Gavin Stamp is an architectural historian and Apollo columnist

John Loughborough Pearson

The criminal genius of J.L. Pearson

How could such a gifted architect also be responsible for such appalling ‘restoration’ jobs?

16 Nov 2017
The monumental cemetery of Staglieno, Genoa, from a postcard produced in or around the 1920s

In praise of monumental cemeteries

The vast cemeteries built in 19th-century Italy can still tell us much about civic pride

22 Sep 2017

Big Ben is the least of the Palace of Westminster’s problems

The greatest Gothic Revival building in the world is facing catastrophe unless MPs clear out

22 Aug 2017
The salon of the apartment that Viktor Kovačić created for himself in Zagreb in 1906

The architects who designed their own homes

The houses that architects designed for themselves can tell us much about their attitudes to their work

13 Jul 2017
Sandycombe Lodge, Twickenham, Villa of J.M.W. Turner, Esq., R.A. (detail; 1829), engraving by W.B. Cooke for Thames Scenery after a drawing (c. 1814) by William Havell. Turner's House Trust

Restoring Turner’s vision for Sandycombe Lodge

Sandycombe Lodge, built by J.M.W. Turner in 1812, offers an intriguing glimpse of the painter’s potential as an architect

12 Jul 2017
Durham Cathedral. Photo: Fox Photos/Stringer/Getty Images

Don’t expect England’s great cathedrals to look after themselves

The ancient cathedrals of England need financial help to stave off ruin

21 Jun 2017
Kolumba, Cologne, designed by Peter Zumthor and opened in 2007

The museum building that expresses the tragedy of Cologne

Peter Zumthor’s Kolumba is a poignant monument for a city devastated by wartime bombing

13 Jun 2017

Boris, you owe us £37 million

The Garden Bridge Trust should be pursued for the public money it has wasted

29 Apr 2017
No. 1 Poultry, London, designed by James Stirling Michael Wilford Associates and completed in 1998.

The Battle of No. 1 Poultry

No. 1 Poultry is now Britain’s youngest listed building, but it was once the site of a remarkable struggle between the developer and conservationists

24 Apr 2017
Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images

How the Versailles of Yorkshire has been saved

The future of Wentworth Woodhouse, a preposterous yet beautiful country house near Sheffield, has been secured after decades of uncertainty

31 Mar 2017
The Egpytian Halls, Glasgow, designed by Alexander Thomson and photographed by Thomas Annan in 1874, the year the building opened

Glasgow must not forget its greatest architect

In his bicentenary year, the Scottish architect Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson should be getting more attention

27 Mar 2017
Holy Trinity Church, Kingston upon Hull in 2015. Photo: Andrew Paterson/Alamy Stock Photo

‘Hull can boast buildings of national significance’

The UK’s City of Culture is home to a selection of great public buildings – from a late gothic masterpiece, to a state of the art ‘subquarium’

27 Feb 2017
Vaux-le-Vicomte, designed for Nicolas Fouquet by the architect Louis Le Vau and the garden designer André Le Nôtre in the mid 17th century.

‘A Baroque tamed to suit a northern taste’

The chateau of Vaux-le-Vicomte is rare among historic houses in France – for both the quality of its conservation and as a privately run property

30 Jan 2017
The Meštrovic family mausoleum in the Dalmatian village of Otavice, built by the architect in 1926–31. Photo: Roger Bowdle

‘It seems extraordinary that this great artist is so little known’

Gertrude Stein hailed him as the ‘new Michelangelo’ and he was consulted by statemen about Balkan politics, but Meštrović’s name has fallen into obscurity

16 Jan 2017

The crafty imperialist

John Lockwood Kipling (father of the more famous Rudyard) was an important champion of traditional Indian arts and crafts

7 Jan 2017

How life goes on in a ruined Roman palace

The ruins of Diocletian’s Palace in Split are still inhabited – and they don’t look that different from how they did to Robert Adam in the 1750s

22 Dec 2016
Ceiling of the Chapel of St George and the English Martyrs, Westminster Cathedral, designed by Tom Phillips and dedicated in 2016.

Westminster Cathedral’s ceilings like the sky

The influence of glittering Byzantine churches can be found in the impressive mosaics of Westminster Cathedral – including a new work by Tom Phillips

19 Dec 2016

‘Post-Fire London was a magnificent, beautiful compromise’

London was rebuilt according to its inhabitants’ needs after the Great Fire of 1666 – and is so much the better for it.

31 Oct 2016

‘Another manifestation of the barbarism that has overwhelmed this country’

Walsall’s New Art Gallery is one of the best buildings to come out of the UK’s Millennium celebrations. Can it survive the devastating budget cuts it faces?

27 Oct 2016

What do architects look like?

Most architects look unremarkable – and this has always been the case

26 Sep 2016

‘There is no other site like this in Europe’

The ideal community of Le Familistère was the result of one man’s unique vision. The vision failed, but its extraordinary architecture survives

15 Sep 2016
St Mary-at-Hill photographed on 12 May 1988, two days after a fire had destroyed most of the roof. Apollo magazine.

The unhappy fate of Christopher Wren’s city churches

They rose out of the ashes of the Great Fire of London and transformed the city, but several of Wren’s city churches have met with disaster themselves

2 Sep 2016
Agra, The Taj Mahal from the corner of the quadrangle

One of the world’s oldest photography studios is closing down

The Bourne & Shepherd studio in Kolkata has a long history, but fire and the advent of the digital age have closed it down. Thankfully, its legacy lives on

26 Jul 2016

Move over Merrie England… Shakespeare and architecture

Taking Shakespearean architecture seriously means looking beyond ‘Olden Time’ Tudor revival buildings

20 Jul 2016