The pandemic of the last six months, which looks likely to continue, has challenged many modern ways of doing things. Retailers, and restaurant-owners are having to think through their business models as never before, as competitors fall like skittles, while office occupiers are reappraising what the office of the future will be – probably not […]
Outside in the green landscape of the August sunshine, the atmosphere in Holland Park in Kensington is peaceful and relaxing, with families walking through the gardens and runners jogging along the paths. Inside the Design Museum, you enter another world, a world that is current closed due to coronavirus, the world of pulsing throbbing nightclubs […]
Today’s excursion took me across to the USA, to New England. I was looking for the new Mayflower Park Wetlands; what I found, much to my surprise, was a piece of New England vernacular in the suburbs of London, near Sutton. Surrounded by suburban residential streets, ‘The Hamptons’ and the adjacent park are a joint […]
Have you ever wandered through a graveyard and seen a gravestone that so attracts your attention that you wonder more about the occupant or occupants underneath? Sometimes it might be because the gravestone, once erect, is now leaning at a dangerous angle or the sepulchre has a gaping hole – was the occupant trying to […]
Did past generations anticipate future restrictions such as social distancing? Certainly, they were aware of sensible health precautions, including covering faces, from the various epidemics that seem to be a characteristic of human civilisation through the centuries. The various designers who have contributed to the layout of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew knew a […]
Arts organisations are leading the way in adapting to the current lockdown, with museum and theatre doors firmly locked, fine exhibitions of art in darkness and theatre stages empty. While not quite the same as seeing the real thing, we can watch ballets from the Royal Opera House, learn art from Grayson Perry in his […]
Following swiftly on from the Science Museum’s winter exhibition on Anxiety, its latest exhibition, opened before the coronavirus crisis, focuses on the issue of Gender, a subject which, like Climate Change, has taken a back seat during the current crisis, but will re-emerge once things return to some semblance of normality. Anxiety and Gender often […]
Do you experience anxiety or are you one of those people who calmly sails through life, no matter how strong the stormy winds are howling around you? Particularly relevant in these uncertain times of the coronavirus, the Science Gallery’s exhibition at the turn of the year focused on the wide-ranging issues about living with anxiety […]
The street is dark, but lights can be seen through a few of the windows in the tall apartment block, while friends linger in dim light on the staircase. Nearby, looters have been at work, helping themselves to an unprotected jewellery store and young people are sitting, chatting, smoking and drinking of the steps of the […]
Outside, Antony Gormley’s statue stands alone looking out across the courtyard to Bermondsey Street, with the Shard at London Bridge in the distance. Inside, above your head, you might sense traces of a helicopter in the neon rotor arms, the body and the circular wheel – in fact the shapes are derived from drawings of […]
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