Design
The Jaguar F-Type is no E-Type
In 1951, Arthur Drexler, an influential curator at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, organised an exhibition called 8 Automobiles. Drexler, who used to wear a bow tie, was one… Read more
The new Design Museum: Prince Charles will prefer it. But should we?
Twenty-five years ago I went to St James’s Palace to ask the Prince of Wales if he would open the new Design Museum. Before us was the model of the… Read more
Mauvais goût
It was dinner at a prize-winning hotel in Burgundy. I looked, stupefied, at an awkward arrangement of trapezoidal plates, unaccommodating to food and unergonomic to both eater and plongeur. There… Read more
In the worst possible taste
What are the rules of taste at Christmas? How might the fastidious chart a neat path through this garish and cluttered carnival of unreflective consumption? How might dignity be maintained… Read more
The Dagenham Dustbin
For those of us who find passion in national iconography, this is a melancholy historical moment. It’s a very bad time for British manufacturing and an even worse one for… Read more
A step away from buying toothpaste
Fifty years ago it was not possible to bid at auction via the telephone — that first historic telephone bid was made for a Monet at Christie’s in 1967. Now… Read more
Science fiction as reality
What’s that in your pocket? Magic or art? The near ubiquitous iPhone may be rammed with very new technology, but it is a witness of very old, even mysterious, values.… Read more
Room with a view
Living Architecture is a new social enterprise that adds a touch of glamour to the traditional British holiday. Instead of a cute cottage, cramped caravan or crumbling castle, Living Architecture… Read more
House rules
Britain needs more houses, and the government’s highly unpopular draft National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) at least asks how to get them — the right question even if it gives… Read more
Underneath the arches
The Elephant and Castle shopping centre is more of an oddity than an eyesore. It lies like a stricken container ship opposite the dignified columns of the Metropolitan Tabernacle and… Read more
Latest blogs
- The chancellor survived the IMF report, but there’s another challenge ahead James Forsyth
- Summer party season begins Steerpike
- Cameron leaves the goal open for Clegg and Miliband on tax avoidance Isabel Hardman
- IMF verdict on the UK economy: the good, the bad, and the ugly Isabel Hardman
- The West wants chunks of Apple Steerpike
- Michael Sandel interview: the marketization of everything is undermining democracy JP O'Malley
- Nick Clegg: I’m the grown-up in this Coalition Isabel Hardman
