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Arts & Literature, Culture, Homes, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Previews: Country Life Magazine – Dec 13, 2023

December 13, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Country Life Magazine – December 13, 2023: The latest ‘Double Christmas’ issue features How the Bible’s nativity story has influenced artists; the beauty of the gardens of Rockcliffe in Gloucestershire; In literature at least, the fox will come out on top in almost every brush with confrontation, and more….

Away in a manger

Love, pain, power and hope are all embodied in the Nativity. Michael Prodger examines how the Bible story influenced our greatest artists

The Bishop of Winchester’s favourite painting

The Right Revd Philip Mounstephen chooses an arresting Caravaggio

On the night watch

As darkness falls, the wild things emerge from the shadows. John Lewis-Stempel embraces the night

Prodigy or eccentric?

John Goodall explores Bristol Cathedral, a building of international importance

When Christmas was cancelled

Always winter, never festive: Cromwell’s directive cast a pall, laments Ian Morton

Made with love

Cast your eyes down next time you’re in church to admire the hassock you kneel upon, urges the Revd Colin Heber-Percy

’Tis the season to be busy

There’s no rest for the farmer, the baker or the cheesemonger at this time of year. Ben Lerwill champions the people who make Christmas happen

So, this is Christmas

Queen Victoria would feel quite at home in any of our houses this season, believes John Mueller

It came upon a midnight clear

Come one, come all, says Kate Green, as the villagers gather once more at the big house

The Editor’s Christmas quiz

Pit your wits. The only prize is glory

Luxury

Christian Dior, David Gandy, dinky toys and Sir Chris Hoy’s favourite things

Cold comforts

Frost-dusted and fleece-wrapped, the beauty of the gardens of Rockcliffe in Gloucestershire enchant Tiffany Daneff

It’s a wonderful life

Carla Passino travels the world for Christmas traditions, from Swedish tomte to Japanese KFC

Christmas conundrums

Turkey or goose? Stocking or sack? Port or Sauternes? Giles Kime poses the big questions

Think outside the fox

Clever and agile, Vulpes vulpes is frequently on top in literature. Kate Green turns the pages

Back to black

The Périgord black truffle is worth the price for Tom Parker Bowles

The peel-good factor

The rich scents of citrus permeate Deborah Nicholls-Lee’s Christmas

Sugar, spice and all things nice

Carla Passino builds a gingerbread house

On top of the mirey, merey moor

John Lewis-Stempel tucks his chin into his scarf and sets off into the frozen wastes

Native breeds

Kate Green advocates heritage turkeys

Arts & Literature, Culture, Homes, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Previews: Country Life Magazine – Dec 6, 2023

December 6, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Country Life Magazine – December 6, 2023: The latest issue features ‘George Harrison’s Garden’ – Friar Park rescued by the former Beatle; Folklore of the Rowan ‘Wizard’s’ tree; the best and worst gifts in classic literature and Travel – From the Caribbean to Concorde….

George Harrison’s garden: All things must pass

Charles Quest-Ritson visits Friar Park in Oxfordshire and marvels at the topiary garden rescued by former Beatle George Harrison

Native breeds

Kate Green meets the distinctive and much-loved Belted Galloway

Never knowingly undersold

Country Life advertisements in 1923 capture Britain’s evolution, as Melanie Bryan discovers

Neptune’s wooden angels

Harry Pearson takes to the high seas to chart the fascinating history of the figureheads that keep ships safe in stormy weather

A kind of tree magic

The rowan tree is a symbol of safety across the world — Aeneas Dennison delves into the folklore of the wizard’s tree

Native breeds

Kate Green meets the distinctive and much-loved Belted Galloway

Never knowingly undersold

Country Life advertisements in 1923 capture Britain’s evolution, as Melanie Bryan discovers

Neptune’s wooden angels

Harry Pearson takes to the high seas to chart the fascinating history of the figureheads that keep ships safe in stormy weather

And that’s an unwrap

From cursed jewels to diamond-encrusted tortoises, Felicity Day reads up on the best and worst gifts in classic literature

Travel

Lady Glenconner’s Mustique memories and much more, plus Rosie Paterson uncovers the real Barbados and Pamela Goodman goes supersonic

Melanie Vandenbrouck’s favourite painting

The gallery curator loses herself in an expressive, exuberant work

The life of a naturalist

Carla Carlisle reflects on the legacy of the Irish poet Seamus Heaney — ‘a truly good man’

Taking account of the past

Steven Brindle is full of praise for the refurbishment of Chartered Accountants’ Hall, an architectural jewel in the City of London

Not so jolly old Saint Nicholas

Ian Morton examines how Father Christmas was transformed from a sozzled figure riding a goat into the jolly fellow we know and love

