Architecture news

• An eco obscenity: Norman Foster’s steroidal new skyscraper is an affront to the New York skyline

  03-12-2025 09:00
  It contains enough steel to go round the world twice – and even has a fake breeze to flutter the stars-and-stripes flag in its lobby. If this $4bn colossus is just the first of a new breed of bulky supertalls, is Britain next?Among the slender needles and elegant spires of the Manhattan skyline, a mountainous lump has reared into view. It galumphs its way up above the others, climbing in bulky steps with the look of several towers strapped together, forming a dark, looming mass. From some
  
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• The Right Rev Thomas McMahon obituary

  07-12-2025 17:02
  Roman Catholic bishop noted for opposing nuclear arms and abortion, and for remodelling Brentwood Cathedral in EssexCatholicism does not fall quite so neatly into conservative and liberal factions as is sometimes supposed. Thomas McMahon, the former RC bishop of Brentwood, who has died aged 89, was a case in point.So traditional in his liturgical tastes that he spent millions commissioning the architect Quinlan Terry to give his undistinguished cathedral in Essex a neoclassical makeover, McMahon
  
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• Bold shapes and binoculars: Frank Gehry’s stunning California architecture

  06-12-2025 20:00
  From his home town of Los Angeles, the architect designed a career around defying what was predictableIn Frank Gehry’s world, no building was left untilted, unexposed or untouched by unconventional material. The Canadian-American architect, who died in his Los Angeles home at 96, designed a career around defying what was predictable and pulling in materials that were uncommon and, as such, relatively inexpensive.Gehry collaborated with artists to turn giant binoculars into an entryway of a
  
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• Frank Gehry: maximalist master who created instant icons like the Bilbao Guggenheim

  06-12-2025 15:01
  He made buildings that looked like slouching drunks and quarrelling couples but it was the Spanish museum that secured his ‘starchitect’ status – a creation that became something of a curseFrank Gehry once had a cameo in The Simpsons in which he designed buildings by scrunching up pieces of paper. There was a bit more to it than that, but from Prague to Panama City, his scrunched contours were instantly recognisable, expressed in an exuberant parade of buildings that cranked an
  
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• Six greats reads: a train ride to the future; searching for the ‘sky boys’ and wallaby hunting in the English countryside

  06-12-2025 07:00
  Need something brilliant to read this weekend? Here are six of our favourite pieces from the last seven days Continue reading...
  
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• Frank Gehry obituary

  06-12-2025 01:13
  Canadian–American architect who explored crumpling and fish curves in such buildings as the Guggenheim Museum in BilbaoFrank Gehry, who has died aged 96 after a respiratory illness, influenced the course of world architecture at least twice. First, in the 1970s, with his informal ad hoc aesthetic, he showed how such material as chain-link fencing could be turned into an expressive art form. Secondly, in the 1990s, he showed how the computer could be used to help realise extraordinarily com
  
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• From Bilbao to Las Vegas: Frank Gehry’s incredible architecture – in pictures

  05-12-2025 21:47
  The award-winning designer and architect leaves behind unique buildings all across the world from Dundee to Düsseldorf. He died after a brief respiratory illness at the age of 96Frank Gehry, legendary Canadian-American architect, dies aged 96 Continue reading...
  
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• Frank Gehry, legendary Canadian-American architect, dies aged 96

  05-12-2025 21:38
  The architect, whose work included the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA, died after a brief illnessFrom Bilbao to Las Vegas: Frank Gehry’s incredible architecture – in picturesFrank Gehry, one of the most influential and distinctive talents in American architecture, died on Friday at his home in Los Angeles following a brief respiratory illness, his chief of staff confirmed. He was 96.Gehry, the most recognizable American architect since Frank Lloyd
  
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• Gillian Hopwood obituary

  05-12-2025 17:42
  Architect who with her husband, John Godwin, designed more than 1,000 modernist buildings in post-independence NigeriaThe architect Gillian Hopwood, who has died aged 98, only recently found recognition in her home country, England, after a career spent since 1954 in Nigeria. As Godwin and Hopwood, she and her husband, John Godwin, worked together as equals in a partnership that long outlasted the larger London-based practices that briefly flourished there in the years leading up to independence
  
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• ‘They rose out of the ground!’: Scotland’s brutalist beauties – in pictures

  04-12-2025 08:00
  The imposing concrete buildings that defined British postwar architecture held a vision of the future – but many fell into disrepair. A new book finds the finest examples Continue reading...
  
