architecture
Berlinale 2014: Cathedrals of CultureFriday, 14 February 2014
Back at the Venice Biennale in 2010, the German film director Wim Wenders showed a 3D video installation titled “If Buildings Could Talk”.Exploring the theme of how architecture interacts with human beings, and attempting to capture the soul of the... Read more... |
Adrián Villar Rojas, Sackler Serpentine GalleryFriday, 27 September 2013
A queue of artists, press and glitterati snaked its way through Kensington Gardens waiting to be let into the private view for the opening of the Serpentine’s new Sackler Gallery this week, housed in The Magazine, a former 1805 gunpowder store,... Read more... |
Dreaming the Impossible: Unbuilt Britain, BBC FourTuesday, 13 August 2013
Blame the weather: it works every time. In 1858, the long hot summer thwarted the building of an 11-mile glass-covered network of roads and railways that would have linked all existing London stations, crossed the river in three places and, it was... Read more... |
Richard Rogers: Inside Out, Royal Academy, Burlington GardensFriday, 26 July 2013
Richard Rogers is addicted to colour. His wardrobe dazzles, and this biographical anthology opens with a selection of Rogers’ aphorisms and statements in bold black on a wall painted a coruscating knock-out fuschia. And then there are the buildings... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Istanbul: City on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown?Sunday, 21 April 2013
Late on a spring Friday evening, İstiklal Caddesi, the main shopping thoroughfare in Istanbul’s Beyoğlu district, exudes all the delicious traditional Turkish aromas: roasting chestnuts, fierce black coffee, döner grills and simit, İstanbul’s bagel... Read more... |
Heritage! The Battle to Save Britain's Past, BBC FourFriday, 08 March 2013
He may have been lampooned in his lifetime as the man who kept a pet wasp, but Britain owes much to John Lubbock, the Victorian MP whose legislation gave the country its first bank holiday. His Ancient Monuments bill of 1882 (nicknamed the “... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Mali: Creation, Conservation and RestorationSunday, 17 February 2013
Timbuktu, the legendary "End of the World", does actually exist, and as everyone now knows, it's in Mali. It has just been thrust into the world’s focus after its recent liberation from the Al Qaeda-linked extremists who have occupied the north of... Read more... |
Eames: The Architect and the PainterThursday, 02 August 2012
A friend of mine has an Eames lounge chair that he treats with enormous reverence and claims is the comfiest seat ever made. I simply don’t get it; with its bent plywood shell and black leather upholstery, this 1956 American design classic looks to... Read more... |
Art in Action, The Tanks, Tate ModernWednesday, 18 July 2012
You now have two choices when you roll down to the bottom of the Turbine Hall's slope. You can go left to the established Tate Modern collection of paintings and sculptures in white boxes, or right to a warren of performance and video art that fills... Read more... |
Tusa wraps up for the World ServiceFriday, 13 July 2012With the electrics being dismantled today at Bush House, central London HQ of the BBC World Service for 70 years, Sir John Tusa, its former MD (and chairman of The Arts Desk) presents a Radio 4 programme of memories of radio broadcasts from the... Read more... |
British Design 1948 - 2012: Innovation in the Modern Age, Victoria & Albert MuseumWednesday, 04 April 2012
The V&A has played a blinder. This extraordinary, exciting and unexpected exhibition provides endless trips down memory lane for many and will be a revelation for others. Ignore the clunky title, moving us from the postwar Olympics of 1948 to... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Belfast: A Place of Titanic EffortsSunday, 25 March 2012
For a small(ish) city, Belfast punches well above its weight where the arts are concerned. Northern Ireland's capital may have only 270,000 residents (with a further 500,000 in its catchment area), but it has a notable array of large venues serving... Read more... |