Interiors

Pheasants, leopards, parrots and reindeer are all welcome at Melanie Johnson’s festive table

The good stuff

Editor Mark Hedges picks his favourite luxuries of 2023

London Life

The capital’s Christmas lights dazzle Emma Love (page 83), Gilly Hopper shares her must-see seasonal suggestions (page 86), Carla Passino views London in a new light with Sir John Soane (page 92) and Emma Hughes hails the survivors of the restaurant scene (page 98)

Travel

From the Caribbean to Concorde

A case of mistaken identity

Ian Morton looks at the merits of ground elder and ground ivy, an unloved and misnamed duo

Arts & Literature, Culture, Homes, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Previews: Country Life Magazine – Nov 29, 2023

November 29, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Country Life Magazine – November 29, 2023: The latest issue features seasonal wine, medieval homes and our annual Christmas gift guide…

Claus for celebration

Embrace the festive spirit, with bells on, in Amie Elizabeth White’s magical A to Z of Christmas

Well, isn’t that just the icing on the biscuit?

There’s always a reason to biscuit, discovers Katy Birchall

A modern guide to table manners

Catch up on the etiquette of for-mal dining with Annunciata Elwes

Sip, sip, hooray!

Accessories to aid your festive entertaining, with Amelia Thorpe

I’ll have a side of drama, please

Flambé is back on the menu as Tom Parker Bowles argues for the return of tableside cooking

What to serve when

Nicola Arcedeckne-Butler has a tipple idea for every occasion

I go to pieces

A puzzled Ben Lerwill explores the enduring appeal of the jigsaw

He who pays the piper

Octavia Pollock finds a pig in a poke has gone for a burton

Christmas gifts

Hetty Lintell’s perfect present picks for everyone in your life

Editors’ choice

Country Life’s section editors reveal their festive fancies

John Lewis-Stempel’s favourite painting

The Nature writer selects a work in praise of the Southdown sheep

Glory of the garden

Tiffany Daneff marvels at floral creations from Rachel Siegfried

Hitting the sweet spot

How did marzipan take Britain by storm, asks Matthew Dennison

Raise your glass

Mary Miers on fears for the craft of stained-glass window making

Mastered in every detail

Jeremy Musson explores the houses of Henry James novels

Native breeds

Kate Green on Aylesbury ducks

Arts & Literature, Culture, Homes, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Previews: Country Life Magazine – Nov 15, 2023

November 14, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Country Life Magazine – November 15, 2023: The latest issue features the annual Georgian Group Architecture Awards; Horns of plenty – The Bull, monarch of the meadow has been a key mythological figure since ancient times; the sensitive restoration of Somerton Castle in Lincolnshire, a once-neglected medieval stronghold; the great thatching renaissance, and more…

Here’s to the Georgians

Imaginative restoration, from Stowe House to Stroud canal, is lauded in the annual Georgian Group Architectural Awards

No, you’re not going batty

Jane Wheatley investigates the development pitfalls of finding a pipistrelle on your property

Back to the strawing board

The art of thatching is enjoying a renaissance as architects are drawn to its eco credentials, as Sarah Langford discovers

Horns of plenty

The monarch of the meadow has been a key mythological figure since ancient times. Ian Morton takes the bull by the horns

The toast of the town

Jonathan Self finds comfort in every crunchy, buttery mouthful and asks: how do you like yours?

Buried treasures

Christopher Stocks goes under-ground to examine the centuries-long allure of glittering grottos

The great country-house revival

Director-general Ben Cowell celebrates Historic Houses and half a century of achievement

Sir David Hempleman-Adams’s favourite painting

The explorer chooses a work that demonstrates the beauty and colour of the natural world

Hebridean overtures

Jamie Blackett runs the gauntlet of the ‘Grand National’ in pursuit of ever-elusive South Uist snipe

From ruin to rebirth

Nicholas Cooper marvels at the sensitive restoration of Somerton Castle in Lincolnshire, a once-neglected medieval stronghold

Native breeds

Kate Green meets the docile and floppy-eared British Lop

The good stuff

Need a sparkling conversation starter? Hetty Lintell picks out a fistful of fabulous cocktail rings

Dressed to impress

The sartorial centre of Savile Row provided the perfect setting for our Gentleman’s Life party

Interiors

Painting a floor is a fun way to add colour and pattern to a room, finds Amelia Thorpe

A touch of glass

Victorian glasshouses are feats of engineering that deserve a new lease of life, says Lucy Denton

Big apple

Charles Quest-Ritson is wowed by the display of trained apples in the 18th-century walled garden at The Newt in Somerset

Kitchen garden cook

Melanie Johnson savours the sweet earthiness of a chestnut

Shakespeare, but not as we know it

Sir Kenneth Branagh’s Lear may be off beam, but Michael Billington is buoyed by a stirring portrayal of the Bard’s wife

And much more

Arts & Literature, Culture, Homes, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Previews: Country Life Magazine – Nov 8, 2023

November 7, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Country Life Magazine – November 8, 2023: The latest issue features The King’s milestone celebration, Amie Elizabeth White reveals 75 fascinating things you may not know about Charles III; Exclusive access to St James’s Palace in London; the British passion for country-house portraits; the astonishing hidden gardens of bohemian Tangier in Morocco and more….

