Steven Holl comes to a halt in Moscow

Impressive geometric housing scheme close to the Kremlin sadly fails to get the go ahead

Mixed use housing - Steven Holl Architects

JR’s Hollywood romance

Darren Aronofsky is the latest Hollywood name to work with JR - and Angelina Jolie made the introduction

JR and director Darren Aronofsky. Image courtesy of JR's Instagram

From Book to Bid - Shiro Kuramata’s Miss Blanche

Learn why the Japanese designer's best-known chair could fetch £200k when it goes up for auction in London

Miss Blanche, 1988, by Shiro Kuramata

My Body of Art - Fantastic Man’s founders on the influence of works like Portrait of Ross in LA

Jop van Bennekom and Gert Jonkers consider the effect AIDS had on the way gay men’s bodies were portrayed

Untitled (portrait of Ross in LA) (1991) by Felix Gonzalez-Torres. As reproduced in Body of Art

Mussolini’s Roman palazzo is Fendi's new HQ

Mussolini's Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana is now home to the fashion house - more reason to wear black if visiting

Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana - renovation by Marco Costanzi

The Art of the Map - Mona Hatoum

Why did the Palestinian artist make Present Tense from olive oil, glass beads and thousands of blocks of soap?

Present Tense 1996 - Mona Hatoum

Designer DIY with Ross Lovegrove

Make this cut-price Memphis-style lamp by following these simple instructions courtesy of the star designer

Ross Lovegrove's Fatto di Giorno floor lamp. As featured in Do It Yourself

My Body of Art - JR on Spencer Tunick's Consumed 2

We gave JR a copy of Body of Art to browse through, here are a couple of highlights he picked out from it

Consumed 2 (London) 2003 by Spencer Tunick As reproduced in Body of Art

Want to make Day of the Dead bread?

Remember the dearly departed this Día de Muertos with this sweet loaf courtesy of Mexico: The Cookbook

Day of the Dead bread, from Mexico: The Cookbook

Steven Holl on Childhood, China and The High Line

The architect recalls building boyhood tree houses - as well as some more recent and rather trickier commissions

Steven Holl

Will Renzo Piano get another Shard off the ground?

The architect's new plans for a glass tower in Paddington could fall foul of London's anti-skyscraper lobby

Mixed use tower, Paddington - Renzo Piano Building Workshop

My Body of Art - photography critic Philip Gefter on the power of Robert Mapplethorpe's male nudes

The author and photographic critic explains how photography and gay rights became intimately intertwined

Self portrait, 1975 by Robert Mapplethorpe. As reproduced in Body of Art

Magnus Nilsson gives us a geography lesson

Wine+canapés+geography lesson = a great Nordic Cookbook launch at the Swedish Embassy in London last night

Chef Magnus Nilsson

Guy Bourdin's double vision

A Paris Photo presentation shows how the French photographer used a classic technique to great effect

Charles Jourdan, Spring 1978 by Guy Bourdin. © The Guy Bourdin Estate 2015 / Courtesy of Louise Alexander Gallery

Designer DIY with Konstantin Grcic

Make this stylish, price-friendly boombox, designed by the brilliant German-born industrial designer

Boom by Konstantin Grcic. From Do It Yourself

Roy Lichtenstein - "The Worst Artist in the U.S.?"

On the 92nd anniversary of his birth we look at the animosity the Pop artist's work met with, following his big break

Masterpiece (1962) by Roy Lichtenstein. As reproduced in our book Pop Art

The grass is greener at new Euronews HQ

The colour of Jakob + Macfarlane's new HQ for news channel references the nearby river (so don't eat the fish!)

Euronews HQ, Lyon - Jakob + Macfarlane (photo by Nicolas Borel, courtesy Jakob + Macfarlane)

Nan Goldin - 'I know how Amy Winehouse felt'

The photographer looks back at her photo series The Ballad of Sexual Dependency - 30 years on

Nan and Brian in Bed, NYC, 1983, by Nan Goldin

Steven Holl on the art happenings of 70s New York

The brilliant US architect remembers the early influence of Joseph Beuys, Vito Acconci and Richard Serra

Architect Steven Holl

My Body of Art - Tina Barney on her nudes, why she admires Rineke Dijkstra and that Halston photo

The photographer talks about the human body in her photographs and more in our latest Body of Art interview

The Limo - Tina Barney

Kengo Kuma plays with topography in China

The Japanese architect works in local, vernacular flourishes to his China Academy of Arts’ Folk Art Museum

