Design
The only art is Essex
When I went to visit Edward Bawden he vigorously denied that there were any modern painters in Essex. That may…
Come on, prime minister: a peerage for our peerless folding bike designer
Asked to name Britain’s greatest living industrial designer, most people might cite Sir Jony Ive of Apple or Sir James…
Pop psychology
The secrets of bubble-wrap and other delicious little sensations
Wild things
Are adventure playgrounds set to make a comeback, asks Maisie Rowe
Designer fatigue
Different concepts of luxury may be inferred from a comparison of the wedding feast of Charles Bovary and Emma Rouault…
Cathedrals on wheels
Stephen Bayley hails the automobile – a miracle of technical and artistic collaboration – and mourns its demise
Sonia alone
In 1978, shortly before she died, the artist Sonia Delaunay was asked in an interview whether she considered herself a…
Pop icon
The Coca-Cola ‘contour’ bottle is 100 years old. Stephen Bayley salutes a design classic
Unintelligent design
Now that the conference season is over, we can compare not just the party policies, but their logos too. Last…
The art of protest
Titles can be misleading, and in case you have visions of microwave ovens running amok or washing machines crunching up…
Home is where the art is
A day trip to the Towner Art Gallery in Eastbourne is a summer pleasure, and two concurrent shows are proving…
Pussy’s in the well
During the second world war, when not only food, but paper and artists’ materials were scarce, Peggy Angus made a…
How user-friendly is your house?
Old Glaswegian joke: ‘Put your hat and coat on, lassie, I’m off to the pub.’ ‘That’s nice — are you…
Man of steel and glass
Modern Architecture, capitalised thus, is now securely and uncontroversially compartmentalised into art history, its bombast muted, its hard-edge revolutions blurred…
Mobile phones with a touch of tweed
I wouldn’t worry much about the future of the British economy. Because I have a simple plan to make the…
The future that was
Here, for time travellers, is the whack-job spirit of ’68 in distillate form, paperbound and reissued in facsimile (with some…