We can be rural heroes

Julie Harding meets a model, a comedian, a farmer, a hedge-layer and a former retail boss, all united in their praise for The King’s Royal Countryside Fund

A nursery palace

Simon Thurley chronicles the remarkable story of the modern home of the Court, as Country Life is afforded exclusive access to St James’s Palace in London

Elegy in a country churchyard

War memorials on British soil are a poignant means of ‘bringing home’ those who fell in foreign fields, reveals Andrew Green

A right royal ruff

The regal King Charles spaniel once won favour with the nobility — and owners are still falling for this loving and loyal breed, as Katy Birchall discovers

Martha Lytton Cobbold’s favourite painting

The Historic Houses president chooses a captivating work that proved to be an inspiration for her love of art and structure

Native breeds

Sheep are an instrinsic feature of the Welsh landscape — Kate Green introduces the breeds that populate the principality

Home is where the art is

Michael Prodger investigates the British passion for country-house portraits, a craze that started back in the 16th century and shows little sign of abating

Interiors

Arabella Youens marvels at the transformation of an Edwardian sitting room, as Giles Kime revels in the luxury of a daybed

Tangerine dreams

Kirsty Fergusson explores the astonishing hidden gardens of bohemian Tangier in Morocco

It’s only natural

Turning woodland finds into art is a labour of love for Jane Bevan, discovers Natasha Goodfellow

Still standing after all these years

A 188-year-old avenue of beech trees forms a guard of honour for Fiona Reynolds in Dorset

Turbot-charged

Nothing less than perfection will do for Tom Parker Bowles as he savours the most regal of fish

A bundle of energy

Could hydrogen-powered cars be the future? Jane Wheatley motors to Wales to investigate

The good stuff

Hetty Lintell seeks a bit of fluff from some feathery confections

Dare to be square

Mary Miers meets the talented craftspeople reinventing the ancient art of mosaic making

And much more

Arts & Literature, Culture, Homes, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Previews: Country Life Magazine – Nov 1, 2023

October 31, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Country Life Magazine – November 1, 2023: The new issue features the rural delights of Durslade Farm to the heart of Mayfair; The secret garden in Regent’s Park in London; Norman Foster, the architect who helped shape the capital; the historic American bars that offer a taste of the US on this side of the pond, and more…

London Life

Emma Love welcomes the rural delights of Durslade Farm to the heart of Mayfair
The secret garden in Regent’s Park, seasonal suggestions and Matthew Williamson’s London
Carla Passino meets Norman Foster, the architect who helped shape the capital
Robert Crossan visits the historic American bars that offer a taste of the US on this side of the pond

Nick Trend’s favourite painting

The art historian picks a steely-eyed painting that signalled the invention of the self-portrait

At Canaan’s Edge

Carla Carlisle ponders the story of the Promised Land and hopes that common sense prevails

A local revival

The future is bright for Lytham Hall after locals stepped in to save the house at the heart of the Lancashire estate, as John Martin Robinson discovers

A nightingale sang…

Tiffany Daneff visits a garden in Kent planted for wildlife and surrounded by new woodland

Native breeds

Kate Green admires the hardy Lincoln Red, a low-input rare breed that produces quality beef

Stranger things

From horn dancing to burning barrels and cheese rolling, Harry Pearson delves into weird and wonderful British folk festivals

You’re a dark horse

The black horse is a symbol of strength and courage. Celia Brayfield gallops through the history of the fabled steed

Kitchen garden cook

Melanie Johnson savours the turnip’s sweet and nutty flavour, perfect with scallops

Travel

Jo Rodgers follows in the foot-steps of the Durrells in Corfu
Welcoming, home-from-home villas
Pamela Goodman pedals off the beaten cycle path

Speak like a Georgian

Know your ‘fubbs’ from your ‘fizzle’ — Matthew Dennison investigates 18th-century slang

Arts & Literature, Culture, Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Reviews

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – Sept 25, 2023

September 18, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Diana Ejaitas “Lines of Beauty” — Art by Diana Ejaita

The New Yorker – September 25, 2023 issue: The new issue features the Fall Style & Design issue which showcases the work of Diana Ejaita, an artist who has herself dabbled in the world of fashion.

The Bloomsbury Group Is Back in Vogue

Lady Ottoline Morrell photographed by Cecil Beaton.

