Permission for 48-storey skyscraper denied but application for second building yet to be consideredThe UK’s oldest synagogue, a 320-year-old building in the City of London, has won the first stage of its battle to stave off an existential threat from p…
Brixton’s Barrier Block: ‘When it went up everyone hated it’
Fifty years on, architect Magda Borowiecka explains why she had limited scope in designing Southwyck HouseMore than 50 years after it was designed, Southwyck House still looms over Brixton in south London, drawing fascination and dislike in equal measu…
Covid car parks to galactic lockdown: fascinating but futile quarantine ideas
Whether atomic priesthoods, 50ft concrete spikes or burying astronauts in concrete, humanity’s attempts to keep free from infection are examined in Until Proven SafeIn January 2020, just a few days before the first Covid-19-infected passengers landed i…
How one family turned a derelict garage into a home
Thanks to an online search error, an architect transformed a tumbledown building into a three-bedroom houseMelanie Schubert and partner Paolo Vimercati didn’t set out to buy a derelict double garage when they were looking for a new home. In one online…
Is that a dishwasher or a Hindu temple? Inside kitsch pomo masterpiece Cosmic House
From its classical dome bathtub to its vanishing ceilings, godfather of postmodernism Charles Jencks turned a terraced house into a madcap monument to his voracious ideas. What was it like to live there?The first challenge facing visitors to Charles Je…
Greenwich Design District review – a lesson in how to make somewhere out of nowhere
Eight architects, 16 new buildings and one masterplan have converged in the shadow of London’s O2 to conjure up a neighbourhood for creative types that’s full of energy and charmThere once was an area in Singapore – Bugis – which, its trans nightlife b…
Paris is taking space back from cars. Here’s how.
The Liberation of Paris From Cars Is Working – “The French capital is quickly cutting automobiles out of daily life. David Belliard is the deputy mayor behind it.”[1,2] (previously) Over the past six years, Paris has done more than almost any city in t…
The Innovation of Modular Housing: How Buildings Learn Pattern Languages
Apartments Built on an Assembly Line [ungated] – “The pandemic put a general crimp in housing construction, but made a California factory that churns out prefabricated housing extra busy.”[1,2] Mr. Holliday, who co-founded the factory with Larry Pace, …
Dismissed and derided when they stood, it’s time to reassess the twin towers | Rowan Moore
Twenty years after their destruction, we can finally see Yamasaki’s landmark pillars in all their gloryFew buildings illustrated architecture’s power to be different things to different people at different times than the twin towers of the World Trade…
Berlin’s bizarre new museum: a Prussian palace rebuilt for €680m
A cross between a Disneyland castle and a chilling concrete block, the Humboldt Forum is set to teach visitors about Germany’s colonial era. But is the past being examined – or exalted?A museum gift shop has never been such an ideological battleground….