Architecture & Design
Front Row: Pompeii at the British Museum; maths in music; new literature prize
A new literature prize open to writers in English from around the world, a report on the use of maths in music, and a sneak peek at a new Pompeii exhibition at the British Museum.
Philippe Starck: 'I couldn't care less about my life'
The designer explains why he's not motivated by money but by good design I met Philippe Starck at his gleaming white studio in Paris. After introducing us to his wife Jasmine, he asked what he could do for us. This was not some pose. Starck is convinced
Hello World: Where Design Meets Life - Alice Rawsthorn
Design is one of the most powerful forces in our lives. When deployed wisely, it can bring us pleasure, choice, strength, decency and much more. But if its power is abused, the outcome can be wasteful, confusing, humiliating, even dangerous. None of us ca
Life and death in Pompeii and Herculaneum - British Museum
AD 79. In just 24 hours, two cities in the Bay of Naples in southern Italy were buried by a catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Preserved under ash, the cities lay buried for just over 1,600 years, their rediscovery providing an unparalleled glimpHello World: Where Design Meets Life by Alice Rawsthorn - review
Alice Rawsthorn's exploration of how design affects our lives is most interesting when it leaves the beaten track Design, as Alice Rawsthorn points out, can mean a great many things. You can have designs on someone, as in making them an object of intrigu
The brutalist spirit of the Southbank Centre may be lost to this redesign | Douglas Murphy
A quick glance at the new proposals for the Festival Wing of the Southbank Centre, and it all seems pretty standard for 21st century architecture. Surfaces are replete with grass and shrubs, crowds of happy shoppers waft everywhere, the inevitable child w
Sense of majesty
A new exhibition gives a masterclass in the art of showing off.
Treasures of the Royal Courts: Tudors, Stuarts and the Russian Tsars - Victoria & Albert Museum
Experience the majesty of the courts of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I to Ivan the Terrible and the early Romanovs in a major exhibition at the V&A. From royal portraits, costume and jewellery to armour and heraldry, Treasures of the Royal Courts tells the st
Stratford-upon-Avon travel tips: Shakespeare walked this way
The Shakespeare's Way footpath goes to London but you need not stray from Stratford for pretty views and Cotswolds villages To sample some of the finest countryside in Warwickshire, you can do little better than follow in the (probable) footsteps of Stra