ANDY HEDGECOCK relishes two exhibitions that blur the boundaries between art and community engagement
London’s blighted skyline
Despite its anti-socialist bias, JOHN GREEN recommends a new survey of British architecture that seeks to educate and provoke
The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews I Am Martin Parr, September Says, The Monkey, and The Gorge
RITA DI SANTO applauds a touching and witty opener that touches a hot topic in Germany: the future of the immigrant population
SIMON PARSONS is discomfited by an unflichingly negative portrait of motherhood and its trials
PAUL FOLEY recommends an extraordinary double bill that packs a punch and leaves you reeling
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a play about AI that results in a deadening disconnect for its audience
SIMON PARSONS applauds an insightful state-of-the-nation play that explores the growing class divide in South Africa
A Short History of British Architecture - from Stonehenge to the Shard
Simon Jenkins, Penguin Viking, £26.99
SIMON JENKINS is one of our last remaining journalists of the old school – he writes with passion as well as compassion, perceptively and rationally, in a style that combines articulateness, erudition and accessibility.
Jenkins has been deputy chair of English Heritage and today is chair of the National Trust. Although he is a conservative with a small “c” and despises many of those with a capital “C”, his commentaries are always provocative and apposite. This, his latest book, will enlighten and entertain, as it will undoubtedly annoy some of our more extremist architectural iconoclasts.
More from this author
JOHN GREEN is dissatisfied with a book that fails to address the promotion of ignorance as a ruling-class strategy to maintain control
JOHN GREEN takes issue with a mainstream novel designed to denigrate the GDR
JOHN GREEN advises caution when reading a highly informative account of the way thousands of top Nazis escaped justice and found employment in the West
Driven on by novel forms of hard-right populism like Modi and Trump, European neofascists are skillfully rebranding themselves and taking power by copying the left's language — just as they did in the last century, writes JOHN GREEN
Similar stories
While applauding the emphasis on re-use, ROBERT GROVER examines the elitist bias of the prize towards south-east England
SIAN LEWIS recommends a unique book of photography that invites greater appreciation of our urban and industrial landscapes
SIMON DUFF walks us through a fascinating display that is bold, optimistic and spiritual
MICHAL BONCZA recommends a photographic sojourn around London housing estates that defined post WWII British civic architecture