• Stairways to modernist heaven – in pictures

    Architecture obsessive Adam Štěch has photographed the interiors of over 5,000 modern gems around the globe, from hunting lodges to high-rises. Ahead of a new exhibition, he shares his favourite flights of fancy Continue reading...
  • Landmarks destroyed, masterpieces incinerated, communities razed: how the LA fires ravaged culture

    Landmarks destroyed, masterpieces incinerated, communities razed: how the LA fires ravaged culture
    Almost 200 artists in the Altadena neighbourhood have had their homes or studios burned down, while modernist buildings and irreplaceable collections have been destroyedFires are a seasonal recurrence in the dry chaparral region of Los Angeles. Often fanned by the Santa Anas, gales known as the “devil winds,” they spark easily in the long, hot months of summer and autumn. But on 7 January, when those winds blew at 85 mph through areas parched from winter drought, a hurricane of fire
  • The lost mansions of Chettinad: festival showcases opulent homes turned heritage hotels

    The lost mansions of Chettinad: festival showcases opulent homes turned heritage hotels
    In its heyday, Chettinad in southern India was a thriving hub of international traders. Today, the grandeur of their homes is being restored by a community keen to celebrate the houses’ cultural importance and promote them to touristsThe single-stone granite pillars and Burmese teak beams of Chettinad’s heritage hotels are adorned with strands of marigolds, while the verandas and corridors are hung with small, handmade palm-leaf parrots that sway gracefully among fragrant blooms. Six
  • ‘We need people to recognise the urgency’: Peterborough Cathedral faces financial ruin

    ‘We need people to recognise the urgency’: Peterborough Cathedral faces financial ruin
    Its dean has launched an emergency appeal to raise £300k by the end of March as costs climb to over £2m a yearBeneath the breathtaking oak ceiling of Peterborough Cathedral, on which images of kings, saints, bishops and a monkey riding a goat were painted nine centuries ago, the Very Rev Chris Dalliston pondered how to keep this magnificent edifice afloat in the face of financial calamity.Dalliston, the cathedral’s de facto CEO in a dog collar, has done his best to avert the lo
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  • A sprawling megacity of multi-level madness: why Chongqing in China is my wonder of the world

    A sprawling megacity of multi-level madness: why Chongqing in China is my wonder of the world
    This megacity is like Hong Kong on steroids – a vertically sprawling, astonishing urban phenomenon that can only be understood in three dimensionsGoogle Maps can be unreliable at the best of times when you’re travelling in China, but in the southern megacity of Chongqing, a map of any kind turns out to be almost entirely useless. Built across a series of impossibly steep mountainsides and vertiginous valleys at the dramatic confluence of the Yangtze and Jialing Rivers, it is an aston
  • Lights, camera, concrete! How Hollywood is playing a part in brutalism’s redemption

    Lights, camera, concrete! How Hollywood is playing a part in brutalism’s redemption
    Oscar-tipped film The Brutalist is the latest stage in the cultural rehabilitation of what was once architecture’s most reviled style but is now winning a new generation of admirersThis week an Oscar-tipped film, The Brutalist, opens in Britain. It’s a three-and-a-half-hour-plus saga in which Adrien Brody plays the brilliant but tormented fictional Hungarian architect László Tóth, a Holocaust survivor struggling to make a life in the postwar US. He’s a sing
  • ‘It was built for this’: how design helped spare some homes from the LA wildfires

    ‘It was built for this’: how design helped spare some homes from the LA wildfires
    As fires set LA ablaze, some houses are left standing amid ashes thanks to concrete walls, class A wood – and luckWhen last week’s fires in Los Angeles set parts of the city ablaze, one viral image was of a lone house in Pacific Palisades that was left standing while all of the homes around it were destroyed.Architect Greg Chasen said luck was the main factor in the home’s survival, but the brand-new build had some design features that also helped: a vegetation-free zone around
  • Experts hope The Brutalist will revive interest in UK’s modernist buildings

