Having closed its doors in 2004, and playing host to squatters in recent months, there's finally some good news to report about the Commonwealth Institute in west London. The disused building is to be the welcome recipient of £20 million development plan, with hopes to turn it into an art gallery (yay!), museum (double-yay!) or "centre for a corporate foundation" (erm, possibly yay - we're not sure what that means). This should hopefully mean......

Speaking of property, rumours are circulating that the Fitrovian telecoms stick could be transformed into a boutique hotel. Not the beanpole part, but the bulky base areas. BT have appointed a team of designers to look into the concept, reports the Times, picking up on a subscription-only piece in the Estates Gazette. In addition, the famous rotating restaurant could become a public space for the first time since a bomb attack in 1971. If......

Four years, countless consultancy fees, umpteen broken promises and many millions of pounds later, Clissold Leisure Centre in Stoke Newington is finally re-opening this weekend. For those who've not followed the saga, here's the story in brief. In 2000 the Centre opened amidst a brass band's worth of pomp and publicity, the very model of a modern, major, New Labour endorsed Lottery-funded Millennium project. Come early 2004, the facility was closed, having accumulated a......

It's tempting to bask in the success of the re-branded O2 and write off the building's seven year existence as useless white elephant de nos jours as a bad dream. Unfortunately, that was no nightmare, and it seems that financially the Millennium Dome never stood a chance. The assembled politicians and VIPs had barely clunked their awkward way through Auld Lang Syne on December 31st, 1999, before the whole project was skint. Newly released......

From the outside, you wouldn't guess anything was going on behind the peeling, Georgian facade at all but inside, what was once called "the handsomest room in town" was graced by equally handsome Hugh Grant and the luscious Helen Mirren as part of a fundraiser to raise awareness of the ever worsening plight of Wilton's Music Hall. Earlier this year, Wiltons hit the headlines when it was listed in the World Monuments Fund top......

Girls from Greece with a thirst for knowledge looking to study sculpture will soon have a new home. Central St Martin's College of Art and Design is taking up residency in King's Cross to the delight of residents. Not everyone, however, is so enthused as the space for the new campus is currently home to three night clubs. The Cross, the Key, and Canvas are all due to host their final nights on New......

A Putney cottage designed by Erno Goldfinger has been illegally destroyed. Arbus Ltd, of Croydon, applied for permission to pull down the building in 2002, but was refused. Living up to his surname, Director of the company Rajiv Laxman paid little heed to the order and the building’s Grade II listed status, demolishing the cottage anyway. He’s now been ordered to pay £11,000 and forced to rebuild the property using the same design and......

Ever stop to wonder about the legacy of romantic comedy ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’? Every other minute of your work week? Well, you’re in luck, as today’s the day that Londonist tackles this very question. Sort of. Mild-mannered examination of love and marriage in the 1990s? Check. Perpetuator of the stereotype of the fumbling, floppy-haired English male? Check. Beyond that, though, the movie’s legacy becomes a bit more jumbled, as evidenced by recent......

A week after opening for the Queen, St Pancras International is finally ready for the likes of us. The station has been restored beyond its former glory. Britain's answer to Central Station is ready for business. Everyone knows by now that the sumptious Euston Road frontage to the station was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott. But what else in London did the Great Scott design? Time to dust off our old 'Stalks' series,......

There’s plenty of tomes on the market describing our city’s buildings. A search on Amazon for the term ‘London architecture’ yields 1070 results. Into this crowded marketplace - one of the few not designed by Horace Jones - steps the London Atlas of Architecture. It’s a highly visual guide with up to eight photographs per page and plenty of maps. Section one is a chronology of architecture, spanning 1800 years from the Roman wall......

Hitler notwithstanding, testicles customarily gather in pairs. Yet London only has one - the glass bollock near Tower Bridge known as City Hall. The less said about its daily ejaculations, the better. This gonadic deficiency will soon be redressed, thanks to a new scheme from Hamiltons Architects and Development Securities. They’ve received planning permission for this bulbous office block in Hammersmith. The ten-storey scheme will squat next to the Hammersmith and City station, and......

Thanks to a new grant, previously unseen areas of St Paul’s may be opened to the public. The £250,000 pot from the World Monument’s Fund, could see a new ‘exploration centre’ in the crypt, and access to the Trophy Room, containing Wren’s original model. But what else might we find when they open up more of St Paul’s? 1. God. 2. Thousands of tourists 3. A couple of Londoners 4. Lara Croft’s entombed remains......

Our much feted and stylish monarch opened the all-new and yet all-old St. Pancras terminal today after a 10 year revamp (of the station that is, not the Queen). The station is (as of next week) to be home to Eurostar after a 5.8 billion pound upgrade of the railway line between London and the coast (which now means trains can actually go as fast as they do on French soil instead of going shstikoff-shstikoff-shstikoff-all-the-way-home).......

Revolting peasants and Scottish heroes, a buried river, and a 1000 years of death, slaughter and destruction. Smithfield surely deserves some kind of cultural centre. And there just happens to be the perfect place to put it, if we act fast… As many readers will know, several buildings of the famous meat-market complex are under threat. The General market, Fish market and Red House are in a dilapidated state and the targets for demolition......

What do you do if you’ve got a gallery full of works by William Morris, one of Britain’s most famous artists, and you’re a cash-strapped borough council? (a) Publicise the gallery and get loads of tourists spending their money there. (b) Hitch a ride on green awareness — Morris was an early environmentalist and the collection is housed in his former home, in magnificent grounds, all of which the borough owns. (c) Suggest giving......

