Overlooking Berkeley Square, Yue Min’s Contemporary Terracotta Warriors carry out their exercises, while Duane Hanson’s young Surfer prepares to go out into the cold February weather in London. One of the great joys of Phillips modern building is the view that it facilitates into the adjacent streets, while the other auction houses have exhibition galleries […]
In 2013, the artist Danh Vo purchased various personal effects in auction of the former US General Robert McNamara, one of the leading figures in the Vietnam War, for which he later expressed regret. This included a chair, one of two on which Kennedy and McNamara had sat while developing their strategy for the War, […]
Twentieth century urban planning has not been good to Edgware Road in London – the start of the busy road north that joins to the AI and thence to Scotland, when transport planners ruled the roost and created the flyover high above the road taking traffic out west, eventually to the M40 and thence to […]
Be careful where you leave your car in case artists find it and take it over, with a 1953 VW beetle turned into a giant Beetle Sphere by Ichman Noor (now worth far more than the original car) or, in the case of an unregistered Fiat 500, having characteristic images applied over it by Tracy […]
Set against a backcloth of a dull grey winter’s day in London, NEW NOW at Phillips adds colour to Berkeley Square and the buildings around. Mainstream and new artists including Andy Warhol, Eva Aeppli, Kristof Kintera, Yasam Sasmazer, Glenn Kaino, Jonathan Monk, Nazar Bilyk, Egor Zigura, Oleg Pinchuk, Norbert Schwontkowski, Elmgreen & Dragset, Ai Weiwei […]
Hopefully, one day, peace will come to Syria. What then is to be done with the ruins of the ancient city of Palymra which has been substantially destroyed? Should the temples be recreated, or would they just be fakes, especially now that digital technology can recreate 3D images anywhere in the world, as currently on show […]
Sir Giles Gilbert Scott’s reputation as an architect is linked primarily to his designs for churches and cathedrals and for Gothic-revival masterpieces such as the Midland Station Hotel at St Pancras Station and the main buildings for the University of Glasgow. Early in his career, in his early 30’s, he explored a castellated style for […]
London has re-discovered its rooftops. It started with the “Post Office Tower” and disappeared when the revolving restaurant was closed, then re-emerged when “Tower 42″ (formerly the NatWest Tower) opened up the area around its lift shafts as a bar linked to a restaurant several floors below. Then came the “Gherkin” with its rooftop space […]
Ai Weiwei is a master story-teller, albeit with a political twist. His art installations bring stories, history and meaning into the physical presence and you can see why the Chinese authorities don’t quite know what to make of their most famous contemporary artist. Ahead of his exhibition at the Royal Academy, and before he was […]
In 1822, Frederick Law Olmstead was born, one of America’s foremost landscape architects, responsible for the design of many important parks and urban landscapes including Central Park in New York, Mount Royal Park in Montreal and the Niagara Reservation at Niagara Falls, American’s oldest state park. Across the Atlantic Ocean, in the rugged rural landscape […]
"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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