For centuries the city has been a source of inspiration for artists. But while its sensory stimulation might fuel the creative soul, its neon highs are sobered by rising rents and lack of affordable studio spaces.

Thankfully artist-in-residence programmes are here to help. Laid on by galleries, cultural foundations, hotels and schools, they offer spaces where creatives can live and work for free in some of the world’s most exhilarating and expensive cities.

From starchitects’ crash-pads to five-star hotels, we’ve rounded up eight of the most enviable urban residency spaces for artists and architects. Our suggestion: pack light. These are some generous hosts, offering everything from free buffets to Frank Lloyd Wright furniture in which to recline.

MAK-Schindler Residency, Los Angeles, California

Duration: Six months
West-coast wanderers can slip into a California state of mind while roosting in the Rudolph Schindler-designed Mackey Apartments. Every year, the MAK-Schindler residency invites two artists and two architects to explore the intersection of culture and the built environment of Los Angeles. MAK steps in with a healthy monthly stipend and the LA connections to realise resident projects, which are made public through a final exhibition.

Richard Rogers Fellowship at Wimbledon House, London, UK

Residency duration: Three months
This research-based residency programme was launched in October 2016 by the Harvard Graduate School of Design team. Taking inspiration from its namesake, Lord Rogers, the Fellowship does not distinguish between disciplines; any accomplished professional or scholar whose work addresses the built environment is encouraged to apply. Six fellows will be selected each year for a 12 week residency in Rogers’ famed Wimbledon House — which he built for his parents in the 1960s. Next year will also see the Modernist building filled with lectures, exhibitions, and parties.

Droga Architect in Residence, Sydney, Australia

Residency duration: up to six months
Residencies at this award-winning warehouse conversion completed by Durbach Block Jaggers in central Sydney are available to architects only. They stay for an intensive 12-week programme — organised by the Australian Institute of Architects — that incorporates a research-by-design project. The AIA facilitates residents’ connection to the art and culture pouring out of Australia’s capital by staging an exhibition and public events, while footing the tab for a return flight down south.

Taliesin Artist Residency Program, Scottsdale, USA

Residency duration: one month
TARP offers two iconic Frank Lloyd Wright buildings for four weeks, across three seasons. Artists can stay in the architect’s winter home and school in Scottsdale, Arizona, or his summer residence in Spring Green, Wisconsin.

Sitting just on the edge of the city, the Scottsdale base is connected to both urban life and the desert landscape. Opened in 1937 as a winter studio, Taliesin West continues today as a working architecture school founded by Frank Lloyd Wright himself. Spread out across the desert floor are a cluster of single-storey, organic structures, including art studios, student accommodation, a cabaret theatre, and a museum. Sweeping panoramas of the McDowell mountains can be contemplated from Wright’s sun-filled living room built from the rocks and sand of the Sonoran Desert, or while floating in the back garden’s elevated pool.

The Ace Hotel, New York and London

Residency duration: one Sunday night
For roaming creatives who are unable to buckle down for months at a time within a single zip code, the Ace hotel has concocted a one-night-only spin on the traditional artist-in-residence programme. Since 2014, the Manhattan and Shoreditch-based Aces have opened their doors each Sunday evening to artistic nomads who swap a space to lay their head for something brilliant to come from it. ‘We feel a change of pace and place are good for the creative process,’ says the Ace team.

In partnership with institutions such as The Museum of Art & Design, Tomorrow Lab and Printed Matter, Ace has welcomed dozens of artists to its residency programme: the brevity of which allows for an incredible variety and volume of creative output. ‘Constraints can be a great way to open up the thought process,’ the group adds. ‘We’re also very transparent. We try to give honorariums when we can, and are up front about how and when we’ll use media and documentation of artists’ works — but we let artists retain control over their copyright.’

The Wapping Project Berlin, Germany

Residency duration: Two months
Tucked away in an undisclosed altbau in leafy Kreuzberg is the first foray into a artist-in-residence programme from The Wapping Project, which moved to its current kiez following over two decades at London’s Wapping Hydraulic Power Station. It offers a space in which mid-career artists aged 33 or older can be actively unproductive. ‘The aim of The Wapping Projects Berlin‘s residency is to provide a period of rest, recreation and reflection for artists and practitioners,’ says curator Thomas Zanon-Larcher. Live-in residents must abide by just one rule: no work is to be made throughout the course of the eight-week hiatus. Instead the emphasis is placed on slow living and re-genesis of the creative process.

Swatch Art Peace Hotel, Shanghai, China

Residency duration: three to six months
Spanning two floors and 18 studios, the Swatch Art Peace Hotel artist-in-residence programme welcomes international artists into a space that blends art, cultural exchange, and commerce. For up to six months, artists are given access to their own live-work space designed by Parisian collective Jouin Manku. The residency comes with all the amenities of a five-star hotel, while leisure zones and free-use event spaces scattered across six floors let artists connect with guests from every corner of the world.

In exchange for their stay, residents are asked to leave behind a trace of their time at the Swatch: typically this comes in the form of a site-specific piece that takes up permanent space inside the hotel’s Wes Anderson-esque halls.

Words Alice Bucknell

Read next: 8 creative retreats for artists, writers and musicians

Originally published at thespaces.com on November 16, 2016.

