In July 1981, in the offices of the British architecture newspaper Building Design, I received a letter from James Stirling. It enclosed a clipping from …
MediaCityUK: BBC's new northern redoubt
With the BBC’s licence fee frozen, cuts looming, its top-rating chat show host Jonathan Ross departed and a mouthy Radio 1 DJ, Chris Moyles, complaining …
The Great War cemeteries of Lutyens
Another Remembrance Sunday, another poignant ceremony at the Cenotaph in Whitehall. New memorials to the fallen, both military and civilian, are springing up everywhere, …
Kutlug Ataman's art of protest
Kutlug Ataman cuts a strange, intense, slightly piratical-looking figure in the plush Mayfair offices of his agents, The Thomas Dane Gallery. It hardly seems his …
Kazuyo Sejima's 2010 Venice Architecture Biennale
This is one of the most purely enjoyable architecture biennales I’ve been to, and I’ve been to a fair old few over the years. …
It can be a strange thing, revisiting a building you last saw brand new, years ago. I have just returned to the Tate St. Ives, …
When did I first meet Jean Nouvel? Must have been around 1980. He hadn’t built much then, though I have a memory of vaguely …
Royal Shakespeare Theatre
There are two sides to Stratford on Avon. Both concern Shakespeare. They haven’t had too much to do with each other over the years, despite …
Being the most successful architect Britain has known since the imperial heyday of Lutyens – and arguably since the Baroque brilliance of Wren – ought …
The horror of Kapoor's Orbit
It’s fair to say that it has not gone down well. The observation tower/giant public sculpture proposed for the 2012 Olympics site by the Mayor …
Seconds out, round two. There was a bit of a brouhaha back in 2002 when biographer Stephen Games first pointed out that beloved English art …
2010