Ellen Himelfarb

1 week ago | telegraph.co.uk | Ellen Himelfarb

From hipster hangouts to grab-and-go holes-in-the-wall, the Chinese city's appetite for coffee shows no signs of slowingOn a weekday morning in Shanghai's French Concession, "rush hour" seems far less urgent than you might expect. Under a blue sky - evidence of the gradual shift out of the factory economy - people cycle to work on Dutch-style bikes or stroll with their earbuds pumping Chinese pop.

1 week ago | thespaces.com | Ellen Himelfarb

When Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen opened in Rotterdam in 2021, its 35-metre art-filled atrium, designed by MVRDV architects, revolutionised and democratised how museums utilise the vast majority of their collections normally relegated to closed storage.

2 weeks ago | thespaces.com | Ellen Himelfarb

For two years, I’ve been planning, and failing, to visit Maison La Roche, the semi-detached villa Le Corbusier and his cousin Pierre Jeanneret designed on a lot behind an elegant residential terrace in Paris. The 16th arrondissement, an appealing alternative base to the city’s chaotic centre, was Corbusier’s stamping ground.

2 weeks ago | thespaces.com | Ellen Himelfarb

The three-day London festival organisers call Clerkenwell Design Week, involves 17 venues and 200 showrooms within a square mile of central London. Activating one of the oldest areas of the city, the annual conclave of craft is worth touring to admire the interplay of innovative design with the ancient streetscape, most enjoyably where collaborative installations pop up beneath a Gothic arch or cobbled cul-de-sac.

3 weeks ago | thespaces.com | Ellen Himelfarb

For decades, Rotterdam‘s Katendrecht peninsula languished between the city’s past and future. Once a major transport hub for goods sailing toward the New World, it also processed emigrants like Albert Einstein, Willem de Kooning and Max Beckmann as they boarded the Holland America Line for America. Postwar, the immense warehouses overlooking the water formed a backdrop to the Red Light District.