7 artist-in-residence spaces where creatives can live and work for free was originally published in The Spaces on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Terence Conran managed a brief sentence at yesterday morning’s Design Museum opening press conference before his voice cracked with emotion: ‘It’s a happy day for us and I hope for you too’. The audience warmed to this raw response from the museum’s founder and benefactor, and there was a genuine sense of excitement as people filled the building for the first time.

A major new museum aspiring to be the best in the world and shift our perceptions of design is indeed a momentous ambition. Director Deyan Sudjic followed Conran, saying that he hoped the museum would ‘unite the design tribes but also speak to a wide audience, and make design a mainstream part of the conversation’.

Their target is 650,000 visitors a year and if the people do come, they will find plenty to see. The new Design Museum has two vast exhibition halls, a permanent display of 800 objects from the collection, a well-equipped education centre, members room, restaurant, shop and more.

This is very much a new model for a museum, with just 25% of the gallery space given to the permanent collection. Chief curator Justin McGuirk describes it as a ‘kunsthalle’ for temporary exhibitions rather than a conventional museum. And the feeling of a meeting place, where ideas and people are the attractions rather than objects, is reflected in the design of its interior.

John Pawson has focused on the central space, which is a place to sit, shop, promenade, and of course to look up and worship the Grade II*-listed former Commonwealth Institute’s spectacular paraboloid roof.

When Pawson won the competition to redesign the interior of the 1963 building — designed by RMJM — some key decisions had already been made by OMA, the firm who master-planned the site and made the shell ready for the Design Museum to take it over. For practical reasons it removed ancillary buildings that originally contained the institute’s administrative offices, and the original curved floors and staircases, which lacked the load-bearing capacity needed for a museum.

So Pawson started with what was effectively a box with an exotic roof structure. His approach was to maintain an open central volume, with the accommodation arranged on galleries wrapping around the edge, like ‘an opencast mine’ as he put it.

Evidently he has tried to tame the Commonwealth Institute’s eccentric architecture with logic and straight lines. All that can be glimpsed of its original playful curves and disorienting geometry is the concrete roof slab, which hangs above the atrium like a giant manta ray.

Much of the success of the museum as a meeting place will be proven in how the curators bring this circulation space to life. Pale oak and white paint very much dominate the experience right now, but if they are given permission to treat these surfaces as a tough framework for events and installations it could become a busy, intense environment. With acres of pristine white walls, the danger is that it will remain more like the polite restrained box you’d associate with a place of worship or retail.

Exhibition and graphic designer Morag Myerscough certainly breaks the silence, calling visitors up to the top floor with the use of a ‘triple sign’ billboard that rotates the title of the permanent collection, Designer Maker User. The display, which wasn’t quite finished when I visited, is a complex sequence of spaces that attempts to engage visitors on different levels. Some areas are clearly aimed at school parties, with large simplified text explaining the basics of design; while other displays allow the objects to speak for themselves.

A wall of 200 crowd-sourced objects reinforces the message that the ‘canon’ of design is out, in favour of a more fluid exploration of context and meaning. This is most vividly illustrated by the juxtaposition of an Eames leg splint alongside an AK47. ‘Killing and healing’ are presented as two aspects of the use of design. The significance of the leg splint as part of the Eames’ experimentation with bent plywood, which led to chairs and other products, is sadly irrelevant in this context.

‘The new Design Museum is “not just an architectural shift, it is a content shift”’

The argument is that visitors can always search online or in a library if they want to find out more, but still, the curatorial approach leaves me feeling uncomfortable in the way it leads the visitor to certain conclusions.

McGuirk points out that the new Design Museum is ‘not just an architectural shift, it is a content shift’. With the opening exhibition, Fear and Love — Reactions to a Complex World, the chief curator says he is trying to ‘challenge, to provoke and to set the tone for the museum’s new programme’.

Reportedly, he threw out Sudjic’s original idea of opening with a show on design manifestoes, in favour of Fear and Love, 11 installations by invited designers who responded to the state of the world. ‘This was the riskiest thing we could have done,’ says McGuirk, who began developing the show just a year ago.

The risk has paid off though, and the show is an intriguing romp through contemporary world issues by international names including OMA, Kenya Hara, Neri Oxman and Hussain Chalayan. Exhibition design by Sam Jacob and graphic designer OK-RM shows off the generosity of the main ground floor exhibition hall, avoiding fixed partitions in favour of a meandering 190m-long curtain of projection fabric.

But back to the opening speeches. After regaining his composure Conran went on to quietly but decisively declare that he feels the Design Museum’s moment has arrived: ‘Optimism. That’s what this place is about. Clean, fresh, full of surprise. We’ve grown up but not grown old.’

Conran’s ideas about design seem strangely at odds with the museum’s fashionable new focus on issues and meaning. Nonetheless, these tensions are part of the appeal of the museum, reflecting the multiple outlooks of the design world itself.

Originally published at thespaces.com on November 18, 2016.

Design Museum review: does its architecture match its ambitions? was originally published in The Spaces on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Lisbon is rapidly becoming known as the California of Europe. The similarities stretch further than just its west coast location and great surf: the city is also starting to compete with Silicon Valley in attracting startups and entrepreneurs.

