Astragal
The AJ's insider gossip columnAstragal
BBC picks 1960s high-rise for Olympics news broadcasts
BBC News will deliver its Olympic Games coverage from the roof and the top floors of a condemned Newham council estate
Brazilians plan to resurrect Christ in London
An enormous 9m-tall statue of Jesus – similar to Rio De Janeiro’s famous Christ The Redeemer statue – is planned for Primrose Hill in London
The Invisible man
It’s heartening to hear of high-profile exits motivated more by yearning for a lightness of soul than alarm at the sound of a sinking ship. In a move not beaten since Will Alsop threw it all in to concentrate on his painting, Piers Taylor announced his departure from Mitchell Taylor Workshop with a heartfelt missive about sticking it to the man
De Botton's Livid Architecture
He may seem gentle (big, sad eyes) and kind (the numerous trendy holiday homes he pays trendy architects to design for his Living Architecture programme) …
Reaping the rewards
The life of an RIBA president is not an easy one: long hours tending to presidential business, less time to give to your practice’s projects, the rubbish lift at Portland Place…
Long way round
What was it that former AJ editor Kieran Long once wrote of the 2008 Venice Biennale? ‘Like nerds talking about sex.’
The Diary of an Anonymous Architect #7
The seventh in a new series about the day-to-day travails of an embattled practitioner. This week: Fees
Peter Murray blasts ‘Olympocratic nonsense’
NLA chair Peter Murray this week fired a salvo at Olympics bosses over their refusal to allow architects to advertise their role in the Games construction
Chippo vs UNESCO?
Was the remarkable colour change of David Chipperfield’s Elizabeth House redevelopment – from black to gold – engineered to reflect the Christmas spirit, or to charm UNESCO’s bigwigs on a recent capital visit?
Canterbury tales
Two months after its opening, Keith Williams Architects’ Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury is back in the news, but for the wrong reasons
More Astragal
Cor! busier
Charles Knevitt, lately of the RIBA Trust (RIP) and the man who brought the Le Corbusier exhibition to these shores in 2008 and 2009, has been seen sporting a pair of vintage Corbu spectacles this Yuletide
The Diary of an Anonymous Architect #5
The fifth in a new series about the day-to-day travails of an embattled practitioner. This week: Planning v Democracy
Canned Designs
In the wake of the Stirling Prize, it may be worth sparing a thought for the non-starchitects out there still struggling to achieve recognition
Corb your enthusiasm
Fans who celebrated Le Corbusier’s birthday on Thursday last week (6 October) may be saddened to learn old Corb came in for a bashing the very same day as part of a London School of Economics debate on architecture and happiness
Shapps’ red card
Grant Shapps’ call for Liverpool Football Club to speed up its future development plans pushed even Astragal’s taste for punnery to the limit
Royal Institute of Brewing Architects
Recession making you thirsty? Never fear, the Redundant Architects Recreation Society (RARA) has launched a new beer brewed solely by unemployed architects
