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Culture

Essays and videos on the arts, literature, travel, rituals and celebrations
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Design and fashion

The ornate, the aromatic, the cruel – Valentine’s cards before the age of Hallmark

16 minutes

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Rituals and celebrations

The spectacular Mardi Gras artworks born of a unique New Orleans tradition

16 minutes

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essay

History of technology

A silken web

From its mythic beginnings in a Chinese garden, the story of silk is a window into how weaving has shaped human history

Peter Frankopan, Marie-Louise Nosch & Feng Zhao

Two sphinx-like statues foreground an intricate formal garden of geometric hedges and a square pond. In the background are cherry trees in bloom
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Nature and landscape

The mystic art of gardening

In an era of 20th-century suburban sprawl, the great designer Russell Page infused soulful philosophy into his gardens

Caleb Smith

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Design and fashion

From spark of inspiration to final press – how William Blake built a book of poetry

8 minutes

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Design and fashion

The mundane becomes mesmerising in this deep dive into segmented displays

14 minutes

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Architecture

Tour the European architecture that dreamed of a wondrous, fictitious China

16 minutes

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Design and fashion

The art of Istanbul dances to life in a tribute to the city’s timeless beauty

4 minutes

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The ancient world

What wine vessels reveal about politics and luxury in ancient Athens and Persia

16 minutes

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Design and fashion

Refined towards imperfection – a ceramic artist recreates a rare Korean treasure

15 minutes

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Design and fashion

Household items are reborn in a ‘visual symphony of everyday objects’

11 minutes

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Design and fashion

From sheep to sea – an ode to the iconic sweater that warms Cornish sailors

4 minutes

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Animals and humans

Semiotics of dogs

In all its baroque and sometimes cruelly overbred forms, the dog is a paramount symbol of both human hopes and foibles

Katrina Gulliver

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History of technology

Unravelling the surprisingly epic story of the world’s oldest pair of trousers

45 minutes

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Design and fashion

The Waste Age

Recognising that waste is central, not peripheral, to everything we design, make and do is key to transforming the future

Justin McGuirk

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Information and communication

There are many ways to make a flat map of the world – each of them a unique distortion

10 minutes

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Design and fashion

Gear up for a stylish celebration of vintage motorcycle design

6 minutes

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Home

How our rooms shape our world, and vice versa

3 minutes

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Mathematics

Delight as the hard-edged world melts into a full-rainbow spectrum of reality

2 minutes

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Design and fashion

Pre-Hispanic and colonial traditions combine in Mario’s uniquely Mexican artworks

6 minutes

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Engineering

Simple objects make for epic art installations of sound and movement

20 minutes

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Design and fashion

The only thing more entrancing than a marbled book cover is the process that creates it

13 minutes

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Design and fashion

What do shoes do?

Partly of the earth, partly of our body, the shoe sits on the edge of an ontological threshold. Where can it transport us?

Randy Laist

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Architecture

The best home is a joyfully inhabited one – doubly so if its residents are design legends

11 minutes