Last month the Portuguese capital was included in WIRED’s list of hottest start-up destinations for the first time, an acknowledgement that the number of tech and creative companies based in the city is growing fast. Over the last five years, 40 Portugal-based startups have raised more than $166 million in funding.

While much of the impetus comes from local entrepreneurs, international investors are also making their homes in the city. Foreigners accounted for 90% of the €730 million invested in Portuguese real estate last year, nearly three times the amount for 2013.

Some enterprises are committing long term, others are digital nomads basing themselves in Lisbon for a few weeks or months. But all of them are looking for interesting spaces in which to work, and to cater for this growth, a number of new co-working spaces are popping in the city.

NOW, a 4,000 sq m shared workspace — set to be the largest in Lisbon — aims to open in November in the Beato area to the east of the city. The following month sees London based Second Home open its first international space in the city’s historic centre, Cais do Sodre. Another British coworking brand @Ministry of Startups is also considering a new space in Lisbon, choosing the Portuguese capital over destinations such as Tel Aviv and Berlin.

Even Lisbon’s city council is getting in on the act, releasing the former Manutenção Militar factory to serve as a creative hub. As well as acting as an incubator, it will host the administrative offices of @Web Summit, which promises to draw some 50,000 more entrepreneurs to the city this month when it holds its annual tech conference at the Feira Internacional de Lisboa.

‘Lisbon is the place to be now,’ says Peter Faber, co-founder of Surf Office, a coworking space where members can live on site. ‘A lot of interesting people are moving here and starting new projects; there are a lot of things happening.’

Coworklisboa-founder Fernando Mendes — and the man behind NOW — agrees with Faber. ‘This is the best country to be right now. Portuguese people love to receive new comers. Add in sun, beaches, safety, good food and you have the secret of our success.’

Mendes says that 30% of the companies that use Coworklisboa’s spaces are from abroad, up from just 5% in 2010. Reflecting that, NOW will also offer living spaces alongside its shared work areas.

‘NOW is much more than an incubator or co-working space. It’s being designed to accommodate new services to better support the huge wave of entrepreneurs we expect will be coming to the city in the next few years. We’ll have all the dimensions, to support everything from the nomadic freelancer to digital startup and designer makers,’ says Mendes.

5 Lisbon coworking spaces and tech hubs you should know

NOW

Now is the biggest proposed co-working space in Lisbon and is scheduled to open in November. Spanning 4,000 sq m, it will include living spaces alongside shared work areas and studio spaces. The project also has a community focus and will boost shared learning among members.

Second Home Lisboa

Second Home’s Lisbon outpost is slated to open in early December and will be located above Mercardo da Ribeira — a vibrant food court and market near the river. With interiors designed by award-winning Spanish architects Selgas Cano, creators of the brand’s original London space and the 2015 Serpentine Gallery Summer Pavilion, Second Home Lisboa will feature a bookshop, cafe and bar that hosts cultural events.

Surf Office

If you’re looking for a short term space to live, work and play, Surf Office could be the answer. Centrally located in Cais do Sodre, the city’s party zone, Surf Office has rooms to rent from €60 per night and the space comes with a shared workspace, super fast wifi, break-out rooms and a lounge. Companies from 2 to 20 people can hire the rooms by the night if they want to take a break from their usual location. Surf trips are optional!

Lisbon WorkHub

Situated in the east of Lisbon in Poco do Bispo — an area rapidly becoming the city’s Shoreditch — Lisbon WorkHub is based in one of the most striking buildings in the area: the former Abel Pereira da Fonseca wine warehouse. It features two vast 5-metre-tall circular windows overlooking a pretty tree-shaded square below. Desk spaces are available from €120 per month with events spaces, and private offices from €500 per month.

Todos

Also in Poco do Bispo, this 1,600 sq m creative hub focuses on multi-media, film and photography. It interviews all applicants for suitability. @Todos offers 40 sq m studio spaces for rent from €400/month, and also has a 17m x 9m photography studio, editing and post production suite, fitting rooms and meeting spaces.

Like this story? Recommend it to a friend, or leave us a comment below.

Originally published at thespaces.com on October 31, 2016.

Inside Lisbon’s booming coworking and tech scene was originally published in The Spaces on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Somerset House opened the doors to its new studios in central London last week, offering affordable workspace for up to 100 artists and designers in the heart of the city.

The arts hub has converted 36,000 sq ft of its New Wing — formerly the Inland Revenue offices — into @Somerset House Studios in a bid to quell the exodus of creatives from the capital.

‘We want to bring experimental messiness back into central London,’ says Somerset House Studios director Marie McPartlin. ‘Our rents are capped at the same price as an average art studio in 2014, when a Mayoral report predicted London would lose nearly a third of its artists’ studios within five years.’

Fashion designers Gareth Pugh, musician LoneLady, artist Christian Marclay and writer Juliet Jacques are among a trial group of creatives who have piloted Somerset House Studios over the past few months.

LoneLady — aka Julie Campbell — has turned the building’s naval rifle range into a recording studio. ‘She was inspired by the volume of concrete in the space,’ says Somerset House director Jonathan Reekie. ‘This was the space she fell in love with.’ Brian Eno, a supporter of the studios, has even donated a synthesiser to Campbell.

