Architecture and urbanism: 2026 RIBA Royal Gold Medal for Níall McLaughlin / an abandoned village in Wales / How the Aylesbury Estate became London’s theatre of stigma / Then and now: one year on from the Los Angeles wildfires / This was Paris in 1970, photographic archives (via MeFi) / a computer-generated visualisation of Venice / a collection of Found City Photographs / London Rebranded: The Capital’s Changing Names, Mapped / the impact of Nano Banana on architectural visualisation / the story of Richard Neutra’s Lost Windshield House / city roads, ‘this website renders every single road within a city’.
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Art, Photography and Design: a new zine about 1960s Penguin Crime Novels (via Kottke). See also the long dormant but exhausting-to-compile Pelican Project / a look back at the heyday of the Olivetti Company, Beautiful machines from a beautiful country (via MeFi) / the cultural weight of the monobloc chair, what Coupland once called a ‘category killer’ / Fedor Vasilev’s images of the world of tower blocks / art by Amy Dury / Don McCullin at 90 / links to the finest papercrafts / car portraits by Martin Roemers / Shadow Puppets, a comic by Martha Burgin / Leonard Koscianski’s eerily perfect suburbs / illustrations by Christoph Niemann / the work of Bruce Asbestos / photography monographs at Libraryman / beautiful prints at Kvist Studio.
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Culture: “Take me to your shelter, leader!”, ‘Do you have what it takes to be a shelter manager after World War III breaks out? Take this quiz from 1973 and find out!’ / meet Coalie. He’s not quite Mr Therm, but they’re definitely distant cousins. Coalie could do with a strapline like ‘Mr Therm burns to save you’, updated for the modern era / links to short stories by female authors / Freakpages, ‘a community-curated directory of esoteric articles across the internet’ / from Nigel Kneale’s ‘Beasts’ anthology, During Barty’s Party: watch on YouTube. Not for the murophobic / I fly for news, by Larry Rue, fascinating 1932 memoir by an early ‘aero reporter’ / reconsidering Morris and Co’s Blue Jam, 25 years on / another Brutalist Quake mod / a calendar of 2026’s design fairs / on collecting Dinky Toys. Related, the Google Doodle for Frank Hornby’s 150th birthday / 26 creatives for 2026, via Zetteler / C Thi Nguyen’s ‘brilliant warning about the gamification of everyday life‘ / the extraordinary life of Earl Amherst, 1896 to 1993 / the Epstein saga is the patriarchy laid bare.
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Technology and Transport: which car had the biggest carbon footprint of all time? There’s a strong case to be made for the Cadillac Allanté, which was flown from Italy to the US in specially modified cargo 747s. ‘All in, some Allanté components may have flown 7000 miles round trip, before the car’s key was turned for the very first time’ / a true dream wagon / the 6400-metric ton “Ithacus Sr.“, a 1966 proposal for a rocket-propelled troop carrier designed to carry a ‘rapid-strike battalion of 1200 soldiers’ across continents / the cramp-inducing world of micro yachting / Italy’s Insane Showcars of the 1930s and 1940s / How the age of motoring shaped our modern world / The Londoner profiles the motorist’s lycra scourge, Cycling Mikey / a timeline of studio and recording technology / a chronology of the Casio digital watch / grim news: two million books destructively scanned to teach AI / watch AI agents wibble on to each other at Moltbook / the Computer History Museum has a new digital portal / browse Wallpaper*’s picks from V&A East Storehouse / rare vintage audio Holy Grails.
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Music and Sound: Captain Pikant breaks down iconic drum patterns / are these the 75 greatest guitarists of the 21st century? / upcoming book: Still in a Dream: Shoegaze, Slackers and the Reinvention of Rock, 1984–1994 / Tony Iommi: The Godfather of Heavy Metal, Volume One / An Evening Of Sitar Music, a short film about a legendary event / huge treasure trove of Banshees-adjacent press clippings / The Cure, live in Sydney, 1981 / the art rock insanity of Angine De Poitrine, ‘Orchestre Rock Microtonal Dada-pythago-cubiste’: watch a full performance in Rennes, France, during Trans Musicales 2025 / The South London Drone Orchestra / The Boojums, garage rock from Nova Scotia / Sounds of the Forest around the world / ‘A study suggested that men who play guitar in extreme metal bands mainly do it to impress other men‘ / 90s Festival Generator (via b3ta).
