Architecture

Britain’s shopfronts are a national embarrassment

15 February 2025 9:00 am

A few weeks ago, a couple of men with ladders started work on a former bridal boutique at the end…

It’s no Citizen Kane: The Brutalist reviewed

25 January 2025 9:00 am

The Brutalist, which is a fictional account of a Jewish-Hungarian architect in postwar America, has attracted a great deal of…

The architectural provocations of I.M. Pei

11 January 2025 9:00 am

When first considering architects for the new Louvre in 1981, Emile Biasini, the project’s head, liked that I.M. Pei was…

Letters: Where to find the best negroni

4 January 2025 9:00 am

Free thinking Sir: Your leading article (‘Article of faith’, 14 December) appears to have forgotten the connection between rationalism and…

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre contains terrible art – but is filled with magic

14 December 2024 9:00 am

For a press tour of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem – the Church of the Resurrection, the…

What will the cities of the future look like?

16 November 2024 9:00 am

Will they be subterranean, to escape extreme heat; or float in the sky, to avoid overcrowding; or abolish streets entirely, like the Line, now under construction in Saudi Arabia?

Could AI lead to a revival of decorative beauty?

26 October 2024 9:00 am

In front of me is what appears to be an authentic Delft tile. The surface of the tile is mottled,…

Who should win the Stirling Prize?

21 September 2024 9:00 am

The Stirling Prize is the Baftas for architects, a moment for auto-erotic self-congratulation. Awarded by the Royal Institute of British…

Why are Chinese students giving up on architecture?

14 September 2024 9:00 am

I recently convened an urban studies summer school in a top university in Shanghai and asked the assembled class of…

Never pour scorn on Croydon

7 September 2024 9:00 am

Much derided as a philistine wasteland, the borough has an extremely distinguished history and could serve as a microcosm of Britain itself, says Will Noble

India radiates kindly light across the East

31 August 2024 9:00 am

William Dalrymple describes how, from the 3rd century BC to 1200 AD, India illuminated the rest of Asia with its philosophies and artistic forms through unforced cultural conquest

The beauty of pollution

13 July 2024 9:00 am

On the back of the British £20 note, J.M.W. Turner appears against the backdrop of his most iconic image. Voted…

Forget monetary policy, the Bank of England’s greatest crime was architectural

6 July 2024 9:00 am

In 1916 the Bank of England committed what Nikolaus Pevsner was to call the greatest architectural crime to befall London…

Jam-packed with treasures: the eccentric Sir John Soane’s Museum

15 June 2024 9:00 am

The delightfully higgledy-piggledy display of antiquities, filling walls from floor to ceiling, may have been inspired by the Piranesi prints Soane also collected

The proposed cities of the future look anything but modern

13 January 2024 9:00 am

The vision for California Forever, an American utopian city still at planning stage, is pure picture-book nostalgia of bicycles, rowing boats and tree-lined streets

Mother’s always angry: Jungle House, by Julianne Pachino, reviewed

9 December 2023 9:00 am

But who – or what – is Mother? And are her exasperated warnings about ever-present danger exaggerated?

I’m not convinced Thomas Heatherwick is the best person to be discussing boring buildings

28 October 2023 9:00 am

Architects are often snobby about – and no doubt jealous of – the designer Thomas Heatherwick, who isn’t an actual…

Fast cars, minimalist design and en suite bathrooms: the real Rachmaninoff

2 September 2023 9:00 am

Fast cars, minimalist design and en suite bathrooms: Richard Bratby visits the composer’s starkly modern Swiss home

Policed conviviality: Serpentine Pavilion 2023 reviewed

1 July 2023 9:00 am

As I sat down at this year’s Serpentine Pavilion, I overheard a curious exchange. ‘You mustn’t create art within art,’…

Why I admire Saudi Arabia’s monstrous new city

8 October 2022 9:00 am

Sam Kriss on Saudi Arabia’s $1 trillion eco-city

Sixteen cathedrals to see before you die

27 August 2022 9:00 am

There can be no clearer illustration of the central role that great cathedrals continue to play in a nation’s life…

How the quarrelsome ‘Jena set’ paved the way for Hitler

27 August 2022 9:00 am

Frances Wilson describes a group of self-obsessed intellectuals united by mutual loathing in a small university town in the 1790s

Why Merseyside is the natural home for a Shakespearean theatre

6 August 2022 9:00 am

A neglected little town in Merseyside is the natural home for Shakespeare North, says Robert Gore-Langton

The beauty of gasholders

16 April 2022 9:00 am

Dan Hitchens on the beauty of gasholders

A play for bureaucrats: David Hare's Straight Line Crazy reviewed

2 April 2022 9:00 am

It’s good of Nicholas Hytner to let Londoners see David Hare’s new play before it travels to Broadway where it…