Twenty-five more artists will join them next year via an open application process which launched yesterday.

‘There are no boundaries in terms of art forms,’ says Reekie. ‘We are looking for people with interesting ideas, whose practice will thrive in this kind of community and who can contribute to Somerset House overall. Residents can stay up to 2.5 years.’

Desks cost as little as £100 per month, the same as a gym membership. In total, Somerset House — which is also home to Makerversity, a workspace for professional makers established in 2013 — will offer studios for 300 creatives.

Renovations have cost around £1.4m so far. ‘We could double the numbers of residents but we don’t yet have funding to renovate other parts of the building,’ says McPartlin. ‘Some parts don’t even have electricity at the moment.’

Extending the programme would help cement The Strand — also home to broadcasting hub, The Store Studios — as a major artery for London’s creative scene.

Artists at Somerset House Studios will have access to several bars — one designed in collaboration with Frank’s Café in Peckham — and a ‘snooker room’, formerly the games room of the Inland Revenue. They can use them for hosting events, including film screenings, club nights and parties, so long as these are open to all residents.

Creatives will feed into the Somerset House programme and connect to its audience. The studios are launching with an exhibition featuring residents’ work, including artist avatar ~LaTurbo Avedon~, who created a virtual nightclub, and fashion designer Gareth Pugh’s sculptural installation of The Tempest’s Sycorax, which marks the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.

‘At its heart, this is an artist development programme,’ says Reekie.

Read next: Inside Greenrooms — London’s first hotel for artists

Originally published at thespaces.com on October 27, 2016.

Somerset House Studios brings ‘experimental messiness’ back to central London was originally published in The Spaces on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Madrid has a shorter architectural history than many European capitals. Although it has been inhabited since prehistoric times and was a Moorish stronghold in the 9th century, it remained a provincial town until Philip II moved the royal court to the city in 1561, making it the de facto capital of Spain.

The city grew rapidly during the 17th century but its serious architecture credentials were really earned in the 1900s under Charles III, who was responsible for commissioning many of its finest historical buildings.

Madrid’s beauty emerges from this delayed and sometimes haphazard growth. Unlike in some cities — where an ancient heart is surrounded by rings of ever more contemporary buildings — to walk through the centre of Madrid is to walk through its history: decorative 18th century palaces sit alongside imposing 19th-century buildings, Art Deco skyscrapers, concrete Modernist blocks and 21st-century glass-and-steel interventions.

Architecture buffs will find plenty to admire in this passionate and vivacious city. Here are a handful of highlights.

Plaza Mayor

When Philip II moved his court to Madrid, he also began to develop the city. His approach can best be seen today in Plaza Mayor, designed by Juan de Herrera and Juan Gómez de Mora. This grand public space, with its grey slate spires and brick-red facades that are typical of the Castilian Baroque style, is also characterised by symmetry and austerity.

Royal Palace

Spain dominated Europe politically, culturally and militarily between the 16th and 18th centuries. The Royal Palace, designed in a French style to reflect the tastes of the Bourbon King Philip V and completed in 1755, illustrates this wealth and power. At 135,000 sq m it has 3,418 rooms and is the largest royal palace in Europe. Its interiors feature paintings by artists including Caravaggio and Velazquez, as well as notable collections of silver, porcelain and furniture.

Paseo del Prado

Originally a place for leisure on the outskirts of the city, this tree-lined avenue now sits in the city centre, surrounded by gardens and decorated with neoclassical statues. Conceived by King Charles III to hold Spain’s cultural and scientific institutions, it remains a cultural hub to this day, home to three of the country’s largest art museums including the Prado (pictured), designed by architect Juan de Villanueva in 1785.

Crystal Palace

Designed by architect Ricardo Velázquez Bosco and set within Buen Retiro, one of the city’s largest parks, the Crystal Palace is made almost entirely of glass, set in an iron framework on a brick base decorated with ceramics. It took less than five months to build and was completed in 1887. Originally designed as a greenhouse to display exotic plants, today it serves as an exhibition space.

Atocha Station

Architect Alberto de Palacio y Elissague collaborated with Gustave Eiffel to create the wrought iron, Renewal-style Atocha Station. The building as it stands today opened in 1892 and reflects the architectural innovations made possible by the industrial revolution, in particular the advance in materials such as iron, steel and glass. Inside, a mid-1990s renovation saw a disused concourse replaced by a 4,000sq m tropical garden.

Palacio de Cibeles

Built in 1909 by Antonio Palacios — originally as the headquarters of the country’s post office but now the Madrid City Hall — this statuesque building mixes regional Spanish influences with a Gothic-revival style. Interior renovations by Arquimatica in 2010 saw original features restored by hand, including lamps, furniture, marble floors, brass fittings and tiles. Open to the public, the building is one of the city’s key landmarks.

Telefónica Building

This tower, built in 1929 for the Spanish telecommunications company Telefónica, has a distinctly north-American feel to it. Designed by US architect Lewis S Weeks working with Ignacio de Cárdenas, the 88m high building was one of the first skyscrapers in Europe. During the Spanish Civil War it was used as an observation post by Republican forces and by foreign press including Ernest Hemingway.

