Architecture
The architects redesigning death
Unesco doesn’t hand out world-heritage status to absences, but if it did, there would be memorials all over the western…
The fragility of the modern city reflects humanity’s vulnerability
The more complex the infrastructure, the more liable it is to break down – as was recently apparent in the blackout that brought Madrid and Lisbon to a standstill in April
V&A’s new museum is a defiant stand against the vandals
In last week’s Spectator, Richard Morris lamented museum collections languishing in storage, pleading to ‘get these works out’. There’s an…
Architecture has hit a nadir at the Venice Biennale
Much of Venice’s Giardini this year was as boarded up as a British high street. The Israeli pavilion was empty,…
Decent redesign, ravishing rehang: the new-look National Gallery reviewed
A little under a year ago, it emerged that builders working on the redevelopment of the National Gallery’s Sainsbury Wing…
Art deco gave veneer and frivolity a bad name
The jazz style was the blowsy filling between the noxious crusts of two world wars. More than 30 years passed…
Was Sir John Soane one of the first modernists?
Sir John Soane’s story is a good one. Born in 1753 to a bricklayer, at 15 he was apprenticed to…
The National Trust’s plans for Clandon Park are a travesty
In April 2015, a fire raged through Clandon Park, destroying much of the 18th-century Palladian mansion’s prized interiors. Contrary to…
Britain’s shopfronts are a national embarrassment
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
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
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
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
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?
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?
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?
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?
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Architects are often snobby about – and no doubt jealous of – the designer Thomas Heatherwick, who isn’t an actual…
