articles
The art of chemistry
from the Independent, 5 July 2006
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 Imagine a whiff of Chanel No. 4. Nobody knows now what it was like. But a few things seem certain. Like its more famous successor, it would have contained substances evoking flowers and fruit, yet it was synthesised in a laboratory, not extracted directly from nature. For chemistry, people are slowly realising, has its aesthetic side. Creative personalities from artists to chefs are using chemistry to raise their work to new heights. read moredotted
The fame game
from Blueprint, May 2006
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Who won the Perrier-Jouët Selfridges Design Prize this year? Don’t know? Well, nobody did. Because the prize, inaugurated, ooh way back in 2001, no longer exists. Even the Selfridges press office had never heard of it. Sic transit gloria mundi. And so, despite other initiatives, British design still lacks its equivalent of the Booker and Turner prizes. It’s not for want of trying. read more dotted
Outlook bleak for scum of the earth
an interview with James Lovelock in the Times Higher Education Supplement,
3 February 2006
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The Revenge of Gaia is James Lovelock’s latest and by far the most unsparing—and gloomy—book. Originally, Lovelock believed that Gaia’s self-regulation would adapt the earth painlessly to humankind’s contamination of it. Indeed, other scientists felt he was merely offering industry, in the words of one of them, ‘an elaborate excuse to pollute’. But now Lovelock adjudges that our bad habits have pushed Gaia too far. read moredotted
The categorical denial of Simon Patterson
from Graphics International (UK), July 2003
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If it’s often the designer’s job to communicate a sense of an ordered world, then it’s surely the artist’s job to disrupt that order and expose its limitations. Roy Lichtenstein and Richard Hamilton toyed with comic books and familiar brand symbols, giving these mass-produced images the painter’s touch. For Simon Patterson—whose very email address is an anagram of his name—it is the message that is altered while the medium remains intact. One of his most ambitious works, and certainly his best loved, is The Great Bear, a comprehensive reworking of Harry Beck’s famous map of the London Underground. read moredotted
Patriot games
from Graphis (US), March-April 2003
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The celebrated Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas has responded to a commission from the European Union by creating a new European flag. Inadvertently, perhaps, it signals the reversal of the European project. The design takes the stripes of the 15 EU nations’ flags in all their various colours and widths, and jams them together in one eye-aching technicolor barcode. In the shorthand familiar to European citizens, it is clearly the banner of a “Europe of nation-states”, not a “united states of Europe.” read moredotted
How Zaha Hadid found acceptance
from International Design (US), June 2002
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People have no problem acknowledging the talent of the Baghdad-born, London-based architect Zaha Hadid, who shot to prominence in 1982 when she won an architectural competition for the Peak, a clubhouse spectacularly perched on the summit of Hong Kong’s main island. Their problem seems to be knowing what to do with it. read moredotted
Buckminster Fuller’s vision realized
from International Design (US), November 2001
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“Eden 1 mile”, said the road sign, and you could almost believe it, but for the traffic. The sign advertises the presence of the world’s largest plant-house, built using the lightest and most environmentally sustainable technology, and known properly as the Eden Project. Located in a disused clay pit in the scarred yet still beautiful landscape of coastal Cornwall, “Eden” is a victim of its own astonishing success. read moredotted
Part Garrison Keillor, part cyberbabe: an interview with Laurie Anderson
from Graphis (US), September-October 2000
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Laurie Anderson achieved celebrity rare for a performance artist in 1981 with the unlikely hit, O Superman. The eight-minute single chronicled life with her telephone-answering machine. The song was a fragment of a four-part work spread over two evenings, United States, a kind of multimedia version of Wagner's Ring Cycle, dealing not with love, money and redemption, but more modern American themes: democracy, (in)security, technology. read moredotted
Why corporate identity doesn’t matter any more
from the Royal Society of Arts Journal, Fourth quarter 2000
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Among the heroic types of the latter half of the last century—the computer whizzkid, the stock trader, the media mogul—should also be counted the corporate identity consultant. These were men who could distill the essence of a great corporation into a single memorable symbol. But suddenly, their day is done. Corporate identity simply doesn't matter any more. Why? Here are ten reasons ... read moredotted
Why Britain should let more foreign architects build
from the Independent on Sunday (UK), 13 August 2000
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During the construction of Lord Foster’s wobbly millennium bridge there was a moment that spoke volumes for British attitudes to the foreign. Foster received Jacques Herzog, the Swiss architect of the Tate Modern, in his office in order to resolve the way his bridge would touch down in the landscaped grounds of the new gallery. Foster spoke clearly, explained patiently, listened little, never doubting he was in the right and in possession of the absolute authority of a colonial governor. read moredotted
New embassies in Berlin reveal nationalism in all its stripes
from the Independent on Sunday (UK), 23 July 2000
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Christopher Wren reckoned public architecture the ornament of a country. By that token, a country’s embassies abroad must surely be the architectural equivalent of those almost useless but somehow typical offerings we take with us to give to foreign hosts. For we British it might be gift packs of tea and marmalade or a bottle of Scotch whisky, or, if we are more frivolous, a plastic policeman’s helmet or Union Jack knickers. read moredotted
An interview with Ron Arad is always a mildly unnerving affair
from the New Statesman, 19 June 2000
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Twenty years ago, Ron Arad foresaw the demise of Rover. His prediction took the form of a chair which cannibalised the leather seat from a two-litre Rover and mounted it, with deliberate brutality, on a hulking half-moon steel frame. The Rover chair was briefly known to millions because it featured in one of those terribly style-conscious 1980s advertisements. read moredotted
The trouble with technology
from the New Statesman, 3 April 2000
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I smashed my telephone last week. I used the handset as a hammer and beat it into pieces. A luddite fit, a blow for freedom, incipient madness? I don’t know. The telephone was just the whipping boy. It was the computer that had annoyed me, but I dared not attack that. I am hardly a worst-case customer for technological equipment. I’m numerate, degreed in science subjects, design-aware, calm and rational, as you can tell. I should be their friend. I’m not. read moredotted
Tyrannies of technology and tradition: an interview with Peter Greenaway
from Graphis (US), March-April 2000
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Peter Greenaway is an exception among film-makers. His work provokes critics into revealing their cosy preference for all films to be essentially the same: they want dramatic stories told in banal dialogue between famous actors playing clear roles. Everything else becomes secondary to an idea of protagonists upon a stage that has not changed from the classical theatre. Greenaway sees different potentials in film, which he feels has been neglected as what it so obviously is—a visual medium. read moredotted
Psychologists and geneticists disagree on the origins of musical talent
from the Independent on Sunday (UK), 10 January 1999
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There were some 60 members of the Bach family over seven generations in the 17th and 18th centuries. More than 50 of them were professional musicians of one kind or another. Does this suggest that musical talent is in the genes? Or did it simply become the habit in these households echoing with harpsichords that each young Bach would acquire the skill? read moredotted
How not to become a Unabomber: an interview with Terry Gilliam
from Graphis (US), July-August 1998
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All Gilliam’s films are about liberty. The recurrent themes of make-believe kingdoms and time travel are merely devices for exploring this concept. The incursions upon our liberty may be technological, bureaucratic, parental, governmental—or technological, because another Gilliam motif is the way technology diminishes human contact and the power the imagination. read more