These foolish things
No reliable statistics exist — it’s not the sort of thing you can audit — but England is surely the…
These foolish things
No reliable statistics exist — it’s not the sort of thing you can audit — but England is surely the…
The great pretenders
There is fakery in the air. And maybe the French are done with deconstruction. A drone operated by a French…
You’ve been framed
‘I like ordinary people,’ says the extraordinary photographer Martin Parr, pushing a few high-concept smoked sprats around his plate at…
Public offence
Listen http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/fightingovercrumbs-euroscepticsandtheeudeal/media.mp3 There are, as adman David Ogilvy remarked, no monuments to committees. (That’s not quite true; Auguste Rodin’s ‘Burghers…
Eurovision
Before cheap flights, trains were the economical way to discover Europe and its foibles. Personally, I enjoyed the old fuss…
Eurovision
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
Here is a Japanese fairy tale for Christmas. An allegory of insight, opportunism and a fall from favour. It is…
The rise and fall of Sony
Here is a Japanese fairy tale for Christmas. An allegory of insight, opportunism and a fall from favour. It is…
The bicycle may have triumphed but it’s far from perfect
It’s extraordinary that it took civilisation so very long to discover the benefits of putting little wheels on suitcases. We…
Intelligent design
Peter Mandelson, in his moment of pomp, had his portrait taken by Lord Snowdon. He is sitting on a fine…
Stars in their eyes
‘The dominant narrative of space,’ I was told, in that strange language curators employ, ‘is America.’ Quite so. Kennedy stared…
God’s architect
Somewhat magnificently, I made the notes for this article sitting in the back of a Rolls-Royce travelling between London and…
Zaha Hadid
Zaha Hadid is the most famous woman architect in the world. Would women or, indeed, architecture, 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…
Athens
My first visit to Athens as a student gave me a set of impressions that the present crisis has only…
Starry cast
The great municipal museums are products of the 19th-century imagination, evidence of lofty ambitions and cringe-making limitations. They are exact…
Starry cast
The great municipal museums are products of the 19th-century imagination, evidence of lofty ambitions and cringe-making limitations. They are exact…
The only way is Essex
We are told this is now a ‘knowledge economy’. Strange, then, that there are so few recent educational buildings of…
The quiet man
Shigeru Ban is the celebrated architect who refuses to become a celebrity. Thus, at 57, his career has run opposite…
Building a future
One of the big differences between Frank Lloyd Wright and me is that, when he was nine, his mother gave…
Building a future
One of the big differences between Frank Lloyd Wright and me is that, when he was nine, his mother gave…
In defence of developers
When architectural preservationists meet at the tedious conferences and grim councils of despair that feed oxygen to their nihilistic and…
Wilful expression
‘Lounge suit’ is normally a reliable signifier of supine gentility. But there it was on the invitation to Richard Rogers’s…
Dream machine
In 1951, Arthur Drexler, an influential curator at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, organised an exhibition called 8 Automobiles.…
