Ever since the Berlin Wall came down, I’ve been pottering around eastern Germany, where my father’s family came from, and fled from at the end of the second world war. I thought my interest would fade as my father’s fatherland was absorbed by the Bundesrepublik — but for me, this strange hinterland grows more intriguing
‘If you meet anyone in a pub or at a party who says he is an architect,’ advised Auberon Waugh, ‘punch him in the face.’ Typically, the late, great Spectator columnist articulated an important truth: modern architects have scarred our cityscapes with some truly horrendous buildings, none more so than Glasgow’s notorious Red Road flats. What better
So, the government plans to create a new ‘garden city’ in Ebbsfleet, Kent, with 15,000 new homes. Yesterday’s announcement by George Osborne has been widely praised. The local Tory MP is enthusiastic. Boris Johnson tweets that it’s ‘great news.’ The best critique Ed Balls can muster is that it’s all ‘too little, too late.’ Labour
Tallinn, Monday ‘I have some sad news,’ says the Estonian politician, as we sit down to dinner. ‘War has broken out.’ The pain in his voice is palpable. For this patriotic man, and many like him, Russia’s invasion of Crimea has reawakened memories of an era everyone here hoped was over. Wandering the cobbled streets
In a crowded storeroom at Ikon, Birmingham’s contemporary art gallery, its director Jonathan Watkins is unwrapping the pictures for his latest show. His excitement is infectious. He’s like a big kid on Christmas day. This exhibition marks the start of Ikon’s 50th season, for which he’s devised a special programme — a history of Ikon,
As you enter the old KGB building, at the end of Freedom Street, the first thing that hits you is the cold. Outside it’s below freezing. Inside it’s even colder. The cells are in the basement, down a dank and narrow corridor. Upstairs are the offices where the KGB filed away the details of the
Another new year and once again the world’s leading CEOs and politicians descend on Davos, transforming this little Alpine town into the world’s most (self-) important talking shop. Yet there’s another side to Davos that’s far more interesting than dry geopolitical debate. Long before it became a stage for the World Economic Forum, this quiet
For a man who’s about to celebrate his 60th birthday, Sir David Chipperfield looks remarkably fresh-faced. His pale blue eyes are bright and piercing, his thick white hair is cut in a fashionable short crop. Clad in a dark polo neck, he looks almost boyish. This youthful vitality is reflected in his work. At an
‘I remember you from last time,’ said the young man on the promenade. It was my first night back in Tangier. I was alone and tired and lonely. I liked the idea of meeting someone who knew me, if only from a brief encounter a few years before. ‘Yes, of course,’ I said, though I
In 1863, the pioneering travel agent Thomas Cook took a group of British tourists on the first package holiday to Switzerland. One of them, a jolly young woman called Jemima Morrell, kept a diary — and 150 years later, English émigré Diccon Bewes has followed in her footsteps. His Slow Train to Switzerland (Nicholas Brealey,
Most Belgians of my acquaintance tend to be rather disparaging about Bruges. It’s a theme park, they say, a Flemish Disneyland. Antwerp is livelier, Ghent is more authentic. A lot of its historic buildings are actually clever fakes. All of this is true, but that doesn’t stop it being one of Europe’s most beautiful cities
Gaily into Ruislip Gardens runs the red electric train… Near the end of the Metropolitan Line, where London dwindles into woods and meadows, stands a Tudor manor house, built within the moat of a motte-and-bailey castle. Now a quaint museum, charting the history of the farms that once surrounded it, this modest landmark shares its
In the Musée du Cinquantenaire, a grand gallery on the green edge of Brussels, those bureaucratic Belgians are welcoming home a prodigal son. Henry van de Velde — Passion, Function, Beauty is a celebration of the 150th birthday of Belgium’s most prolific polymath, yet a lot of people here in Brussels scarcely seem to know
I am standing on the deserted shop floor of a Victorian mill in Wakefield, with the industrial history of Yorkshire spread out before me like a map. Down below, the River Calder, once so busy, is now a leisurely, peaceful place. Children play beside the water. There are fishermen on the banks. It’s a lot
Why are clever-clever people so rude about Birmingham? Bruce Chatwin dismissed his hometown as absolutely hideous, Kenneth Tynan called his birthplace a cemetery without walls. Britain’s second city has always been belittled, not least by those who’ve left it, and now the old slights have been revived in the current debate about HS2. Never mind
What is it about the Lake District? The weather is often filthy, the locals are famously surly (‘sup up and sod off’ reads the sign above the bar) and its lakes are dwarfed by the great waterways of the Alps. And yet I’ve been walking here more times than I can count. From childhood camping
On the outskirts of La Chaux-de-Fonds, an industrial town in the Swiss Jura, stands one of the most beautiful houses I’ve seen. Elegant and understated, La Maison Blanche is the kind of house you dream of living in. Wide windows overlook a wooded valley. The rooms are bathed in silver light. The ambience is serene
I’m standing in a palatial flat in one of the most beautiful squares in Brighton, in a huge whitewashed room flooded with natural light. The lucky man who lives here, Ted Davis, is showing me around. His home isn’t usually open to the public, but this month anyone can wander in. Ted is a photographer
It takes a special sort of talent to turn a good act into a great one, and without John Ammonds, who died last month, aged 88, it’s quite possible that today’s couch potatoes never would have heard of Morecambe & Wise. As their BBC producer, he transformed them from jobbing comics into a national institution.
‘When Matisse dies,’ declared Picasso, ‘Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what colour really is.’ Wandering around this splendid show you can see exactly what he meant. Chagall never used colour for cheap effect, but to convey meaning and emotion. The effect of seeing so many of his works together is almost