The China Academy of Art’s Folk Art Museum, Hangzhou by Kengo Kuma. Photography by Eiichi Kono. Images courtesy of Kengo Kuma and Associates

Steve McCurry on being shelled in Kashmir

The Magnum photographer remembers a fateful night-time taxi ride on India's dangerous western border

Gulmarg, Kashmir (1999) by Steve McCurry. From Steve McCurry: India

Look at Christo’s plans for an Italian lake walkway

The Bulgarian artist plans to install a three-kilometre, temporary Floating Pier in time for next year’s Art Basel

Collage for The Floating Piers by Christo  © 2014 Christo

Gombrich Explains Picasso

The best-selling art historian on why critics were wrong to consider cubism 'an insult to their intelligence'

Pablo Picasso, Villa la Californie, Canne, 1957 - René Burri

My Body of Art - Luc Tuymans on Modigliani's Nude

The Belgian artist on his love for Modigliani and Balthus and what inspired his own works Body and Diagnostic View

Nude 1916 - Amedeo Modigliani

Magnus Nilsson comes to London this week

He's in town from this weekend, hosting events, talks and opportunities to taste dishes from The Nordic Cookbook

Magnus Nilsson photographed by Erik Olsson

René Redzepi is about to lose his 'taco virginity'

Noma chef will take over Rosio Sanchez's Copenhagen taco stand for one night only next month

Ex-Noma pastry chef Rosio Sanchez (right) at her Copenhagen taco stand, Hija de Sanchez

Phaidon teams up with Designerbox

Gesa Hansen's Precious Light, one of the standout pieces in our book DIY, is the next Designerbox edition!

Gesa Hansen's Precious Light from our book DIY and now featured in Box #28 from Designer Box

Steven Holl on the buildings that shaped him

How Seattle’s Space Needle, Rome’s Pantheon, and Le Corbusier’s Unité d'Habitation informed his work

Steven Holl

Designer DIY with Hella Jongerius

Add a little poetry to your home with this charming sculpture, drawn up by the great Dutch designer

Penguin by Hela Jongerius, from Do It Yourself


My Body of Art - New Museum Exhibitions Director Massimiliano Gioni on the Venus of Willendorf

The curator and Phaidon author tells Artspace what he sees in this ancient European fertility sculpture

The Venus of Willendorf (22,000 – 24,000 BC). As reproduced in Body of Art

Could this arachnid nab an auction record?

Insiders think this 1997 Louise Bourgeois Spider could set a new auction record for a work by a female artist

Spider (conceived 1996, cast 1997) by Louise Bourgeois. Image courtesy of Christie's

The Art of the Map - Alfredo Jaar

Chilean artist's sinking Giardini in Venezia is a humorous statement on the inequality of the Venice Biennale

Venezia, Venezia 2013 - Alfredo Jaar

A tropical identity for a Helsinki film festival

Spanish designer Pol Solsona heats up the Finnish capital with his designs for a Latin American film festival

Pol Solsona's work for Cinemaissí

Silver Spoon Golden Memories - Andy Needham

As part of our Silver Spoon series the celebrated L'Amorosa chef tells us about his early fact finding days in Italy

Chef Andy Needham outside his latest restaurant l'Amarosa

BIG blends city living with the country life

Bjarke Ingels' 79 & Park complex manages to merge 140 apartments into Stockholm's Royal National City Park

79 & Park in Stockholm by BIG, image courtesy of Oscar Properties

Enrique Olvera meets the farmers

On his US tour, the Cosme chef hangs out with Californian farmhands, star chefs and the Chez Panisse proprietor

Enrique with the staff at Chino Farms, California, October 2015

Ferran at the Obamas' favourite Chinese restaurant

The influential Spanish chef tours China ahead of the Chinese-language publication of elBulli 2005-2011

Adrià enjoying a suckling duck dinner with China's leading chef, Dong Zhenxiang, at Da Dong in Beijing, October 2015

How the (rest of) the world went Pop

A new show at Tate Modern looks at Pop Art from around the world - curator Flavia Frigeri talks us through it

Nicola L Red Coat 1973 Collection of the artist © Nicola L.