    Architectural historians say success of Brady Corbet’s film could help in fight to protect heritage of divisive style“A mildewed lump of elephant droppings” is how King Charles, then Prince of Wales, described the Tricorn Centre in Portsmouth after a visit to one of the UK’s most notable examples of brutalist architecture.His verdict was typical of those who take issue with the modernist architectural movement, characterised by imposing forms of raw concrete, whose buildi
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  • Citigroup commits to office working with £1bn Canary Wharf tower revamp

    Citigroup commits to office working with £1bn Canary Wharf tower revamp
    US bank will spend almost as much to renovate Citi Tower skyscraper as it paid for site in the first placeThe US bank Citigroup is to spend £1bn to renovate its skyscraper in Canary Wharf, London, the latest firm to signal its commitment to office working.The Wall Street lender will end up spending nearly as much on renovating the 130,000 sq metre (1.4m sq ft) building as it did on buying the site. Many City firms tend to lease their office space, but the bank bought what is now Citi Tower
  • ‘Criminally reckless’: why LA’s urban sprawl made wildfires inevitable – and how it should rebuild

    ‘Criminally reckless’: why LA’s urban sprawl made wildfires inevitable – and how it should rebuild
    A century of foolhardy development, including public subsidies for rebuilding in the firebelt, hugely contributed to this tragedy, writes our architecture critic. LA must rethink – and build upwards not outwards‘Crime don’t climb” is one of the glib mottoes long used by Los Angeles real estate agents to help sell the multimillion dollar homes in the hills that surround the sprawling metropolis. Residents of the lush ridges and winding canyons can rest assured, in their el
  • Richard Gibson obituary

    London architect who moved to Shetland and created buildings sympathetic to the islands’ landscape and traditions In 1969 Richard Gibson, who has died aged 89, was appointed deputy county architect in Shetland. Moving with his family from north London to the northernmost islands of the United Kingdom enabled him to keep alive the ideals of modern architecture – in particular that good design should serve the public benefit – long after they went out of fashion elsewhere in the
  • Politically historic Kingsley Hall in Bristol awarded £4.7m for renovation

    Building with links to Labour and Tories earmarked for disadvantaged young people wins National Lottery fundingA 319-year-old Grade II-listed building in the heart of Bristol that was the headquarters of the precursor to the modern Labour party has been awarded £4.7m for a major renovation.Kingsley Hall is deeply woven into Bristol’s history and has been witness to various social movements. Continue reading...
  • Architecton review – poetic study of humankind’s bricks-and-mortar impact on the Earth

    Victor Kossakovsky’s follow-up to Gunda is a gorgeously shot reverie about our use of materials such as stone and concreteThe granite face of a quarry shatters into boulders, cascading in mesmerising slow motion; a man with a wheelbarrow potters around the Roman ruins at Baalbek in Lebanon; bulldozers and diggers pick over the shattered fragments of a bombed-out Ukrainian housing complex; an Italian architect commissions a stone circle for his garden, hovering fretfully as the landscapers
  • Sadler’s Wells East review – all the right moves

    Sadler’s Wells East review – all the right moves
    East Bank, Stratford, London
    Built in Italian red brick by acclaimed Irish practice O’Donnell + Tuomey, Sadler’s Wells’s vibrant new sister theatre provides six dance studios, elegant auditorium – and a big welcome to allThere’s an idea among some architects that a building should somehow resemble the purposes it serves: that an airport should evoke flight; a democratic building should be transparent; an art museum should look like a piece of sculpture. It doesn&rsq
  • Jane Austen’s plates or the woods near her home? I know which I’d rather save | Martha Gill

    Jane Austen’s plates or the woods near her home? I know which I’d rather save | Martha Gill
    Why this hierarchy of heritage? Our obsession with buildings and artefacts is blinding us to the value of natureI was struck last week by a story about Alton, a town in Hampshire, where residents have hit on a new basis for object to development in the area: Jane Austen sometimes used to walk there from nearby Chawton. The surrounding landscape, a petition reads, is therefore an important part of our literary heritage and must not be built on.On the one hand, this is a story about nimbyism and t
  • Glasgow needs an economy strong enough to sustain its heritage | Letters