View Larger Map So what happened to all those lovely new towers we were promised? The Shard, the helter-skelter, the cheesegrater and their friends have been around as designs for years. But where have they got to? If you've checked the City skyline lately, you'll notice it's all cranes. Things are finally happening and everything's in place for a new-look London for 2011. Here's a tour of five of the more prominent sites, all of......

This weekend Bloomsbury erupts with the Bloomsbury Festival celebrating this famous area. Well known for its literary and historical significance it is also a thriving haven for arts and artists and packed full of beautiful, quirky, intriguing buildings and organisations and the chockerblock programme reflects every aspect of life in Bloomsbury Quarter. Check this out: The Egypt Exploration Society, Foundling Museum, Charles Dickens Museum and the October Gallery are among the "Open Houses" over......

Strange goings-on are promised this weekend at Olafur Eliasson's Serpentine Pavilion. Robots! Kissing booths! Out-of-body experiences! It can only mean one thing - the return of the Experiment Marathon. After an interview-heavy 2006 debut, this year's Marathon has doubled in length, running from Saturday to Sunday, and the focus is on balancing audience involvement and active experimentation with talks and lectures. The 'grotto' of the Pavilion (dubbed a crashed flying saucer by the Times)......

Yesterday saw St Martin-in-the-Fields reopen its revamped and expanded crypt cafe hot on the heels of Sunday's first church service for 90 weeks following a multi-million pound renewal and restoration project. The 18th century landmark church, which opens onto Trafalgar Square, is dearly loved in London not only for just being there but for its fantastic concert programme. This includes jazz nights, classical evenings, free lunchtime concerts and the famous and atmospheric Concerts by......

London has as many hotel projects underway as the whole of Spain and five times as many as the second busiest city in Europe in terms of hotel development, Moscow. Surprising, innit? This is the opening message of the latest temporary exhibition at New London Architecture, that wonderful and free gallery on Store Street. By focusing on just one building type, Away From Home - New Hotels in London reminds us of the huge......

Peaceful protest: there's a lot of it about. This weekend brought news of demonstrators occupying Wembley Park Sports Ground, campaigning against plans for a City Academy to be built on the land. Faced with recent threat of eviction, the tent city teachers and other protesters are taking to tree houses to extend their occupation. The protest has already established 30 tents and a colourful garden (attracting lots of bumble bees) on the site which......

If you've just landed a last minute date for tomorrow and were wondering where to take them to impress them with your urbanity, sensitivity, culture, quirkiness and cool then we've got something for you. Wilton's Music Hall (old, delapidated, threatened Victorian icon) is hosting Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire (atonal, landmark song cycle) by Transition_projects (contemporary, experimental arm of resident opera company) and a world premiere by young composer Ryan Wigglesworth (cutting edge kudos), featuring a......

This chesty old hoare-nut comes round time and again. What's the most emblematic edifice in the capital? To end all debate, Londonist went in for a more scientific approach than petty arguing on a forum. We visited all the London web sites we could think of. In each case, we noted down which structures the site features in its logo or banner. The one chosen by the most websites wins. So was it Tower......

As the "summer" holidays limp to their unseasonable end, September's looming with an alluring offer from one of London's finest and funkiest theatres. The groovy Young Vic is offering £10 tickets to the previews of its new season production "The Member of the Wedding". Opening on 7 September the show is a revival of a Carson McCullers play set in deep South Georgia in 1945 and follows the small town dreams of 12 year......

Today, a very marvellous structure opens to the public in Kensington Gardens. The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, designed by the Tate Modern sun maker, Olafur Eliasson, and award winning architect, Kjetil Thorsen has been described as a spinning top with mind-bogglingly complex geometries and a dark, spiralling ramp twisting around a shell-like auditorium, containing it within taut, twisting strings Our first impression is that is looks like a helter skelter, urban, park shark about to......

The annual Open House weekend is just around the corner. Over 600 buildings will open doors to the non-paying public on 15-16 September. To make the most of the two days, and avoid the longest queues, it makes sense to plan ahead. You can pick up a brochure form participating libraries, or order online for £4. It’s a small price to pay for an event that requires hundreds of volunteers and puts you face......

Tourist season in rain-soaked down-town London, and all the big museums are, shall we say, a tad busy. But Londonist always has something up its sleeve for a rainy day. And for those of you inclined towards higher aesthetic planes, we would strongly recommend the Design Museum in Shad Thames, more particularly their current exhibition featuring the works of ‘starchitect’ Zaha Hadid. It is hard to over-state the achievements of this prolific lady –......

You've seen those adverts for a well known building society, right? – the ones with the annoying chap explaining that it ‘doesn’t work like that’. Change the building society for the Ordnance Survey (our national mapping agency) and make Google the customer for a farce that has made London the laughing stock of the mapping world. Fly around Google Earth and you will see 3D models of cities around the world, but fly into......

Size really is everything to Willard Wigan. Using an intricate surgical blade and an eyelash for a paintbrush he sculpts minute, marvellous, teeny weeny things. One such, his piece de resistance, is an incredibly detailed replica of the famous Lloyds Building sculpted on a pinhead. A pinhead! Imagine that. While you're there, imagine a Scotty dog in a grain of sand, Marilyn Monroe the size of a microdot and the Statue of Liberty in......

Unless you’ve had your head buried in the sand since Blair morphed into Brown, the government has now put housing at the forefront of the political agenda, having realised that the current lack of residential units being built is totally inadequate. At the frontline of this campaign is the need to build more homes in brown-field sites in our cities so that we can edge towards those housing targets of about 200,000 a year.......