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Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec - profile
15 December 2014Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec have made a career out of questioning, provoking and reinventing various genres, chalking up an enviable list of clients and trophies, and insisting on the freedom to work on exactly what pleases them. When dream commissions manifest themselves so easily, what drives and inspires this unique design duo?
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Alvar Aalto: Second Nature - Exhibition review
15 December 2014It was in 1933, in the unlikely location of London’s luxury food purveyor, Fortnum & Mason, that the British had their first taste of the relatively unknown Finnish architect Alvar Aalto and his curvilinear plywood furniture.
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A letter from… Quaglino’s
9 December 2014When it opened in London’s exclusive Mayfair, Terence Conran’s Quaglino’s captured the spirit of the Nineties. Now the subject of a multi-million pound makeover, Johnny Tucker returns, after a 15-year absence, to taste its wares
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Barnabas Calder on Denys Lasdun’s Royal College of Physicians
9 December 2014This year Denys Lasdun’s iconic Royal College of Physicians building in Regent’s Park celebrates its 50th anniversary, coinciding with the centenary of the architect’s birth. Barnabas Calder, architectural historian at the University of Liverpool, and Lasdun expert, describes why it is still one of Lasdun’s best, and also best-preserved, buildings
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London's 'Cheesegrater' could be Richard Rogers' finest high-rise yet
9 December 2014The Leadenhall Building, London’s new star skyscraper, crystallises Richard Rogers’ design philosophy and may be his practice’s finest high-rise yet. Despite realising a concept that’s more than a decade old, and being informed by even older principles forged in the high-tech revolution of the Seventies, this is structurally and symbolically a building facing into the future.
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The art of repetition: artists depict The Shard
2 December 2014100 drawings of London by 100 famous architects and designers are going up for auction to raise money for charity Article 25.
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MVRDV’s Markthal, Rotterdam - building study
2 December 2014Adding its own unique signature to the regeneration of Rotterdam is MVRDV’s stunning Markthal, a market hall sitting in a 10-storey, 120m-deep arch of apartments, while the vibrant Horn of Plenty mural by Dutch artist duo Arno Coenen and Iris Roskam inside the arch is trumpeted by the developer as the largest artwork in Europe.
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Erik Spiekermann – tipping: good manners, or a form of corruption?
1 December 2014Is a tip a reward for good service, a lure for extra services, or the vainest form of egotism, asks Erik Spiekermann. Erik Spiekermann set up MetaDesign and FontShop, and is a teacher, author, designer and partner at Edenspiekermann.
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Richard Serra at the Gagosian Gallery
24 November 2014Watching an oil tanker being launched made a profound and lasting impression on a four-year-old Richard Serra. Now 75, the artist is still feeding off that memory and it informs his latest works at the Gagosian Gallery in London’s King’s Cross.
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Design Museum Designers in Residence - profile
24 November 2014Returning for a seventh year, Designers in Residence at the Design Museum invited four up-and-coming designers to respond to the theme of disruption. From a solution to Britain’s housing shortage and a hypothetical legal case to a working cash machine and a den-building construction system for children, each designer has diverged from traditional practices and proposed new, unexpected ideas. Here the residents talk about the experience and what they hope to take away from it. An exhibition of their work is on display at the Design Museum until 8 March.