Santa Ana church

In a strongly Catholic country like Spain, it would be remiss not to include a church on a list of the capital’s significant structures. This one, designed by Miguel Fisac in 1965, is far from typical though. Fisac was one of the boldest Spanish Modernist architects and experimented with concrete at Santa Ana, creating curved organic shapes and a cave-like feel. The ribbed concrete roof mirrors the placement of the pews, and natural light falls on the altar and gently illuminates the space.

Torres Blancas

Designed by Modernist architect Francisco Javier Sáenz de Oiza and completed in 1969, this residential tower is one of the most complicated and innovative concrete structures of its time. Cylindrical, rather than rectangular, the tower is organically inspired, with semi-circular balconies and a large circular roof, which houses a communal rooftop pool.

Gate of Europe

Among the most emblematic buildings in Madrid, the twin office towers known as Puerta de Europa were the world’s first inclined skyscrapers. Created by Philip Johnson and John Burgee, the inward leaning design emanates from a problem: in order to enable a subway interchange, the buildings needed to be set back from the street, which Johnson and Burgee saw as an opportunity to explore an unconventional design.

Madrid Barajas International Airport Terminal 4

If you arrive into Madrid’s International Terminal 4, your architecture tour starts when you get off the the plane. The terminal, by Richard Rogers and Antonio Lamela, was the 2006 Stirling prize winner and, even 10 years later, the space is soothing, light-filled and simple to navigate. It features an undulating roof, subtle changes in colour and large open voids that impart a sense of space.

Reina Sofía Museum extension

Clad in a glossy red, lacquered façade, the Jean Nouvel-designed extension at Madrid’s contemporary art gallery Reina Sofia was completed in 2005. This curvaceous and striking addition also manages to complement the original museum buildings — Nouvel is quoted as saying he wanted to create a structure that would sit ‘in the shadow’ of the original. The extension, which also includes a large café and a public square, invites public use.

Mirador Building

Completed in 2005 at the height of the Spanish real estate boom, Mirador by Dutch architects MVRDV stands out as a lasting architectural statement within the sea of otherwise uniform housing blocks that fill the new neighbourhoods on the outskirts of Madrid. Home to 156 apartments, it features a large lookout space, 40 metres above the ground, which has a communal garden and frames the distant Guadarrama Mountains.

Museo ABC

This former brewery, now a gallery, was refurbished by Aranguren & Gallegos in 2011. The six-storey building features an exterior wall of asymmetric glass and steel tiles, which also cover the courtyard, where they serve as skylights to the basement exhibition space. Its interior is clean and minimalist. Museo ABC showcases illustrations and cartoons encompassing more than 100 years of Spanish history from Spain’s oldest existing newspaper, ABC.

Madrid Rio

When the city of Madrid buried its motorways in a series of tunnels, the 6 km section that ran along the River Manzanares was reclaimed by Dutch landscape architects West 8, who worked with three Spanish groups — Burgos & Garrido, Porras La Casta, and Rubio & A-Sala. Today, the former road is a park that features seven distinct areas woven together into one large outdoor space of different moods. It’s a diverse and inspiring playground for the city, encompassing pine groves, bike paths, fountains, shaded seating, skate parks and a series of 20 bridges connecting the two banks of the river.

Read next: Lucas Y Hernández-Gil uncork a champagne-inspired restaurant in Madrid

Originally published at thespaces.com on August 2, 2016.

Making Madrid: 15 landmarks that define the city was originally published in The Spaces on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The loss of the original Pennsylvania Station in New York is among the greatest architectural tragedies of the 20th century. But spare a thought for its architect, Charles Follen McKim, who died in 1909 before he could see his Beaux Arts masterpiece completed.

Beyond Penn Station, the American — along with his practice McKim, Mead and White — left his mark on the urban fabric of the East Coast, particularly in New York, where he designed some of the country’s grandest Neo-classical buildings. Thankfully, many of them still exist.

Tomorrow would have been his 169th birthday and, to celebrate, we look at five of his most seminal projects.

Boston Public Library, McKim Building (1895)

Ever the populist, McKim described his Renaissance Revival design as a ‘palace for the people’. The library, including the majestic coffered ceilings of Bates Hall, was one of the earliest examples of Beaux Arts architecture in the US. A Modernist extension by architect Philip Johnson was added in 1972.

Columbia University campus (1896)

McKim was enlisted to design a new campus for Columbia University in New York’s Morningside Heights neighbourhood during the 1890s. At the heart of the site is the Low Library, a Neo-classical structure packed with references to the art and architecture of ancient Rome and Greece.

University Club of New York (1899)

During the 1890s, McKim nabbed the commission to design new digs for the growing University Club of New York, of which he was a member.

Architecture critic Paul Goldberger picked the Renaissance palazzo-style building as one of New York City’s 13 greatest masterpieces.

Pierpont Morgan Library (1906)

McKim was tasked with designing the private library of JP Morgan on Madison Avenue. Upon the banker’s passing in 1924, the Classical Revival marvel was made public. Today, the Tennessee marble structure is known as the Morgan Library & Museum, and includes an extension by architect Renzo Piano.

Pennsylvania Station (1910) and James A Farley Post Office (1912)

The original Penn Station was revered as much as the present-day incarnation is reviled. Construction began in 1904 but McKim passed away in 1909 before his masterpiece was complete.