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• Country Diary: A lonely chapel that whispers and roars | Sara Hudston

  04-12-2025 06:30
  Abbotsbury, Dorset: Long ago this was the place to come and wish for a husband. It is empty today, but still so full of presenceTwo ascending buzzards dazzle against the sun as I climb to St Catherine’s Chapel alone on its hill above the sea. It is the saint’s own feast day (25 November), when women once came to recite a charm for getting married. The traditional wording was blunt: “A husband, St Catherine, a handsome one, St Catherine, a rich one, St Catherine,
  
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• ‘It would take 11 seconds to hit the ground’: the roughneck daredevils who built the Empire State Building

  01-12-2025 15:00
  They wrestled steel beams, hung off giant hooks and tossed red hot rivets – all while ‘strolling on the thin edge of nothingness’. Now the 3,000 unsung heroes who raised the famous skyscraper are finally being celebratedPoised on a steel cable a quarter of a mile above Manhattan, a weather-beaten man in work dungarees reaches up to tighten a bolt. Below, though you hardly dare to look down, lies the Hudson River, the sprawling cityscape of New York and the US itself, rolling ou
  
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• Older couples need a living room of one’s own | Brief letters

  30-11-2025 19:10
  Separate rooms | Downsizing homes | Nigel Farage | Hong Kong fires |Idle Working Men’s ClubIt’s not just renters who need a living room (The death of the living room: ‘It’s hard to invite people over – not everyone wants to sit on a bed’, 26 November). What about a couple of senior citizens, home most of the time, who do not wish to spend every waking hour in the same room? In our local area there appear to be no flats for sale with a kitchen/diner and se
  
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• Our beautiful multiplex: Milton Keynes council fights to save landmark cinema The Point

  30-11-2025 13:00
  The building was once home to the UK’s first US-style multiplex. Now developers are seeking to demolish it for a new housing schemeForty years ago this month, British cinema-going changed for ever with the opening of The Point in Milton Keynes, the UK’s first US-style multiplex. Looming over Midsummer Boulevard, the Point’s mirrored glass ziggurat and red pyramidal frame audaciously synthesised Maya and Egyptian motifs in a futuristic, hi-tech temple of pleasure. As well as 10
  
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• Robert AM Stern, architect dubbed ‘King of Central Park West’, dies aged 86

  27-11-2025 21:35
  Stern, credited with designing 15 Central Park West, sought to design buildings that invoked pre-war splendorRobert AM Stern, an architect who fashioned the New York City skyline with buildings that sought to invoke pre-war splendor but with modern luxury fit for billionaires and movie stars, has died at the age of 86.Dubbed “The King of Central Park West” by Vanity Fair, Stern was credited with designing 15 Central Park West that, in 2008, was credited as being the highest-priced ne
  
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• Courtauld to embark on £82m campus project at Somerset House in London

  27-11-2025 12:00
  ‘Once-in-a-generation transformation’ of Grade-I building will bring teaching spaces under same roof as galleryThe Courtauld has unveiled an £82m campus redevelopment it is calling a “once-in-a-generation transformation” of its Grade-I listed building, Somerset House, in London.The Stirling prize-winning architects Witherford Watson Mann will take charge of the four-year project at the teaching and research centre and public gallery, which follows their 2021 revamp
  
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• Two Australian homes win top places in international 2025 Dezeen awards

  27-11-2025 03:10
  A Dracula-inspired bathroom in Sydney and an outside-inside home in Melbourne claim interior design and architecture prizesGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailPoint Piper in Sydney’s eastern suburbs is home to one of the best bathrooms in the world, according to the annual Dezeen awards, a global design accolade.Its dark, moody and luxurious interiors were partly inspired by Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Continue reading...
  
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• The death of the living room: ‘It’s hard to invite people over – not everyone wants to sit on a bed’

  26-11-2025 11:00
  The number of rental properties without a lounge is surging, and people are having to eat and socialise in kitchens, bedrooms and stairwells. How can you relax and build community without a communal area?‘Without a living room, your world becomes quite small,” says Georgie, a 27-year-old climbing and outdoor instructor. When she moved into a house-share with four strangers in 2023, she wasn’t worried about the lack of a living room. “I kind of thought it would be fine &nd
  
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• From Byzantine cottages to vulvic stadiums: the brilliance of female architects

  25-11-2025 12:41
  A RIBA report says “stark displays of sexism” are driving women from the profession. If we don’t fight this systemic misogyny, we won’t just lose dazzling designs – we’ll have a world only fit for 6ft tall policemenIf one were to think “Brazilian 20th-century modernist genius”, one might alight on Oscar Niemeyer, but see also the Italian émigré Lina Bo Bardi, who developed an Italian-style modernism with a Brazilian accent in her adop
  
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• ‘An idealized version of LA’: fabled mid-century Stahl house on sale for first time

  25-11-2025 01:39
  Home perched in Hollywood Hills, constructed for $37,500 and made famous by Julius Shulman photo, listed for $25mThe Stahl house – a paragon of Los Angeles mid-century modern architectural design – is for sale for the first time in the home’s history.The cantilevered home, perched in the Hollywood Hills, hit the listings market this week. The asking price: $25m. Continue reading...
  