    Glasgow needs an economy strong enough to sustain its heritage | Letters
    It needs to realise its Victorian buildings are an asset rather than a liability, writes Richard Owen; plus a letter from Douglas AndersonI read Libby Brooks’s article (‘Left to rot’: Glasgow’s crumbling heritage comes into focus for 850th anniversary, 2 January) on the bus home from Glasgow city centre, and there was depressingly little in its summary of Glasgow’s architectural woes that I could disagree with.However, Glasgow’s problem with its
  • Islamesque by Diana Darke review – the diverse roots of medieval architecture

    Islamesque by Diana Darke review – the diverse roots of medieval architecture
    A beautifully-illustrated account of the Middle Eastern influence on Europe’s great buildingsFrom Cairo to Istanbul, the ancient cities of the eastern Mediterranean tell a story of conquest, trade and coexistence written in stone. Jerusalem’s seventh-century Dome of the Rock and its surroundings are dotted with recycled Persian, Greek, Hasmonean and Roman stonework, along with choice fragments from churches. In Damascus, the eighth-century Umayyad Mosque features intricately carved c
  • Escape from the terrordome: how Netherlands panopticon prisons are being reborn as stunning arts hubs

    Escape from the terrordome: how Netherlands panopticon prisons are being reborn as stunning arts hubs
    They were built to instil fear. Now these giant domed jails, which date back to the 1700s, are being turned into creative centres – complete with cells for rent and escape roomsOne of the architectural features that marks out the skyline of Haarlem, a small Dutch city, is a 37.6m-high dome, crowning a rotunda. You might assume it was built for religious purposes – until you notice the bars covering its 230 windows.​​Operating as a prison from 1899 until 2016, the Koepelge
  • Architecton review – immersive and imposing meditation on concrete and stone

    Architecton review – immersive and imposing meditation on concrete and stone
    Victor Kossakovsky’s documentary offers awesome drone-shot sequences of wrecked and ruined buildings, but could have been constructed more solidlyVictor Kossakovsky is the author of some ambitious and immersively sensory documentaries, including Aquarela from 2018, about the climate crisis, and Gunda from 2020, about the consciousness of animals. Now he has created this monolithic, almost wordless and vehement meditation on concrete and stone; the building materials which are so substantia
  • Tudor psychedelia for £35 a night! Is this rescued Yorkshire pile Britain’s most thrilling holiday let?

    Tudor psychedelia for £35 a night! Is this rescued Yorkshire pile Britain’s most thrilling holiday let?
    It’s got triple-height splendour and 1550s wall paintings likely inspired by Emperor Nero’s villa in Rome. Our writer plays lord of the manor at Calverley Hall – once home to knights, weavers, stonemasons and murderersA ghostly bearded face peers out from the wall of a bedroom, flanked by a pair of winged, snake-like beasts baring their teeth, their necks chained to an ermine roundel. The pattern repeats around the room like psychedelic wallpaper, featuring slithery creatures w
  • Office-to-homes conversions: London blocks hold fresh allure since shift to home-working

    Office-to-homes conversions: London blocks hold fresh allure since shift to home-working
    Interest has surged since relaxation of planning rules last March, but technical difficulties often loom largeOn a busy high street in Balham, south London, stands a boxy, beige-fronted building. Built in the 1940s, for decades the four-storey office block was home to hundreds of civil servants until Department for Work and Pensions officials moved out in 2020.Now, Irene House boasts 77 one- and two-bedroom upmarket apartments with seven more homes inside a roof extension. It still has its art d
  • ‘It’s Dungeness first’: panel to decide fate of new Mr Doodle house

    Award-winning architect says planned renovation on behalf of millionaire artist is ‘respectful’ of area’s heritageDungeness, on the Kent coast, has long championed pioneering architecture, welcoming the distinctive black and yellow home of the artist and film-maker Derek Jarman. But a proposal for a house clad in the rusty scrawls of the millionaire artist Mr Doodle has tested the open-mindedness of those who live there – and failed to win over the parish council.Mr Doodl
  • Labour must get asbestos out of schools urgently | Letters

