Nige admires the work of Charles Holden, the architect behind Southgate Tube Station, one of London's finest Art Deco Underground stations... That is not a newly landed art deco UFO above - it is Southgate Underground station, towards the end of the Cockfosters branch of the Piccadilly Line. I discovered this part of ... Read More...
Design
Barendina Smedley stumbles across a less reported view of a momentous year... A few days ago, a battered copy of the Studio Year Book turned up here. The date on the much-sellotaped cover was 1939. To move beyond that cover is to embark upon what feels like an act of low-cost, high-speed, ... Read More...
To la Poisonnerie de l’Avenue, where courtesy of a generous friend, we dined on a feast of melt-in-the-mouth asparagus - followed by a succession of beautifully presented seafood dishes, reminiscent of Elizabeth David five decades ago. My oeufs a la neige (which predictive type keeps trying to turn ‘beige’) au ... Read More...
This week Susan faces the dentist's drill and observes some Olympian sell-outs... What sort of a person becomes a dentist? I was pondering on this, whilst my hands gripped tighter and tighter around the arms of the dentist’s chair (the only other time I do this is when a plane takes ... Read More...
I have just read Jonathon Green's fascinating post from earlier in the week, having been out very late at a party. What I write may not make too much sense, so I'm sticking mainly to photographs today. My suggestion is that guns should never be used for shooting again, but ... Read More...
In the strange world where art meets fashion, teeth currently have the curiosity factor. Emma Montague’s jaw bone spectacle arms add a certain je ne sais quoi to plain old sunglasses. Friction can be found where luxury meets decay and the refined becomes raw. As raw remnants collide with smooth surfaces, hybrid ... Read More...
All the world’s a stage – or at least it could be, according to Simon Woodroffe, creator of YO! Sushi and Yotel - and originator of a novel new purpose-built home of the future. His 800 square foot flat utilizes the mechanics of stage scenery to do all sorts of unexpected ... Read More...
I’ve been wondering how best to pass the time during the London 2012 Olympics. With the torch relay in a few days time, followed by a number of Olympic events in the surrounding area, there will be road closures and, potentially, gridlock. We will probably be better off staying indoors ... Read More...
Following Frank Key’s post earlier this week, you may be interested to hear about Tom Hicks, the Olympic Marathon champion of the 1904 St Louis Olympic Games. Having been helped by his trainers into the stadium (see above), Hicks collapsed on the finishing line and the medal ceremony was delayed ... Read More...
What Dabbler wouldn't like to get paid for being the government's official Curator of Eccentricities? Worm goes in search of the man who had the best job in Britain... When the Festival of Britain landed on the south bank of the Thames in the summer of 1951, Architect and festival director ... Read More...