Is Warsaw the new Berlin? It’s certainly experiencing the sort of construction boom that hit the German capital in the 1990s. Warsaw hasn’t seen this much activity since it was rebuilt in just six years after WWII, when, as the centre of the resistance movement, it had been virtually flattened. Now, skyscrapers and more lowly edifices are sprouting up all over the city, with…

‘Lightness of Being’ is the fifth major exhibition at the new Initial Access Gallery in Wolverhampton. Frank Cohen, fast-building a name as one of Britain’s most exciting and extensive private collectors, has lent the gallery his neon collection, the idea being to shed some new light on the extensive use of neon in contemporary art. Click here to see more of the exhibition. Since…

Following the dictum that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, British artist Ben Long makes sculptures out of scaffolding and drawings in the scum on the back of trucks. In the most obvious way his work turns daily eyesores into things of beauty. Click here to see the gradual construction process. Up until now birds, dogs and deer have been the subject of his…

W hotels all have certain key ingredients in common – sharp design, inventive luxury, and a comfortable, vibrant energy. But the portfolio of properties – almost 30 now worldwide - are far from cookie-cutter. Click here to see more of W San Diego. LA-based designer Thom Filicia (you might remember him from his days as the design guru on US TV show Queer Eye for…

A remote upstate getaway is now de rigueur for the modern Manhattan urbanite, and Hanrahan Meyers architects have crafted a sophisticated sanctuary for one such client. As a place where crowds, noise, and a lack of privacy are all part of the hectic routine of urban life, the nature of the city provides the architect with a formula for its perfect antithesis: solitude, quiet,…

If the adage is true that two heads think better than one then the creative commingling of Louis Vuitton and Comme des Garcons should be something very special. And indeed it is. Click here to see more of the store. Louis Vuitton caused a stir last year setting up shop inside the LA MoCA during Takashi Murakami's retrospective. The temporary store within a store…

The 52nd floor of Mori Arts Center Gallery was the location of the latest BMW Art Car Exhibition, ‘Transparent Speed’, and for architect Jun Aoki who designed it the sky was the limit. ‘It's a very fine idea to have cars floating high up in the sky’, said Aoki, thrilled to see his exhibition design of cars in clouds become a reality. Click here to see the exhibition…

The unwieldy name of the P’9210 belies the device’s flexibility. A desk top radio that doubles up as an iPod dock, the Porsche Design-styled cube harks back to the bold futurism of Pop-era audio projects, while also nodding towards the stark minimalism that Apple have injected into the high-end electronics market. The Etón Corporation are based in Palo Alto, the Rift…

Daniel Eatock is a designer with a practised eye, able to switch from big bucks corporate and media branding - the Big Brother Eye, for example - to micro scale personal works that present an unvarnished view of the world. Eatock's work is also bound up in his website, Eatock.com, which solicits photography from like-minded individuals around the world. As a result, the…

Another of our favourites at Arles this year is the Italian artist-photographer Guido Mocafico. Practising in Paris, Mocafico, along with his production team of food and flower designers, creates large-scale, still life pictures. At first glance the photographs could easily be mistaken for the work of a 17th century Flemish still-life painter and this is precisely Mocafico’s…

Some of the best exhibitions are ones that don’t take themselves too seriously and one of our recent favourites is an ongoing exhibition at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design in Germany. ‘Caution! Christmas Tree!’ takes the festive fir as its unlikely subject matter, in a vast array of clever creations and unlikely situations. Click here to see the trees. The…

Few modernist architectural practices have acquired a posthumuous reputation as esteemed as Connell, Ward and Lucas. Basil Ward and Amyas Connell were New Zealanders, drawn to inter-war England by the prospect of immersing themselves in architectural practice and study. Together, they created a unique modernist aesthetic, one that drew on their broad and eclectic knowledge…

The 2008 Bombay Sapphire Designer Glass Competition is upon us and this year there’s a bit of a twist. As in previous years, the brief was straightforward – to create a martini glass, inspired by the Bombay Sapphire heritage. 21 international finalists have been selected from 21 different countries and the winner and runners-up will be announced at the London Design Festival,…

Pentagram might be the world’s best-known multidisciplinary agency, but the architecture arm of the globe-spanning design house doesn’t usually get much of a look-in compared to the enormous portfolio of award-winning corporate identities and publications. That’s surprising, because founding partner Theo Crosby had been a key mover and shaker on the 1960s scene. Recent signs…

The next instalment of Phillips de Pury’s immensely popular Saturday@Phillips series is looming. Saturday September 6th sees the contemporary auction house responding to the current fascination with all things guerrilla and urban, by choosing street art as the focus of its latest sale. Click here to see more lots from the auction. Largely thanks to Banksy's authority-defying…

Inspiration is an exercise is glowing good taste. Conran's latest monograph is a lavish romp through the design guru's own living space, shaped and formed over nearly four decades at the forefront of national taste-making. Perhaps more than anyone, Conran's taste typifies what might be called the new eclectism, a cultured jumble of modernist and classical influences that has…

Bringing together a host of projects charged with shifting cultural and social perceptions of responsible design, Architecture of Change makes a bold case for an era of new humanism in design, an approach that embraces environmental issues without doing away with the shiny, faceted approach that characterises so much modern architecture. Yet the most prescient projects…

Christian Lacroix describes Grégoire Alexandre’s photography as being like ‘contemporary poetry’. Equal parts installation artist, illusionist, set designer and, in Lacroix’s eyes, poet, the young Parisian is certainly more than just a photographer. He’s also been a Wallpaper* contributor for a while so naturally we took special time out to visit his exhibition at Arles. Click…

Some things get better with age and some things just get a bit stranger. David Byrne of Talking Heads fame is a case in point. Since the 1990s the Scottish-American musician has been dabbling in the art world. The results are extraordinary and a long way from Talking Heads' creative output, though no less brilliant. Click here to see more racks. Experimental installation…

Lunch times can be such dreary affairs, especially if you’re on a deadline and are stuck at your desk with only a sandwich and a Styrofoam cup of soup for company. Happily for Londoners, UP Box is set to break the mould with its brand of up-market take-away boxed meals, all priced at £6 each. The unbleached, recyclable (but stylishly sturdy) cardboard box flips open to reveal…

The Red Dot design awards have just been announced and the results for BQBG are spectacular. Red Dot is not that well known in the US but winning aRed Dot has tremendous commercial value to companies. In Asia, the Red Dot sticker can boost sales by 10% to 50%.