Future cities – biomimicry
Michael Pawlyn is a conceptual and functional pioneer. As the founder of Exploration Architecture, a practice that challenges the fundamental processes of traditional design by initiating schemes derived fr...
Futurecities – urban promise
Glass traces the path of the utopian city, from the sci-fi visions of the ’60s to Norman Foster’s zero carbon project and a tower to rival Everest. But which holds the key to our survival?
Two major fact...
Like the wind
Multifaceted and renowned cinematographer Christopher Doyle speaks to Glass about the inception of his remarkable career and a life devoted to his art form
As Christopher Doyle’s Chinese name, Du Ke Feng...
When the world says no
When Yoko Ono was a young girl living in Japan she witnessed the tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The indescribable horror of the atomic bombs hitting the two cities and concluding WWII in 1945 will forev...
How to create an artwork
Joe Zucker’s “process” art over the last 40 years has been eccentric, puzzling and uniquely appealing in its formal logic. Varying wildly in approach and technique, his work is concerned with ideas of art s...
A message for you …
If you’re reading this then you are the recipient of the first ever successful international flight by paper aeroplane. It is made from no ordinary paper. It is actually a special kind of paper, f...
Wunderkind – Glass looks at the career of the tearaway photographic protégé Chris von Wangenheim
Ironically, the year of the death of the photographer, Elsa Neuländer-Simon, known as Yva, coincided with the birth of another highly talented German photographer who would complete this holy trinity of fashi...
Rediscovering Yva
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The name Elsa Neuländer-Simon (1900–1942), or Yva, her photographic pseudonym, is more often than not a footnote in the career of her famed apprentice, Helmut Newton. With little information and a...
The Bow-Wow factor
With a population of nearly 13 million living in an area of just 2,187 square kilometres, Tokyo is one of the most densely populated cities in the world. Architecturally speaking, Tokyo is a young developme...
Glass speaks to three masters of Chinese Opera – Professor Tsai Tsan-huang, Man Chin-sui and Pai Hsien-yung
Passion and prose – Chinese Opera in its many forms is a triumph of spirit and reinvention but can it survive the threat of modernisation? Glass speaks to three masters of this timeless art
For alm...
The house that dreams built
The hallowed name of the house of Chanel could in itself be a synonym for rapture. Few maisons have managed to inspire such legions of loyal fans. Fewer still can cause hysteria simply with the introduction of ...
A record of what we are
“We are now making history, and the sun picture supplies the means of passing down a record of what we are, and what we have achieved in this 19th century …” John Thomson, 1891.
Such a statement could on...
Life is beautiful
Frankly speaking, interviewing someone famous is always a challenge. It is hard to get something new, deep or meaningful when they have had so many experiences but too little time, and perhaps little inclinatio...
The songbirds of China
The 1930s Shanghai’s Jazz scene rivalled those of Paris or New York but it was the female vocalists who defined the era. Glass speaks to two living legends. In 1934, jazz composer and pianist Duke Ellingto...
Brave new world
The June sunshine dapples on the slate at the Temple of Heaven, the Water Cube and Bird’s Nest sit still as two audacious beacons of a sprawling Beijing beaming across the globe. In a city where the East me...