It was a building of contrasts: its modern steel concourse was a world away from the Neo-classical waiting rooms and service areas.

His practice — McKim, Mead and White — also designed the adjacent James A Farley Post Office, intended as a twin building to McKim’s Penn Station, which completed in 1912. Today, it’s used as an events space for the likes of New York Fashion Week.

Follow The Spaces for more stories about architecture, design, property and art

Happy 169th birthday Charles Follen McKim! was originally published in The Spaces on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Berlin’s finest dining experiences come with a side dish of stellar architecture. Rough-and-ready eateries might dominate the city, but canny restaurateurs are slowly colonising Berlin’s built treasures — from Art Deco schools to old pharmacies.

Here, we take you on a culinary archi-tour.

Pauly Saal

This Michelin-starred restaurant sits within the renovated Jewish School for Girls, designed by Alexander Beer, and opened in 1930. The enormous green-tiled building is a pre-war triumph, and Pauly Saal — opened by restauranteurs Stephan Landwehr and Boris Radczun — mirrors this with a menu of straightforward but high-quality European cuisine, beneath shimmering chandeliers and a vast red-and-white rocket.
Auguststraße 11–13, 10117 Berlin

Louis Pretty

The decor of this contemporary Jewish deli-influenced joint is as noteworthy as its soft, salty pastrami. Louis Pretty’s marriage of deep red walls, sky-blue surfaces, and sheet-metal appliances is the handiwork of proprietor, Oskar Melze, and designer Philipp Mainzer.
Ritterstraße 2, 10969 Berlin

Cinco

The Das Stue hotel sits within a former Royal Danish embassy, built in 1939, with dazzlingly bright interiors by Patricia Urquiola. Its restaurant, Cinco, offers a Michelin-starred, avant-garde take on Mediterranean cuisine, served up in an enormous space divided into semi-private nooks — intimate spaces in which diners can truly experience their 17 intricate courses.
Drakestraße 1, Tiergarten, 10787 Berlin

Panama

Named after a utopian German children’s book, Panama was designed by Contemporary Food Lab (CFL) alongside interior architects Nora Witzigmann and Karo Butzert. Its bright renovated factory space is decorated with modern art and its menu of light, uncooked (but not necessarily raw) food is — according to CFL founder Cramer-Klett — crafted to help diners realise the beauty of the world in which they live.
Potsdamer Straße 91, 10785 Berlin

The Store Kitchen

Berlin’s resplendent Soho House building was designed to be a Jewish-run department store by architects Georg Bauer and Siegfried Friedlander in the early 20th century, before being overtaken by the Hitler Youth in 1937, and later the archives of the Communist Party. The building is now the playground of the city’s chicest people, and the spacious ground-floor, laid with heavy white floorboards and peppered with thick granite pillars, is dedicated to offering flavours, colours, and textures that only come with extraordinary produce. A second incarnation is in the works for London later this year at new culture hub, 180 The Strand.
Torstraße 1, 10119 Berlin, Germany

Eins44

Eins44 takes over a turn-of-the-century distillery inside a cavernous Art Deco courtyard in Neukölln. The building’s industrial past has been retained in the restaurant’s interiors, lined with tiles and lit by a tangle of heavy industrial lights. Eins 44’s kitchen serves a distinctly Franco-German menu that has won it a Michelin star.
Elbestraße 28/29, 12045 Berlin

Yumcha Heroes Manufaktur

In its restaurants and clubs, Berlin loves to utilise its rougher parts, often to dazzling effect. This is true of Yumcha Heroes — a mouthwateringly good dim sum restaurant in a repurposed butcher’s shop, which retains both the spotless tiling and utilitarian decor of its bloody former life.
Dunckerstraße 60, 10439 Berlin

ORA

Kreuzberg’s ORA — a Viennese-style restaurant, cafe, and bar — is faithful to the building’s pastlife as a traditional apothecary. Wooden cabinets, medicine drawers and glass jars labelled in latin line the walls, while original details like the stucco ceiling have been retained. We recommend picking up your culinary prescriptions here.
Oranienplatz 14, 10999 Berlin

Dóttir

Chef Victoria Eliasdóttir’s restaurant is a microcosm of what makes traditional Icelandic cuisine captivating. The foundation of simplicity and succinctness is reflected not only in the restaurant’s high-quality menu, but in its immense yet modestly renovated home — which has formerly served as a centre for 19th century Jewish merchants and a Stasi surveillance building.
Mittelstraße 41, 10117 Berlin

Read next: 8 of Berlin’s most unusual art spaces

Originally published at thespaces.com on August 4, 2016.

Why the architecture of Berlin’s restaurants is as mouth-watering as the food was originally published in The Spaces on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

‘I’ve travelled to many parts of the world, even off the beaten track countries like Afghanistan, Iran and Bangladesh, but this place was unlike anything I’d ever seen before,’ say Raphael Olivier.

The photographer is talking about Pyongyang, where he spent a week documenting the pastel-coloured buildings of the North Korean capital for his series, Vintage Socialist Architecture.

‘Visually, Pyongyang is just so surreal,’ he says. ‘Spectacular architecture, unique pastel colours, impeccable symmetrical designs. The place is bare, raw, and radiates a powerful energy of its own. This is what intrigued me’.