Antony Gormley unveils E.H. Gombrich blue plaque

English Heritage honours the art historian responsible for The Story of Art, the most popular art book ever published

The sculptor Sir Antony Gormley unveils English Heritage's blue plaque dedicated to EH Gombrich, in London, October 2015. Photo by Kim Scott

Steven Holl on the early days of Zaha Hadid

The acclaimed American architect recalls his encounters with the Pritzker Prize winner in London in the 70s

From left: Steven Holl, Zaha Hadid

My Body of Art - Joel Meyerowitz on his beach photos

As a street photographer in 60s Manhattan, Joel Meyorowitz became a master at capturing the human body moving through space. In the early 80s he stepped away from the city with a View Camera - this is what happened

Longnook Beach, Truro Massachussetts 1985 - Joel Meyerowitz

My Body of Art - Zhang Huan on Mountain

To Add One Metre To An Anonymous Mountain is one of his more restrained works, here he talks about it and others

To Add One Meter To An Anonymous Mountain 1995 - Zhang Huan  Performance Mentougou District, Beijing

Stephen Shore on his most moving work ever

The legendary photographer tells us about his experience photographing Holocaust survivors in Ukraine

From Stephen Shore's Survivors in Ukraine

Emilia Terragni on what makes a great cookbook

The New York Times considers the future of the cookbook, and finds some promising new examples in our list

Phaidon publisher Emilia Terragni

What’s cooking at Noma Australia?

Ants, tropical clams, wild geese, crocodile meat and butter. Will you be booking a table at next year's pop-up?

Green ants, Australia, 2015, courtesy of René Redzepi's Instagram

In conversation with Melvin Edwards at Frieze

The veteran American sculptor discusses abstraction, racial politics and finding his place in the modern canon

Melvin Edwards at Frieze Masters, 13 October 2015

My Body of Art - Bill Arning on Sucking Toe

We ask prominent artists, curators, collectors and academics to talk about how an artist's work affected their work. Here Bill Arning, director of the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, discusses Peter Hujar's work and more

Daniel Schook Sucking Toe (Close-up) (1981) by Peter Hujar. As reproduced in Body of Art

Remembering Hilla Becher

Following her death on Sunday we look back at the German photographer's artistic and academic legacy

Bernd and Hilla Becher, Gutehoffnungshütte, Oberhausen (1963), Germany

Steven Holl on the future of architecture

The great US architect on how big-city projects can still introduce sensual qualities into our screen-dominated age

Architect Steven Holl

JR on Today (and last night)

After launching his book at a Notting Hill party last night, the artist tells the BBC how art can change the world

JR (left) and Will Gompertz (centre) and Mishal Husain in the studio of BBC Radio 4's Today programme, 14 October 2015

Get a piece of JR's art at Foyles

An exclusive work by the French artist has just been installed in the window at the store's Charing Cross branch

JR window display at Foyles

Meet the group bringing a Paris café to Frieze

The French art publishing collective castillo/corrales on why their booth is covered in wine stains and more

A shot from castillo/corrales booth, courtesy of the collective

My Body of Art - Flavia Frigeri on Blue Nude III

We ask prominent artists, curators, collectors and academics to talk about how an artist's work affected their work. Today Tate Matisse Cut-Outs curator Flavia Frigeri discusses Matisse's Blue Nude III as featured in Body of Art

Blue Nude III 1952 - Henri Matisse as featured in Phaidon's Body of Art

Will this be the most prestigious Frieze ever?

Expect perfectly conceived presentations at Masters, the odd shared stand - and some wild installations of course

Frieze London

Silver Spoon Golden Memories - Gabriele Corcos

The Cooking Channel chef recalls cooking with nonna in Tuscany for our 10th anniversary Silver Spoon celebrations

Gabriele Corcos

Jean-Léon Gérôme's Body of Art - 'Passion and skill'

A spectacle of exoticism and mythology at the moment of metamorphosis created at the end of a glittering career


The Art of the Map - Richard Hamilton

How the pop artist used the world’s most hotly contested territory as the basis for his work, Maps of Palestine

Maps of Palestine 2011 - Richard Hamilton

Steven Holl on New York's architecture fail

"No one would call it architecture - it’s just rent-collecting space!" he says about the new look Manhattan

Architect Steven Holl

Henry Darger’s Body of Art - ‘Magnificently lyrical’

The transgender children in this canonical work of outsider art are another highlight from our new book Body of Art

Detail from untitled (double-sided), illustration for In the Realms of the Unreal (mid 20th century) by Henry Darger.

Fancy a quick lie down at Frieze? You're in luck!

