Doesn't sunshine make everything seem better? Alright, it's been brass monkeys but nothing lifts the winter blues like bright skies, crisp air and early daffodils. It's half term for most kids this week so your commute might even be more pleasant. In which case, perhaps you'll be more inclined to get out after work and try something different that's light on your wallet and heavy on aceness. After all, we really can't afford good......

Frank Gehry will design this year’s Serpentine pavilion. The Kensington Gardens gallery gains a temporary annexe each year, designed by a guest architect with no previous London commissions. And they always bag a big name - Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Daniel Liebeskind, Oscar Niemeyer… So this year it will be Frank Gehry, who is perhaps best known for designing the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (pictured). It’s a shame he wasn’t the architect of 2007’s......

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)......

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......

If you haven't had chance to yet, get down to Free Range this week to see what's happening. Joe Waller, a Camberwell graphic design student is one of the artists you can see exhibiting there. Tell us more about you and your artwork. I grew up in the West End of London so my environment has always stimulated my work. Much of my current artistic inspiration comes from my past writing graffiti and walking......

Some idiots queued for five hours to get a £5 designer carrier bag from Sainsburys. We've always thought that there aren't half enough pavillions in London. So it is with great pleasure that we tell you that one that looks like a spinning top is being erected next to the Serpentine Gallery. London Buses are running over everyone. Deptford blew up so there will be delays if your train involves London Bridge. Image courtesy......

So Tate Modern gets turned into a minimalist, brushed steel, grown-ups adventure playground and meanwhile, in Battersea, another London power station has a makeover... Like the bottle of olive oil in an Italy-shaped novelty glass bottle that has been in the kitchen cupboard since that trip to Florence in 2004, London has always been meaning to do something with Battersea Power Station. It just sits there. It shouldn't be wasted. It's still useful. C'mon, think.........

The Londonist Literary List appears every Tuesday. If you'd like to bring an event to our attention, please email londonistlit@gmail.com. Wednesday To eat or not to eat? Professor of Ethics Peter Singer, author of “Animal Liberation” and “How Are We to Live?: Ethics in an Age of Self-Interest” gives us food for thought in his new book Eating, in which he discusses the effects of the diet choices we make (to ourselves and the......

Tonight The Illustrated London Noise unfolds tonight at the ICA. THis collective of record-hunting obsessives meet every month to share their vinyl findings and the evening can include any number of musical discoveries from gospel to psychedelia, from punk rock to Japanese drumming. If you're going, you're invited to bring your own favourite discovery (vinyl only, please!) to share with everyone else - the aim is to "surprise and delight even the most hardened......

You know how London buildings always get nicknames (gherkin, cheesegrater, giant glass testicle, yada, yada, yada)? Well we’re wondering what this one’s going to be called. The Translucent Egg? The Floaty Ovum? The Breast Implant? This is the cracking design for the 2006 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, by Rem Koolhaas and Cecil Balmond. Each year, a leading architect is asked to create a striking and innovative temporary structure to adorn the grounds of the Serpentine......

Tired of the telly? All Playstationed out? Over the next three days we'll bring you a guide to the best holiday season art exhibitions. So grab your coat, we’re goin’ down the galleries. National Portrait Gallery: Cornel Lucas - Shooting Stars Brings together fifty of Cornel Lucas's portraits including iconic images of Joan Collins, Dirk Bogarde and Lauren Bacall. Why you should see it: Four words - Brigitte Bardot in fishnets. National Portrait Gallery, St......

Cripes, we not really sure where to start. So many exhibitions and only 31 days to see them all in – just remember to pack your brolly because looking outside it seems winter is here again. Tomorrow marks the opening of Edvard Munch by Himself at the Royal Academy. There are over 150 works on display, mostly self-portraits, that span the stylistic and psychological changes he went through during in his career. To put......

As always, Londonist is looking out for the cultural well-being of all of our readers. This week we are bringing you a list of exhibitions that are on in London that may (or may not) interest you but we figure if we list a few options one of them is bound to appeal to the art lover in you. Londonist favourite Alexander Calder is showing at Thomas Dane in SW1. You may know him......

Yes, we know – everyone is talking about the Dan Flavin exhibition at Haunch of Venison, but that is with good reason – it is spectacular! Flavin was an American artist who revolutionized modern sculpture with his light installations throughout the world. He began sketching his sculptures, but eventually they became entire rooms of light which he designed. Flavin also did some work with the lighting in Grant Central Station in New York City. You......

Very sad news today: the proposed 'mountain project' for Kensington Gardens has been postponed for at least a year. The idea was to get Dutch architectural firm MVRDV to built a grass-covered "temporary mountain" on to the back of the Serpentine Gallery (most people are happy with a conservatory or maybe a loft conversion, but not the Serpentine, oh no). The project was always regarded as a bit ambitious and now it seems the......