Getting into the country is notoriously difficult but that could be set to change. In June 2015, Marshal Kim Jong-un’s government announced it wants to welcome two million tourists per year by 2020, meaning it should (in theory, at least) become easier to visit the ‘Hermit Kingdom’. Olivier — who obtained his VISA via specialist tour operator Koryo — argues it’s already much more open than the media would have you believe…

‘Access is of course restricted and, as a tourist, one is not free to walk around without guides, but that’s ok,’ he says. ‘Overall the country is not as closed as you might imagine, and clearly not as closed as most media try to depict it.’

It seems that The Marshal’s government has also cottoned on to the tourist pulling-power of the country’s audacious architecture — especially in the capital. Its skyline is marked by behemoths like the unfinished, rocket-like Ryugyong Hotel while monuments like the hammer-and-sickle Monument to Party Founding dot its public parks.

Pyongyang — almost completely destroyed during the Korean War of 1950–1953 — was rebuilt with help from the USSR’s architects and planners, who turned it into a ‘mini-Moscow’ marked by Neo-Stalinist buildings and wide boulevards.

But almost as quickly as the buildings went up, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea founding father Kim Il-sung decided that there’d be no more foreign architectural influence. Instead the country would develop its own ‘convenient, cosy, beautiful and durable’ national style, ‘in taste with the masses’ — as son, Kim Jong-il, would later describe it.

Fast forward to 2016, and current leader, 32-year-old Kim Jong-un is determined to refresh this for the 21st century.

While many of the Russian buildings of yore are being torn down, a fleet of futuristic structures are being designed to replace them. These buildings represent the new DPRK, or at least, what The Marshal wants the world to think it is. Water parks, shooting ranges, and ‘Pyonghattan’-like apartment towers double as showpieces for ‘communism today’; backdrops for carefully managed photoshoots and Instagram fodder for tourists.

Step beyond the capital, however, and it’s a different story…

See more from ‘Vintage Socialist Architecture’

Photography: Raphael Olivier (c)

Read next: Tour the hidden Brutalist bunkers of the French Alps

Originally published at thespaces.com on August 11, 2016.

Exploring North Korea’s capital brick by brick was originally published in The Spaces on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As the organisers of the concluded World Expo in Milan looked to clarify the future of its 110-hectare site in the north of the city, questions were once again being raised over the legacy these events leave behind. Without Expos, Paris might not have the Eiffel Tower and Seattle would be without its Space Needle, but do a few privately owned monuments justify the enormous expense and upheaval that hosting an Expo demands?

The Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi announced plans last year to transform the site of the 2015 Expo into a technology park, at a cost of €150 million per year for the next 10 years. Protesters who argued before the event that ‘Expo is a machine for burning public money,’ are likely to find this news hard to swallow. But creating a legacy for Expos is no easy feat, as evidenced by the struggles of Seville, which ran out of money to remove many of the pavilions erected for the 1992 Expo and subsequently incorporated them into a science and education park.

According to Expo 2015’s design director Matteo Gatto, rather than any specific landmarks, a key legacy of the fair will be the public spaces it leaves behind, which he hopes will provide a foundation for the site’s redevelopment. ‘Around these empty spaces we can design the future of this area,’ Gatto has said. ‘But how it will all turn out is, unfortunately, very uncertain.’

The organisers of 2015’s Expo did at least encourage participating nations to consider potential future uses for their pavilions and develop designs that can be demounted and moved following its conclusion.

‘Significant resources are poured into creating these pavilions so the potential to relocate and reuse after the Expo is a massive opportunity,’ says Nottingham-based artist Wolfgang Buttress, who designed the British pavilion. Buttress received the BIE Gold Award for Architecture and Landscape for his beehive-inspired honeycomb structure, surrounded by a large area of low-cost, low-impact landscaping.

‘The Hive was designed as a kit of parts that are mechanically fixed for ease of assembly and disassembly,’ Buttress explains, adding that some of the landscaped elements been moved to new sites in Milan, while the pavilion has been relocated to Kew Gardens in London.

Structures that can be moved and reused offer an intelligent solution to the issue of legacy, but buildings that remain on an Expo site must be able to evolve to meet the changing needs of the city.

The enduring icons of Expo architecture tend to be truly innovative examples of design or engineering, capable of encapsulating and communicating the zeitgeist to subsequent generations. The following structures from around the globe show what it takes for an Expo pavilion to survive and prosper long after the fair has packed up and left town.

The Crystal Palace at The Great Exhibition, London, 1851

Joseph Paxton’s iron and glass structure left a lasting impression on the millions of visitors to the Great Exhibition, held in London’s Hyde Park in 1851. Though it was destroyed by a fire in 1936, it was imitated at several World’s Fairs beyond the Great Exhibition and deemed popular enough to be moved and remounted on the other side of the city before it met its fate.

Memorial Hall at the Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia, 1876

Philadelphia’s Memorial Hall has been a mainstay of the city’s cultural scene since it was built to house an art museum during the 1876 Centennial Exposition. Now home to a children’s museum that opened in 2008, the Beaux-Arts style building illustrates how World’s Fair sites can be continually repurposed over multiple generations.