Art collective ÅYR build a six-room installation at the art fair in a comment on 'the commodification of cosiness'

ÅYR, Comfort, Zone, 2015. Courtesy of the artist and Frieze Projects

Why Jeff Wall likes this Herzog & de Meuron gallery

The Phaidon fine-art photographer appreciates what the Swiss firm has planned for his hometown Vancouver

The new Vancouver Art Gallery by Herzog & de Meuron. Rendering courtesy of Vancouver Art Gallery

Why Angela Merkel loves Dieter Rams

Or, at least, her 'people' do. Germany’s foremost product designer has found a permanent place in the Chancellery

Dieter Rams and Angela Merkel

Fernand Léger's Body of Art - 'A return to order'

Abstracted into tubular fragments, owing a debt to the multiple viewpoints of Cubism - another Body of Art highlight

Three Women 1921-2 Fernand Léger - as featured in Body of Art

The incredible story behind Ai Weiwei's pushchair

Royal Academy curator Adrian Locke tells us how a covert surveillance operation resulted in an astonishing artwork

Ai Weiwei Cao 2015 at the Royal Academy

The Noguchi Museum rocks out

The New York museum examines the way in which less intently worked and shaped stones can still qualify as art

An ancient Chinese rock artwork on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as installed at the Noguchi Museum, as part of Museum of Stones. Image courtesy of the museum's Instagram

Steven Holl - 'Architecture brings art into our lives'

In the first part of a wide ranging interview the great architect tells us how buildings connect us to the spiritual

Architect Steven Holl. Photograph by Mark Heitoff

JR cuts and pastes in Canada

The artist turned up for two very special openings in Canada this week - and we were there

JR at Swipe Design/401 Richmond and the AGO

Paul McCarthy’s Body of Art – ‘comic and grotesque'

In the second highlight from our hotly anticipated book Body of Art, we look at Paul McCarthy’s Painter

Still from Painter (1995) by Paul McCarthy

Here’s how we celebrated Massimo Bottura’s birthday

The Skinny Italian chef tucked into cake at our Bleecker Street offices in New York last week

Massimo Bottura at Phaidon's New York office

Watch Ai Weiwei blow up a bugging device

Someone installed a few additions to the artist's home while he was away. Here's what he did to them


George Condo's Body of Art - 'So hideous, so real'

This week we're highlighting 5 artists from the eagerly anticipated Body of Art - we start with George Condo

Orgy Composition 2008 - George Condo

How do you update a classic like Preserving?

Food writer Clotilde Dusoulier describes the challenges she faced in making this 1957 book fit for today’s cooks

The illustration for the condiments chapter in Preserving

Wilhelm Sasnal’s spooky Christopher Columbus film

The Polish artist and filmmaker draws on the New World explorer's darker side for his new short film

Still from Wilhelm Sasnal’s Columbus, 2015, super 16mm, 28 minutes. Copyright the artist, courtesy Sadie Coles HQ, London

The Art of the Map - Maya Lin

Our latest look at an artist from Map Exploring the World making their own innovative and uncharted exploration

Water Line and Blue Lake Pass - Maya Lin Installation view PaceWildenstein, New York

Rafael Viñoly's Sears Tower homage

Architect unveils new Chicago South Loop proposal - to be built one tower at a time

Crescent Heights, Chicago - Rafael Viñoly

When Ai Weiwei met Bono

Look who has just cropped up on the roving Chinese artist and dissident’s Instagram page

Ai Weiwei and Bono in Berlin, September 2015. From Ai Weiwei's Instagram

Neville Brody and Jonathan Glazer brand Channel 4

'Never mind the numerals' was the brief to the two creatives asked to 'get to the heart of the channel'

A still from one of Jonathan Glazer's new Channel 4 ident. Image courtesy of Channel 4

Fantastic Man's favourite profiles

The magazine's co-founders talk us through their perfect picks including Tom Ford, Bryan Ferry and David Walliams

Rupert Everett, front cover, issue no 1 for Spring and Summer 2005, portrait by Benjamin Alexander. From Fantastic Man

How boot camp shaped the world’s finest floral artist

Can you detect the military heritage and influences in the masterful floral creations of Belgium’s Daniel Ost?

