Travelling around Finland we were lucky to visit Villa Mairea and Säynätsalo Town Hall. The Alvar Aalto Museum in Jyväskylä was brilliant for interpreting the design, construction and production of Aalto’s work under one roof….
I was initially drawn to Nowa Huta for the Brutalist Architecture. During the visit I found so much more. Nowa Huta (which translates as The New Steel Mill) is a planned secular socialist realist settlement….
On a road trip to the Croatian coast I hoped to see lots of Spomenik, I managed a few, Ilirska Bistrica being the most interesting. Spomenik are memorials built between 1960s-1980s during Tito’s Republic of…
The French artist Niki de Saint Phalle (1930–2002) was inspired to build the Tarot Garden (or Il Giardino dei Tarocchi) after visiting Antoni Gaudí´s Parc Güell in Barcelona. In 1979 she purchased a plot of…
The marketing and design of vintage Olivetti are iconic. Passing near Ivrea we decided it was definitely worth a small detour. Adriano Olivetti became manager in 1933 and grew the stylish typewriter business in Ivrea,…
On a recent visit to Finland a destination I wanted to visit, even more then Moominland, was the home of the architect and designer couple Aino and Alvar Aalto. The house designed by the Aalto’s…
In 1930 Salvador Dalí purchased a small fisherman’s hut in Portlligat. Over thirty years Salvador and Gala built and expanded, acquiring more land and huts. They lived there until Gala’s death in 1982. As a…
It was one of those rare occasions when missing the train becomes a blessing. As the train pulled away from the platform in Stockholm’s T-Centralen Station it revealed these wonderful mid-century tiles.
Arne Jacobsen unveiled his prototype pre-fab summer house in 1970 and named it Kubeflex. It comprised of 10 square meter cubic modules which could be combined and added to as necessary. Unfortunately it was considered…
Among Pula’s celebrated architecture, mostly Roman, stands it’s modernist Post Office. It was designed by Angiolo Mazzoni in 1933 while he was employed by the Italian Ministry of Communications. The stunning red colour in the…