Architecture

Lightning bolts, smart toilets and radical pottery – the week in art

Printmaking genius Hokusai is at the British Museum, the Turner comes to Coventry, and ancient nomads pitch up in Cambridge – all in your weekly dispatch

Jonathan Jones

24, Sep, 2021 @2:00 PM

‘Better ugly than boring’: book celebrates bizarre Belgian houses

Hannes Coudenys’ Ugly Belgian Houses updated with more from the ‘chaos known as Belgium’

Jennifer Rankin in Brussels

24, Sep, 2021 @11:05 AM

The smart toilet era is here! Are you ready to share your analprint with big tech?

Loo design has barely changed in 150 years – until now. Will people trade their privacy for the chance to find out exactly what is in their waste?

Emine Saner

23, Sep, 2021 @5:00 AM

Is that a dishwasher or a Hindu temple? Inside kitsch pomo masterpiece Cosmic House

Deploying a classical dome bathtub and 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?

Oliver Wainwright

22, Sep, 2021 @3:30 PM

China’s ugliest buildings: contest to celebrate unsightly architecture begins

This year’s contenders include a violin-shaped church and a ‘welcome to hell’ glass bridge joining two mountains

Vincent Ni China affairs correspondent

20, Sep, 2021 @1:52 PM

Greenwich Design District review – a lesson in how to make somewhere out of nowhere

Eight architects, 16 buildings and one masterplan – to conjure an intimate, buzzing ‘piece of a city’ that feels like it’s been there for years

Rowan Moore

19, Sep, 2021 @10:00 AM

A smirking masterwork and Christo’s posthumous triumph – the week in art

Hals dazzles London, Shonibare devises a Royal revamp and Liverpool gets a lesson in sex and death – all in your weekly dispatch

Jonathan Jones

17, Sep, 2021 @2:00 PM

Stirling prize shortlist: from mosque stunner to neo-neolithic flats

2021’s contenders for the Riba new architecture award range from a mesmerising Cambridge masjid to flats a London council wanted bulldozed

Oliver Wainwright

15, Sep, 2021 @11:01 PM

Martina Hall obituary

Maker of arts and history films for TV with an eye for detail and a flair for celebrating the creative gifts of women

Saskia Baron

14, Sep, 2021 @4:46 PM

‘I would never spend that much on a kitchen!’: Grand Designs’ Kevin McCloud on money, ambition – and expensive mistakes

For more than 20 years the designer and presenter has shown viewers what it really costs to build a dream home. He talks about the frayed emotions, failure and why the UK needs radical land reform

Emine Saner

13, Sep, 2021 @5:00 AM

Work begins on wrapping Arc de Triomphe for Christo artwork

Operation combining art and engineering on a massive scale fulfils dream of late artist couple

Kim Willsher in Paris

12, Sep, 2021 @4:39 PM

A grove, not Gove – the primary school with nature at its heart

The bright, timber-built design of Wintringham primary academy sets a standard that other schools would do well to follow