The UK’s housing chief is throwing his name into the contentious ongoing debate surrounding the role and perception of traditionalism and classical architecture in the country’s design culture and academia. The Architects’ Journal has details on Secretary Michael Gove’s foreword to a.
Collectors often say that they only regret ‘the ones that got away’. That feeling of loss at having missed out on something is much the same whether one collects paintings, fossils, sculpture, ceramics or stamps. It only intensifies when the thing being collected is particularly hard to come by, but, conversely, can be relieved by the small triumph of acquiring something else that others have overlooked or not managed to secure. In my own case, these feelings are palpable in relation to (arguably) one of the most niche areas of collecting: bookplates. As a child, I was forever creating collections of things: coins, postcards, badges, stones and even novelty erasers. In adulthood this mindset of acquisition and organisation has been focused, outside my professional life as a museum curator and director, into an enthusiasm for the more specialised domain of bookplates, informed by my love of wood engraving and illustrated books.