Successful modern design follows no rules
The greatest designers have a unique way of seeing things – a vision that is essentially intuitive, says Google’s User Experience guru Maggie Gram
The mixed messages of today’s architecture – retro utopias or dizzy towers?
The way out of the muddle, says Owen Hopkins, is ‘post-architecture’ – tied to the earth and purged of vanity – which can be achieved by a close study of 21 remarkable buildings
The must-have novelties nobody needed
Richard Loncraine and Peter Broxton, designers of surreal ‘executive toys’ in the 1960s, reveal the frailty and vanity of a time when ‘poets, pop stars and miniskirts were everywhere’
Resolute, dignified and intelligent: Elizabeth II inspired loyalty from the start
Alexander Larman describes how, from 1945 onwards, the House of Windsor set about rebranding itself after a decade of crisis both internal and external
The eccentric genius behind Big Ben
One test of great architecture is whether it, and the city it stands in, can be recognised from its silhouette…
The crimes of Le Corbusier
We can all sympathise with his desire to end bad, ugly new building, but too many of his own projects have had to be scrapped for functional reasons
Purpose built
Hugh Pearman examines a wide range of building types apart from houses, including museums, theatres, schools, shopping malls, palaces and places of worship
Order, meaning and beauty
Witold Rybczynski’s majestic survey takes us from Brittany in 4,800 BC to Bilbao’s Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Gehry
A nagging sense of loss
Even if notions of beauty are treacherously fugitive, and even if interpretations of history are nowadays subject to revision by…
Foreign corners that are forever England
Here’s a thing. A disturbing book about disturbing cities. And it’s full of loaded questions. Like Hezbollah, the publisher uses…
Driven into the ground
Remember ashtrays in cars? Soon cars will themselves become objects of wet-eyed nostalgic reverie. A thrilling era of propelling ourselves,…
Perfect poise
The tide of survival bias has retreated and left the Anglepoise a design classic. Its contemporaries from the mid-1930s, a…
Chasing nostalgia
The true English disease is Downton Syndrome. Symptoms include a yearning for a past of chivalry, grandeur and unambiguously stratified…
The end of the ride
Audi will make no more fuel engines after 2035. So that’s the end of the Age of Combustion, signalled by…
The disgraceful decision to remove Liverpool’s heritage status
Unesco has cancelled the ‘World Heritage Status’ of the Necropolis at Memphis and the Giza Pyramid because a Radisson Blu…
The weekend cottage in the woods
John Ruskin believed the most beautiful things are also the most useless, citing lilies and peacocks. Had he known about…
Gesture of goodwill
Ella Al-Shamahi is a Brummie, born to a Yemeni Arab family. From a strict Muslim upbringing she transitioned (evidently con…
The greater glory of Roy
Stephen Bayley recalls his (mainly enjoyable) encounters with the flamboyant former museum director
Seriously overrated
Should the world be faster or slower? This is a question relevant to global economics, politics and culture. But not…
747s
I felt a genuine pang when British Airways announced that it was retiring its fleet of Boeing 747s, the largest…
High on speed
I have driven a racing car. On television, it looks like a smooth and scientific matter. It is not. A…
High culture on the hill
With its distinctive hilly site and unusually coherent architecture (significantly, most of it domestic rather than civic), Hampstead has always…
Things that go bump in the night
This is a paranormal book — by which I mean it exists in a truly out of the ordinary netherworld…
Crowning glories
When an American describes a woman as wearing a ‘Park Avenue Helmet’ you know exactly what is meant. This is…
A museum-quality car-boot sale: V&A’s Cars reviewed
We were looking at a 1956 Fiat Multipla, a charming ergonomic marvel that predicted today’s popular MPVs. Rather grandly, I…
