The bridge of size
Before Brooklyn exceeded it in cool, Manhattanites spoke dismissively of BNTs. These were the Bridge ‘n’ Tunnel folk, the out-of-towners…
Building block
Liverpool is the New York of Europe. The business district looks like old Wall Street: a miniature Lower Manhattan on…
Dome truths
It was 50 years ago today, Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play. The result was a popular masterpiece. Thirty…
The mysteries of colour
When Australia imposed generic packaging in its war on cigarettes, there was consumer research into the most deterrent colour. Pantone…
Paradise lost
The American dream was a consumerist idyll: all of life was to be packaged, stylised, affordable and improvable. Three bedrooms,…
Paradise lost
The American dream was a consumerist idyll: all of life was to be packaged, stylised, affordable and improvable. Three bedrooms,…
Ideal homes
Artists, poets and philosophers have not paid much attention to Milton Keynes …although comedians have. This urban experiment has been…
Ideal homes
Artists, poets and philosophers have not paid much attention to Milton Keynes …although comedians have. This urban experiment has been…
Roving the world
In these books, two handsome and popular telly adventurers consider, from viewpoints that are sometimes overly autobiographical, the culture of…
Contours of the mind
In Australia, I have been told, the female pubic area is sometimes known as a ‘mapatasi’ because its triangular shape…
Contours of the mind
In Australia, I have been told, the female pubic area is sometimes known as a ‘mapatasi’ because its triangular shape…
Belly of an architect
Depending on your point de vue, Haussmann’s imperial scheme for Paris created townscape of thrilling regularity or boring uniformity. Whatever;…
Nicholas Serota
In this week of toadying obsequies after the (rather late) retirement of Sir Nicholas Serota from his imperial throne at…
Belly of an architect
Depending on your point de vue, Haussmann’s imperial scheme for Paris created townscape of thrilling regularity or boring uniformity. Whatever;…
Nicholas Serota
In this week of toadying obsequies after the (rather late) retirement of Sir Nicholas Serota from his imperial throne at…
Nicholas Serota
In this week of toadying obsequies after the (rather late) retirement of Sir Nicholas Serota from his imperial throne at…
Estate agent
A big misunderstanding about art is that it excites serene meditation and transcendent bliss. But anyone who has worked in…
Peggy Guggenheim
She had come a very long way from the shtetl, but Marguerite ‘Peggy’ Guggenheim was still the poor relation of…
The original and the copyist
Architecture is sometimes described as the second oldest profession, but often — in both theory and practice — it competes…
Peggy Guggenheim
She had come a very long way from the shtetl, but Marguerite ‘Peggy’ Guggenheim was still the poor relation of…
Requiem for a designer dream
Threnody. Dirge. Lament. Epitaph. Elegy. Wake. There are so many English terms to describe the passing of people and things…
Requiem for a designer dream
Threnody. Dirge. Lament. Epitaph. Elegy. Wake. There are so many English terms to describe the passing of people and things…
The faceless man in the bowler hat
Surrealism was, at least initially, as much about writing as painting. A plaque on the Hotel des Grands Hommes in…
Taking the pissoir
You have to imagine the lines that follow in separate fonts to get the full sense of the nonsense in…
Taking the pissoir
You have to imagine the lines that follow in separate fonts to get the full sense of the nonsense in…