    Labour must get asbestos out of schools urgently | Letters
    Dr Gill Reed says the UK has the highest incidence of mesothelioma in the world due to asbestos exposure, while Ed Campbell says underfunding made buildings’ deterioration inevitable. Plus a letter from Colin PorteousThe Guardian’s investigation of underinvestment in public buildings vividly shows its detrimental impact (Revealed: 1.5m children in England studying in unfit school buildings, 27 December). It is therefore heartening that a government spokesperson has stated that &
  • Pharaohs, masks and bronze age boats: six standout new museums around the world in 2025

    Pharaohs, masks and bronze age boats: six standout new museums around the world in 2025
    Openings across Africa and Asia offer new cultural experiences in stunning architectural surroundingsFrom a noisy, performative and unapologetically non-European Yorùbá cultural centre in Lagos, Nigeria, to the much-delayed Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, 2024 was a big year for museums opening in the developing world. A number of projects will also be inaugurated in 2025, offering an abundance of new museums to visit in 2025. Here are some of the best of them: Continue reading...
  • Testament to Spain’s golden age to open up its secret spaces after €6m revamp

    Testament to Spain’s golden age to open up its secret spaces after €6m revamp
    Unesco-listed San Lorenzo de El Escorial was fulfilment of Philip II’s dream of raising monastery in a ‘desert’Despite perching imperiously on a mountainside near Madrid for the better part of five centuries, the royal monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial has yet to give up all its treasures – or all its secrets.Forty years after it was included on Unesco’s World Heritage list, Philip II’s austere monument to power, piety and patronage is undergoing a major
  • Some people’s ancestors are kings or poets. I’m proud my family invented … the corridor

    Some people’s ancestors are kings or poets. I’m proud my family invented … the corridor
    I always thought genealogy was as dull as looking at other people’s holiday snaps – until I found out about a 16th-century architect who transformed the stately homes of his eraFriends and family, back in the 1970s, would often aggravate each other with a lengthy holiday slideshow, presenting a string of identical beach views and nameless hillside vistas over the course of a dull evening. Today, there is a new phrase that can freeze the heart just as easily as the sight of a slide pr
  • ‘Ludicrous’: bitter row erupts over plan to replace windows at Notre Dame

    ‘Ludicrous’: bitter row erupts over plan to replace windows at Notre Dame
    Fury as President Macron reveals the new ‘contemporary gesture’ for cathedral devastated by 2019 fireIn the wake of the April 2019 fire that devastated Notre Dame, the French president Emmanuel Macron promised that the monument would be rebuilt with a “contemporary gesture”.There followed all manner of madcap ideas: a glass spire; a 300ft ­carbon-fibre flame; a swimming pool on the roof; a covered garden. In the end, Notre Dame was restored to its original former glor
  • ‘Ludicrous’: bitter row erupts over plan to replace original Notre Dame windows

    ‘Ludicrous’: bitter row erupts over plan to replace original Notre Dame windows
    Fury as President Macron reveals the new ‘contemporary gesture’ for cathedral devastated by 2019 fireIn the wake of the April 2019 fire that devastated Notre Dame, the French president Emmanuel Macron promised that the monument would be rebuilt with a “contemporary gesture”.There followed all manner of madcap ideas: a glass spire; a 300ft ­carbon-fibre flame; a swimming pool on the roof; a covered garden. In the end, Notre Dame was restored to its original former glor
  • ‘When I show people this, they think it’s Mordor’: the landscape architect viewing the West Midlands as a national park

    Birmingham City University thinktank imagines new approach to urban areas and land use across the region “When I show people this, they think it’s Mordor,” says landscape architecture professor Kathryn Moore with a smile.She is pointing at a map of the West Midlands. But instead of buildings, roads and a sprawling canal network, this map shows the natural hills and undulations that lie below the human-made architecture. Continue reading...
  • ‘When I show people this, they think it’s Mordor’: the architect viewing the West Midlands as a national park

    ‘When I show people this, they think it’s Mordor’: the architect viewing the West Midlands as a national park
    Birmingham City University thinktank imagines new approach to urban areas and land use across the region “When I show people this, they think it’s Mordor,” says landscape architecture professor Kathryn Moore with a smile.She is pointing at a map of the West Midlands. But instead of buildings, roads and a sprawling canal network, this map shows the natural hills and undulations that lie below the human-made architecture. Continue reading...

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