The bohemian English circle that included Virginia Woolf, Duncan Grant, and Vanessa Bell revolted against Victorian formality—and their casually ornamental style is inspiring designers today.

By Rebecca Mead

In July, 1918, Virginia Woolf spent a weekend at Garsington—a country home, outside Oxford, owned by Lady Ottoline Morrell, a celebrated hostess of the era, and her husband, Philip Morrell, a Member of Parliament. The house, a ramshackle Jacobean mansion that the Morrells had acquired five years earlier, had been vividly redecorated by Ottoline into what one guest called a “fluttering parrot-house of greens, reds and yellows.” One sitting room was painted with a translucent seafoam wash; another was covered in deep Venetian red, and early visitors were invited to apply thin lines of gold paint to the edges of wooden panels. The entrance hall was laid with Persian carpets and, as Morrell’s biographer Miranda Seymour has written, the pearly gray paint on the walls was streaked with pink, “to create the effect of a winter sunset.” Woolf, in her diary, noted that the Italianate garden fashioned by Morrell—with paved terraces, brilliantly colored flower beds, and a pond surrounded by yew-tree hedges clipped with niches for statuary—was “almost melodramatically perfect.”

A Young Architect’s Designs for the Climate Apocalypse

Pavels Hedström wearing the Inxect Suit.

Pavels Hedström believes that most architecture separates us from nature. He wants to make nonhuman life inescapable.

By Sam Knight

At the end of his first year at the architecture school of the Royal Danish Academy, Pavels Hedström went on a class trip to Japan. Hedström, a twenty-five-year-old undergraduate, revered Japanese culture and aesthetics, even though he had never visited the country. As a teen-ager growing up in rural Sweden, Hedström had been introduced to Zen meditation by his mother, Daina, and devoured manga and anime. In architecture school, Hedström was drawn to Japanese principles of design and how they applied to a world—and a profession—increasingly troubled by the climate crisis. Hedström was particularly influenced by Metabolism, a postwar Japanese architectural movement that imagined cities of the future as natural organisms: ephemeral, self-regulating, and subject to biological rhythms of growth, death, and decay. In 1977, Kisho Kurokawa, one of Metabolism’s founders, wrote, “Human society must be regarded as one part of a continuous natural entity that includes all animals and plants.”

Architecture, Home Design, Homes, Interior Design, Reviews

Ukraine Architecture: A ‘Relogged’ Cabin Concept

August 27, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

BALBEK BUREAU ARCHITECTS (AUGUST 2023) – Relogged is a private residential house located in Ukraine, in the green zone on the riverbank. Constructed using log cabin technique, it was redesigned by our studio to better align with the client’s style and way of living.

Near the fireplace area, there are vertical metal shelves for a substantial library and a cozy reading chair. For convenience, the shelves are equipped with movable metal stairs.

To the left of the entrance is a home theater. There is a step at the entrance since there used to be a garage with a different floor level, making the theater area recessed.

Art & Design Essays: ‘Will AI Wipe Out Architects?’

August 7, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

The bleeding edge … LookX uses a piece of crumpled paper as a prompt to create buildings in the style of Frank Gehry (left) and Zaha Hadid (right). Composite: Tim Fu

It’s revolutionizing building – but could AI kill off an entire profession? Perhaps not, finds our writer, as he enters a world where Corbusier-style marvels and 500-room hotels are just a click away

Oliver Wainwright – The Guardian (August 7, 2023): A handful of little green blocks flashes up on the screen, filling a building site with a neat grid of uniform cubes. One second they form rows of towers, next they morph into low-rise courtyards, then they flip back into long slender slabs, before cycling through hundreds of other iterations, in a hypnotic high-speed ballet of bristling buildings.

“You don’t even have to do much” … Patrik Schumacher-generated designs for ZHA using Midjourney. Photograph: Zaha Hadid Architects

I watch this while on a Zoom call with Wanyu He, an architect based in Shenzhen, China, and the founder of XKool, an artificial intelligence company determined to revolutionise the architecture industry. She freezes the dancing blocks and zooms in, revealing a layout of hotel rooms that fidget and reorder themselves as the building swells and contracts. Corridors switch sides, furniture dances to and fro. Another click and an invisible world of pipes and wires appears, a matrix of services bending and splicing in mesmerising unison, the location of lighting, plug sockets and switches automatically optimised. One further click and the construction drawings pop up, along with a cost breakdown and components list. The entire plan is ready to be sent to the factory to be built.

Architecture: A Walking Tour Of New Orleans

Video April 20, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Architectural Digest (April 20, 2033): Today on AD, architect Robby Cangelosi leads us on an insightful walking tour of New Orleans, exploring the fascinating history of its neighborhoods and buildings from its origins to the present day.