A vegetal interpretation of Maurice Ravel's Bolero at the landfill of Sint-Niklaas, near Antwerp, Belgium features swelling clay hills and dancing leek flowers From Daniel Ost

Time to enrol at the great Italian Cooking School

Learning to cook authentic, trusted and tested Italian dishes has never been so easy, thanks to these new books

Our new editions to our Italian Cooking School range: Pasta, Pizza and Dessert

Iconic photos by Nan Goldin, Daido Moriyama, Eve Arnold and Guy Bourdin rendered in Play-Doh

As Eleanor Macnair's carefully crafted Play-Doh images get their debut showing at Atlas we ask her how it all started


A hotel to hold back the Gobi Desert

Could Margot Krasojević's high-concept sand-turbine hotel save China’s fragile northern environment?

Margot Krasojevic's sand turbine hotel for the Gobi Desert

Wolfgang Tillmans' unfiltered photo show

Is the German photographer a latterday realist? That’s certainly the implication of his current New York exhibition

The Blue Oyster Bar, Saint Petersburg, 2014 by Wolfgang Tillmans. Courtesy David Zwirner, New York. From PCR

How JR uses ballet to break down barriers

Why did this contemporary artist turn to classical ballet when telling the story of the 2005 Parisian riots?

An adaptation of Jeté Cambré, Lauren Lovette, Les Bosquets, Montfermeil, France, 2014 by JR pasted up in New York City, 2015. Image courtesy of JR's Instagram

Gombrich Explains the beauty in Caravaggio

The artist was born today, 29 Sept, 1571. Learn how he broke the rules to create his brutally honest paintings

The Incredulity of Saint Thomas (1601-1602) by Caravaggio

Dine with Magnus Nilsson in the USA

The Fäviken chef and Nordic cuisine specialist is bringing his culinary knowledge to six US cities this November

Magnus Nilsson

Davide Balula knocks holes in the Gagosian

The artist chips away at Gagosian's Athens outpost in a show inspired by Ancient Greece and Gordon Matta-Clark

Installation view of Davide Balula at Gagosian Athens. © Davide Balula. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photography by Silia Psychi

The Art of the Map - Olafur Eliasson

The innovative, European artist is obsessed with sunshine, as you can gather from his neon-lit map of the world

Daylight Map (2005) by Olafur Eliasson. As featured in Map: Exploring the World

Watch a Richard Wentworth artwork take shape

False Ceiling – Indianapolis opened at the weekend, and the museum sent us this video capturing its installation

Installation view of False Ceiling – Indianapolis (2015) by Richard Wentworth.

Why did Ellsworth Kelly help a toddler doodle?

Does his open-mindedness keep the 92-year-old artist creative? You might think so after reading this story

Ellsworth Kelly

Fantastic Man's fantastic night out

Wolfgang Tillmans deejayed, Amanda Lear created the cocktails, Fergus Henderson did the food and Phaidon provided the intellectual nourishment at Fantastic Man's tenth birthday bash in Shoreditch last night

'What? This old thing?' - Atelier Sorapol's Daniel Lismore went the extra mile (but hopefully not on public transport)

How these guys made Fantastic Man

The magazine's founders on how they went from a gay-interest quarterly to profiling Tom Ford and Bryan Ferry

Fantastic Men Jop van Bennekom and Gert Jonkers

See JR's Robert De Niro film in New York next week

The French artist will stage a preview screening of Ellis as part of his appearance at the New Yorker Festival


Help the Tate uncover art history secrets

A new site lets amateur researchers annotate Francis Bacon and Barbara Hepworth documents, among others

Document listing the details of Oval with two forms (1972) by Barbara Hepworth. Image courtesy of the Tate. The document forms part of the AnnoTate project.

The one photo that got JR into trouble

From Brazil’s favelas to the West Bank, only one picture has got the artist into hot water. Can you guess why?


The problem Alex Katz has with waiters

The 88-year-old New York painter might have found new fans in later life, yet some perennial problems remain

Passing (1990) by Alex Katz. From Alex Katz

The art Ed Ruscha made with his pop star friend

A new exhibition explores a little-known collaborative relationship predating Ed Ruscha’s arrival in LA

Mason Williams. Journal sketch. 1969. Private collection. Courtesy of Alden Projects

Theaster Gates and Okwui Enwezor party in Chicago

The Venice Biennale director embraces America's most exciting artist in celebration of his latest project

From right: Ken Stewart, Rebuild’s CEO, looks on as Okwui Enwezor embraces Theaster Gates at a dinner to celebrate Gates’ newly restored Stony Island Arts Bank, Chicago. Image from Rebuild’s Instagram, taken by Kelly Taub, for BFA partnerships