High wire act
‘Mid-century modern’ is the useful term popularised by Cara Greenberg’s 1984 book of that title. The United States, the civilisation…
Vital signs
Exhibit A. It is 1958 and you are barrelling down a dual carriageway; the 70 mph limit is still eight…
Why confront the ugly lie of Islamic State with a tacky fake?
Can the beauty of Palmyra be reproduced by data-driven robots? Stephen Bayley on copies, fakes and forgeries
Robert Mapplethorpe: bad boy with a camera
Robert Mapplethorpe made his reputation as a photographer in the period between the 1969 gay-bashing raid at the Stonewall Inn…
‘I enjoy the banal’: Stephen Bayley meets Martin Parr
The photographer Martin Parr claims to like ordinary people, but are his pictures celebratory or mocking, asks Stephen Bayley
What's that thing? Britain's worst public art
Bad public art pollutes our townscapes. Stephen Bayley names and shames the worst offenders as he unveils the winner of The Spectator’s inaugural What’s That Thing? Award
Bernard Buffet: painter and poser
Bernard Buffet was no one’s idea of a great painter. Except, that is, Pierre Bergé and Nick Foulkes. Bergé was…
Britain is absent from the V&A’s new Europe galleries. Are they trying to tell us something?
Before cheap flights, trains were the economical way to discover Europe and its foibles. Personally, I enjoyed the old fuss…
The rise and fall of Sony
Sony was the Apple of its day and more. Stephen Bayley charts its years of creativity unrivalled in the history of consumerism
The bicycle may have triumphed over the car but it’s far from perfect
The bicycle may have triumphed over the car but it’s far from perfect, argues Stephen Bayley
A soothing Negroni for la dolce vita
The first draft of the famous story was called ‘A Martini as Big as the Ritz’. That’s not true, but…
Ferninand Porsche: from the Beetle to the Panzer tank
The aggressive character of the famous German sports car, in a sort of sympathetic magic, often transfers itself to owner-drivers.…
The couple behind the world’s most famous chair
Peter Mandelson, in his moment of pomp, had his portrait taken by Lord Snowdon. He is sitting on a fine…
When technology was art: Cosmonauts at the Science Museum reviewed
‘The dominant narrative of space,’ I was told, in that strange language curators employ, ‘is America.’ Quite so. Kennedy stared…
The World Goes Pop at Tate Modern - our critic goes zzzzz
The conventional history of modern art was written on the busy Paris-New York axis, as if nowhere else existed. For…
Palladio was the greatest influence on taste ever – but his time is finally up
Palladio gave his name to a style that spread around the world. But was it too successful for its own good, wonders Stephen Bayley
The Heckler: architecture would be better off without Zaha Hadid
Zaha Hadid is the most famous woman architect in the world. Would women or, indeed, architecture, be better off without…
The moral case for gentrification
To gentrify or not to gentrify. That is the question, says Stephen Bayley
Art has ceased to be beautiful or interesting — but we are more obsequious than ever to artists
Two ambitious volumes of interviews with artists have just been published. They are similar, but different. The first is by…
Luxury isn’t the opposite of poverty but the opposite of vulgarity - but don’t tell the V&A
Different concepts of luxury may be inferred from a comparison of the wedding feast of Charles Bovary and Emma Rouault…
The miracle of modern flight, by a 747 pilot with a poet’s sensibility
With Alpine wreckage still being sifted, this is either a very good or a very bad time to write about…
Cars are our cathedrals
Stephen Bayley hails the automobile – a miracle of technical and artistic collaboration – and mourns its demise
Grim, generous, decaying and hip: the paradoxical charms of Athens
My first visit to Athens as a student gave me a set of impressions that the present crisis has only…
The Spectator declares war on bad public art
Stephen Bayley announces the launch of What’s That Thing?, The Spectator’s award for bad public art
From classical to post-modern: a beginner’s guide
My career at school and after was greatly enhanced by a series of books called The Bluffer’s Guide to….These gave…
