Two Grecian temples which epitomise the Athens of the North are the Royal Scottish Acadrmy and the National Gallery, with a third, albeit incomplete, nearby Calton Hill in Edinburgh. Architectual masterpieces where Edinburgh’s Old Town and New Town come together, designed by Henry William Playfair in the early 19th century, they left a problem of […]
The doors have been flung open and, against the backcloth of the historic architecture of the British Academy, a stone’s throw from Trafalgar Square, schools and families have been exploring a range of different questions that impact on our lives in the Academy’s summer showcase ‘Curious?, with more talks across the road in the welcome […]
As you walk down Northumberland Avenue, you glance through the windows at what looks like a demolition site, a space in transition, with rubble and debris on the floor. Sometimes you go to an art exhibition which is quite challenging and this is the case at the Korea Cultural Centre with its 2019 Open Call […]
Iran is a country of contrasts. The Daily Mail headlines today are about conflict: ‘Jeremy Hunt warns Iran of ‘unintended but catastrophic’ consequences over attacks on Gulf tankers as he backs America’s claim that Iran is responsible’. Yet, Iran is a country of beautiful art and architecture, with a great heritage that continues today, as […]
A gorilla looks out of the window at the rain pouring down in Fitzrovia as a month’s rainfall pours down on London in a couple of days. Perhaps he is thinking of the warm climate from which he has come or, like all of us, wondering where summer has gone. Photographer GraemePurdy’s stunning and dramatic […]
We are so used to art galleries being full of bold large works that it is a shock to find two gallery spaces with only seven works, each relatively small and hanging alone on an uncluttered pure wall. There is something both sinister and religious about Norwegian/German artist Yngve Holen’s ‘Corpus Quality’, with his […]
In the heart of the city and, yet hidden and discovered by many visitors by accident, what Leake Street is to London, Werregaren Straat is to Ghent. Here is Ghent graffiti art central, with the building walls, columns and even metal railings all covered in a changing panorama of painted images being gazed at by guided […]
By coincidence, while the London Architecture Festival takes place across the city in June, Isaac Julien is celebrating the work of Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi (1914-1992) with lively colourful photographs and a video installation at the Victoria Miro Gallery in London. Lina Bo Bardi started her career in Rome, then Milan, before moving to […]
While Philip Haas’s large organic sculptures ‘The Four Seasons’ currently grace the forecourt of the Baker Museum in Naples, Florida, USA, maquettes of the same sculptures are here in Surrey, welcoming visitors to the newly-opened Welcome Centre at RHS Wisley, the first phase of an ambitious £160 million investment in the future of RHS Wisley […]
It almost makes you want to move to Bruton in Somerset….. Two previous Artists-in-Residence, Michael Day Jackson and Catherine Goodman, have been on show at Hauser & Wirth Somerset. I visited on a holiday weekend where Hauser & Wirth was awash with families, with children of all ages participating in art and science projects,, enjoying […]
"The many great gardens of the world, of literature and poetry, of painting and music, of religion and architecture, all make the point as clear as possible: The soul cannot thrive in the absence of a garden. If you don't want paradise, you are not human; and if you are not human, you don't have a soul."
(Thomas Moore)
To be an architect means having a wide range of interests - architecture, art and creativity in all its variety of forms, sustainability, science and innovation. The greatest interest is often where these different worlds overlap and collide - that is when something imaginative often occurs that pushes us all forward to another place
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