A Dutch artist is creating tiny worlds suspended inside fragile glass tubes September 27, 2016 Standing at just a few inches tall, these lilliputian constructions from Dutch artist Rosa de Jong are the architectural equivalent of ships in a bottle. The series, entitled Micro Matter, presents miniature vertical townships of alien proportions, each suggesting a wider and more fantastical world beyond. Indeed, de Jong says she had initially intended to [...]
The glorious bus stops of the former USSR, as shot by photographer Peter Ortner September 26, 2016 Even in the often stifling artistic conditions that existed in the outer reaches of the Soviet Union, creativity found a way. While Soviet architects experimented with startling modernist buildings in Mother Russia, the outposts largely had to settle for endlessly repeating brutalist tower-blocks, each one as punishingly grey as the last. Municipal buildings – and [...]
Julius Shulman: the photographer who helped to define LA September 26, 2016 Many architects have made their mark on a place, planting seeds of creation that go on to define a street or neighbourhood. A select few become synonymous with a certain style, or even an entire city. But not many shape the way people think about an entire state; Julius Shulman achieved just that without designing [...]
Garden Bridge designer unveils a ‘stairway to nowhere’ – for New York September 23, 2016 The designer behind London’s Garden Bridge project over the River Thames, which continues to stir much controversy here, has unveiled another ambitious project. Thomas Heatherwick’s latest design, titled ‘Vessel’, was unveiled in New York last week. It depicts an enormous honeycomb-like structure with a free-standing collection of multi-level staircases. But the scheme is set to [...]
The Girl With All the Gifts review: this spiritual successor to 28 Days Later has plenty of bite September 22, 2016 This spiritual successor to 28 Days Later is an excellent example of pared-back British horror film-making. It follows Melanie, a bright young girl who just happens to be a zombie. She lives on a military base with other zombie kids who are dressed in Abu Graib-style jumpsuits and strapped into wheelchairs. They’re part of an [...]
Dinner at The Twits at The Vaults is impressively immersive, but the food is as bad as it looks September 22, 2016 Dinner at The Twits invites you into the dining room of Roald Dahl’s most hideous creations, with the chef’s special being lashings of nostalgia. The Vaults at Waterloo has a revolving door of left-field productions, but this is the best use of the space I’ve seen, with real attention to detail in the creation of [...]
No Man’s Land at Wyndham’s Theatre, starring Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen is one of the plays of the year September 22, 2016 Once every few years a production comes together that just feels right – the actors perfectly suited, the timing impeccable. No Man’s Land, starring Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, is one of those plays. Pinter’s 1974 work about two old soaks, one a rich man of letters, the other a flat-broke poet, could have been [...]
Abstract Expressionism at Royal Academy: These rarely travelled loans and invigorating, bombastic artworks resonate strongly with today’s fractured world September 22, 2016 This superlative show is huge in every sense: big themes, giant icons of mid century art, enormous canvases, and no small amount of ambition on the Royal Academy’s part, tackling an often shied from movement – or ‘ism’ – which was last explored in such a survey in the UK back in 1959. Even for [...]
Little Men review: A powerful and deeply moving story of young friendship in hard times September 22, 2016 When a family inherits a building in a rapidly gentrifying area of Brooklyn, the resulting feud between its long-standing tenant and its new owners forms the agonisingly corrosive backdrop against which two young teenagers attempt to maintain their new friendship. Comparisons to Romeo and Juliet would suggest a degree of melodrama and forced sentimentality that [...]
The Magnificent Seven: This weak Western lacks true grit September 22, 2016 Antoine Fuqua’s The Magnificent Seven was always going to face significant challenges. Remaking not one but two classics, it also has to buck the trend of recent big budget westerns that have badly flopped. Nevertheless, the Training Day director has some impressive hired guns. Denzel Washington takes the lead as Sam Chisolm, a bounty hunter [...]