman as wearing a ‘Park Avenue Helmet’ you know exactly what is meant. This is…
A museum-quality car-boot sale: V&A’s Cars reviewed
We were looking at a 1956 Fiat Multipla, a charming ergonomic marvel that predicted today’s popular MPVs. Rather grandly, I…
An unconventional biography of the visionary architect Frank Lloyd Wright
Paul Hendrickson’s previous (and very fine) book was Hemingway’s Boat, published in Britain in 2012. It was a nice conceit…
The stormy lives of Jack the Dripper and the Wife with the Knife
A stiff, invigorating breeze of revisionism is blowing through stuffy art history. Is it really true that all the valuable…
