Architecture

Where design comes from. The histories, philosophies and arguments behind the way buildings and interiors look.

Louis Kahn's National Assembly of Bangladesh in Dhaka, its brick and concrete masses pierced by vast circular openings and mirrored in the surrounding lake

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Why brutalism is beautiful: the ambition behind the concrete

Brutalism's beauty is honesty, not ugliness — from Goldfinger's London to Kahn's Dhaka parliament and Bo Bardi's São Paulo, the social ambition the concrete was built to carry.

A classically mid-century modern room with warm wood walls and bold furniture

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What mid-century modernism was actually for

The democratic design experiment that mostly worked. Not a style — an argument about how ordinary people should live.