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• ‘Beautiful to look at and wonderful to live in’: new pattern designs could be next art deco or red brick classics

  24-11-2025 04:07
  Competition-winning apartment building plans should be approved twice as quickly by NSW councils, and will be three to six storeys highFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastAiry Scandinavian interiors, shaded balconies, light-filled courtyards – could these be Sydney’s next art deco apartment blocks or red brick walk-ups?The New South Wales government has launched nine new mid-rise apartment building pattern b
  
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• Elegance, grandeur and charm: winners of the 2025 New Zealand architecture awards – in pictures

  21-11-2025 01:04
  Spread across 11 categories, winners include church conversions, bridges and homes set against New Zealand’s wild landscapesContinue reading...
  
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• ‘A tapestry of stone’: the first Ismaili Centre in the US rises in the heart of Texas

  20-11-2025 12:46
  Architect Farshid Moussavi is behind a tranquil and timeless new building where Houston’s 40,000-strong Ismaili Muslim community can come together. But how has she created something that looks so delicate out of stone?On a hot autumn day in southern Texas, monarch butterflies flit around the gardens of Houston’s new Ismaili Centre. Fragile and gaudy, they are on their way south to overwinter in Mexico, travelling up to 3,000 miles in a typical migration cycle, an epic feat of insecti
  
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• ‘It’s about quality of life’: Can Birmingham’s Retrofit House help fix the UK’s terrible housing?

  17-11-2025 12:28
  From flood protection and encouraging wildlife to fixing doors and reducing fuel bills, a new initiative aims to empower residents and make their homes more comfortableLink Road is home to an unassuming row of Victorian terrace houses in Edgbaston, but inside one of these two up, two downs, a domestic revolution is happening.At No 33 Link Road, a property bought by community group Civic Square and named Retrofit House, it’s open week. Events include a series of talks, classes and performan
  
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• ‘Harlem has always been evolving’: inside the Studio Museum’s $160m new home

  11-11-2025 11:03
  The iconic museum, which was founded in 1968, has been rehoused in 82,000-sq-ft building providing a new destination for Black art in New York CityCall it the second Harlem renaissance. On Manhattan’s 125th Street, where a statue of Adam Clayton Powell Jr strides onwards and upwards, and a sign marks the spot where a freed Nelson Mandela dropped by, there is bustle and buzz.The celebrated Apollo Theater is in the midst of a major renovation. The National Black Theatre is preparing to move
  
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• Living with the water: the Netherlands’ floating futures – photo essay

  10-11-2025 08:00
  Photographer Alessandro Gandolfi’s project looks at how sustainable floating neighbourhoods in the Netherlands offer a way forward as the sea rises, by embracing the philosophy of meebewegen: learning to live with the water“A pitiful land, flooded twice a day,” was the verdict of the Roman savant, Pliny the Elder, of a region where “wretched peoples living in huts” must battle perpetually to resolve the question of “whether this region belongs to the land or t
  
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• Metro stations, country homes and a picnic shelter: Australia’s 2025 National Architecture award winners – in pictures

  06-11-2025 12:00
  More than 40 projects were recognised in the national awards, identifying contemporary designs that offer solutions to critical national issues, including housing shortages, affordability and the climate crisisGet our weekend culture and lifestyle email Continue reading...
  
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• Garden shed of vaccine pioneer Edward Jenner added to heritage at risk register

  06-11-2025 07:00
  Hut where father of immunology trialled first smallpox vaccine among 138 additions to Historic England listA rustic, ordinary-looking English garden hut regarded as the birthplace of immunology – revolutionising global public health and saving countless lives – has been added to the nation’s heritage at risk register.The hut belonged to Edward Jenner (1749-1823), regarded as someone who has saved more lives than any other human. It was there that he first trialled a vaccine for
  
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• Tiny beautiful things: architectural exhibition showcases the enduring role of scale models

  31-10-2025 15:00
  Tangible 3D models of global landmarks are used for ‘understanding how a building will look and feel’ – and offer global city skylines on a tabletopGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastIn architecture, the biggest civic visions are born in the smallest form. Sometimes, the most powerful ideas can fit neatly on a table.The scale model is a crucial step in the journey from concept design to skyline. Anexhibition opening in Sydney on Sunday pays tribute to th
  
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• Four feet higher and rising: Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia becomes world’s tallest church

  30-10-2025 19:06
  Antoni Gaudí’s masterwork is still under construction but now stands taller than Ulm Minster in southern GermanyBarcelona’s Sagrada Familia basilica became the world’s tallest church on Thursday after a part of its central tower was lifted into place.The masterwork of the architect Antoni Gaudí now rises to 162.91 metres (534ft 8in) above the city, the church said in a statement. That beats the spire of Ulm Minster in Germany, which tops out at 161.53 metres. Cont
  
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