The Eiffel Tower at the Paris World’s Fair, 1889

At the time of its construction for the 1889 World’s Fair, the Eiffel Tower was the tallest structure in the world and, according to its creator Gustave Eiffel, a monument to the industrial and scientific achievements of the time. The fact that it is currently the planet’s most-visited paid monument suggests that people remain in awe of this era-defining engineering feat.

The German Pavilion at the Barcelona International Exhibition, 1929

Mies van der Rohe’s German Pavilion for the 1929 Barcelona International Exhibition persists as a monument to minimalism that provides a counterpoint to the brash and overblown architecture typical of World Expos. It was rebuilt on its original site in 1986 and its precise combination of steel, glass and stone makes it a mecca for architectural tourists.

The Atomium at Expo ’58, Brussels, 1958

The Atomium looms over the Belgian capital like a gleaming totem that seems to belong to both the past and the future. Nine steel balls connected by navigable tubes are modelled on the cellular structure of an iron crystal, perfectly encapsulating Expo 58’s focus on scientific and technological progress.

New York State Pavilion at New York’s World’s Fair, 1964

Philip Johnson’s New York State Pavilion is one of few remaining structures at the Flushing Meadows site of the 1964/65 Expo. Earlier this year, a $3 million donation enabled the repainting of the rusty crown surrounding the Tent of Tomorrow, which originally supported the world’s largest cable suspension roof and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The US Pavilion at Expo 67, Montreal, 1967

A masterpiece of modern engineering, the giant geodesic dome created by Richard Buckminster-Fuller to house the United States pavilion at Expo 67 in Montreal was repurposed in 1995 to accommodate a museum dedicated to the environment. It’s an appropriate fate for a structure designed by a pioneer of sustainable thinking.

The Hungarian pavilion at Seville Expo 1992

The Hungarian pavilion designed by Budapest-born naturalist architect Imre Makovecz for the 1992 Seville Expo is probably one of the most fantastical structures ever seen at an Expo. Featuring a scaly roof and turrets topped with religious icons, it is regarded as a seminal piece of timber architecture but is currently derelict and reportedly on the market for $1.1 million.

The China pavilion at 2010 World Expo Shanghai

The China pavilion at the 2010 World Expo Shanghai was, characteristically, the largest national pavilion at the event and the biggest display in the history of World Expos. In 2012 it reopened as a museum dedicated to modern Chinese art, with its total exhibition area of approximately 64,000 square metres, making it the largest art museum in Asia.

The British pavilion at Expo Milano 2015

The 2015 British pavilion was designed by Wolfgang Buttress to draw attention to the plight of the honey bee. The artist created a multi-sensory experience featuring sights, sounds and smells associated with apiarian ecology. Some of its landscape elements are being reused at new sites in Milan, while talks are under way to re-erect the demountable pavilion elsewhere. A soundscape created for the Expo will be released as an album in February 2016.

Originally published at thespaces.com on November 24, 2015.

World Expo legacy: what have these architectural pageants left behind? was originally published in The Spaces on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Hold the phone. Pokemon Go has finally dropped in the UK.

With the excitement of a kid with a shiny new toy, we discovered a whole different side to London when we got our hands on the app.

Here’s what we learnt about Pokemon GO after taking to the streets of central London this morning. Going for a walk will never be the same again…

London’s blue plaques make it unique to the capital

You’ll need pokeballs to catch ’em all… Obtain them at so-called Pokestops around the city, many of which are located at the capital’s blue plaque landmarks, giving the game a distinctly London feel.

Discover new public art and sculpture

You’ll be heading to Pokestops a lot — at least at the beginning of the game. As well as blue plaque sites, they’re located around sculptures across the city such as the Horses of Helios Fountain by Piccadilly.

Love London’s historic buildings

In some ways, Pokemon GO is a cultural guide disguised as a game. London’s rich architectural history comes to life in the app when you arrive at — and learn about — some of the city’s historic buildings. One of our favourites was the 1798 former Exchange and Bullion Office building just by Chinatown.

Learn about monuments you never even noticed

Everyone knows about Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square, but there are also statues of Major General Sir Henry Havelock, WWI nurse Edith Cavell, as well as Charlie Chaplin in Leicester Square nearby. Collect your pokeballs and learn all about them in the process.

Expect popular destinations in London to get even busier

Pokemon GO gyms are in famous London hotspots like Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square. Our trainer’s level was too low to go into gym battles so we’re not quite sure what happens once you ‘step in’. But as trainers level up, expect more and more people to arrive at these places with their noses glued firmly to their phones.

Ghosts appear in Trafalgar Square

In most urban areas, the most common pokemon you come across are Rattatas, Spearows and Pidgeys. Occasionally though you’ll find a Caterpie, a Shellder and even a Gastly in broad daylight by Trafalgar Square. Head to parks for leaf-type pokemon or walk down the Thames to catch your Magikarps and other water types.

Use Pokemon GO to find the scenic route

Correction: the ‘scenic’ route is now whichever way has the most pokestops, rare pokemon and gyms.

Hot tips on where to find Pikachu and friends? Let us know at The Spaces

You’ll never look at London the same way again after playing Pokemon GO was originally published in The Spaces on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.