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He was the anarchist of 1980s design, but the technical wizardry in his current London show feels over-polished and out of touch

Unless you die young, it's difficult to be a hero for ever. Heroes are commercialised. They succumb to what Norman Mailer called "exhaustion of the will". Or they simply go out of fashion. And that's what happened to Ron Arad – or at least, that's what we thought had happened. But the Israeli-born, London-based designer of bold, sculptural furniture has never been more ubiquitous. In the last year, a major retrospective of his work has bounced from the Centre Pompidou in Paris to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, recently landing at London's Barbican.

Arad is one of the design world's few nameable stars. Most people will probably know his Tom Vac chair (1993), a rippled plastic armchair on steel legs that once abounded in cool restaurants. Or perhaps his bestselling Bookworm bookshelf, a flexible ribbon that holds your books in a spiral. But these are merely the outward signs of his commercial success. He also works as an artist, selling one-off pieces for sometimes hundreds of thousands of pounds, and as an architect and teacher. Over the last decade he has been hugely influential at the Royal College of Art, where he was head of the Design Products department until last year. Arad wasn't interested in teaching people how to be professional industrial designers: he wanted to teach them how to think for themselves, and a generation of designers graduated wanting to work just as he did – as a designer-maker, free from the technical constraints set by manufacturers.

To understand Arad the hero, visitors to the Barbican show should head straight up to the mezzanine galleries to soak up his early work from the 1980s. There they'll find a stereo and speakers encased in concrete, which look as though they've been hauled off a building site or hacked from a sea wall. Can you imagine a rougher envelope for all that delicate technology? So much for the precious, garish styling of the designer decade. Arad, recently graduated from the Architectural Association, had broken out of architecture to do his own thing. His work was raw and muscular, but also rich and clever.

It all started with an old leather car seat bolted to some scaffolding pipes. The Rover chair (1981), an emblem of Britain's fading car industry spliced with some DIY high-tech structure, was an instant punk icon, the furniture equivalent of the Sex Pistols' ransom-note typography. Before Arad had even noticed any connection to the prevailing counter-culture, Jean-Paul Gaultier was knocking on his door to buy six. He went on to hammer metal into clunky thrones such as the Tinker chair (1988), and turn looped steel sheets into a parody of your auntie's upholstered armchair in the Well-Tempered chair (1986). It was visceral stuff, and what's more, it looked like he was having fun.

Fast forward two decades to this show, and you see the Rover chair again – except this time it's made of flawless chrome. The sheer shininess of it epitomises everything that went wrong with design in the noughties. Galleries were falling over themselves to produce ultra-expensive limited editions for a growing collectors' market buoyed by the economic bubble. You want your chair in Carrara marble? You got it. The bling world of design-art was too often about expense for the sake of it. It was an upgrade of materials, but not of imagination.

None of that is Arad's fault. He had been blurring the distinction between design and art for decades, and we should thank him for it. It's not boundary-crossing that's the problem, it's the fact that the edginess of Arad's work has been replaced by a flabby, over-polished mannerism. It's too slick. Take a series of recent rocking chairs called the Voids (an apt name): no doubt they are technically impressive, but whether they're made of tiger-stripe acrylic or lacquered aluminium, there's no disguising that the designs are utterly vacuous. His architecture is even worse – this exhibition gives him so much credit for also being an architect that you wonder whether the curators have actually looked at these buildings. They're heinous: scaled-up, self-indulgent gewgaws.

Arad has been an early adopter of new materials and technologies – he used rapid prototyping (a method of 3D printing using plastic resin) to make a series of fruit bowls, and he incorporated text messaging into a chandelier for Swarovski – but often abandons them before he's achieved anything of substance. The show is a celebration of his magpie ingenuity, but you won't find much under the surface. Arad's work is all technique. It's pure expression through materials, form and movement. That means you can only judge it using taste. One of his giant rocking chairs (he loves rocking chairs) or overblown bookcases will bring someone a sudden jolt of pure joy, while the person next to them will retch. He's the design equivalent of Marmite.

The superbness of it all is part of the problem. It's so bombastic that it doesn't leave you any room to be you – Arad is too busy blinding you with who he is. There is no sociological dimension to his work; it's not about people, it's about him.

The reason why this show feels out of touch is that we've moved on. Sure, Arad helped erode the boundaries of design, but which boundaries are we interested in? If design is going to rediscover its sense of purpose, it has to crossbreed with other disciplines, from biotechnology to healthcare. The most interesting contemporary designers are already crossing those thresholds; Arad, though, feels like he's been left far behind.

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Tour the condemned housing block in north London, where more than 75 artists have transformed its empty rooms and flaking walls into colourful works of temporary art

The Sheet Architecture News Architecture, Art, Art and design, Culture, Editorial, Exhibitions, guardian.co.uk, Installation, Sculpture

Exhibition by trailblazing Israeli-born designer, architect and artist opens in London, his hometown for more than 35 years

There are bookshelves that bounce and roll, cutlery that pirouettes, a chandelier that you can text and chairs. Lots and lots of chairs. In what may be one of the most comfortable exhibitions of recent years, Britain's first major Ron Arad retrospective opens tomorrow.

The Barbican's art gallery in London is following up major shows it has held on Corbusier and Alvar Aalto by devoting three months to a designer, architect and artist still very much alive and working. Arad, who was born in Israel but has been based in London for more than 35 years, said he hoped anyone "interested in things" would visit.

The head of art galleries at the ­Barbican, Kate Bush, said: "We want to pay tribute to Ron Arad's very special place in the world of design. He is an incredibly important figure and this exhibition lays out his vision and his process as it has evolved over 30 years."

The show is divided into sections with names such as Volumising, Rolling, Superforming and Scavenging, where one of Arad's most celebrated chairs – the Rover chair, which uses a car seat salvaged from a scrap yard – is exhibited.

Then there is the Failing section, displaying designs that weren't taken up, or were misconceived. That includes the "table that eats chairs" in which chairs can be folded underneath the table top. "I think it was too complicated for the manufacturer," said the show's curator Lydia Yee, "but Ron's still confident that someone will come along."

There have been recent Arad shows at the Pompidou in Paris and Moma in New York, but the one in London was completely ­different, said its curator, Lydia Yee. "Ron wanted to do something new in his home town and we wanted … to show his ­interest in new materials and in new technologies."

There is a crystal chandelier called Lolita which has more than a thousand embedded LED lights and its own mobile number to which one can send texts, which are then displayed.

Arad and his studio have also created mechanical tricks to show off some of the pieces such as a long moving platform for bookshelves called "reinventing the wheel". The idea is that you can roll your bookshelves where you would like them – perfect for the indecisive – but there is a wheel within the wheel so the books remain upright.

For many, Arad will be best known for his chairs, many of which are on display and which are most definitely not for sitting on. A large section of the gallery will, however, contain chairs where visitors can take the weight off their feet and – should they wish – play table tennis on a stainless steel ping pong table designed by Arad to suit his game.

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The earthquake that killed so many also demolished the island's galleries and destroyed thousands of paintings

Number 18 Rue Bouvreuil was once a mecca for lovers of Haitian art. Outside the Musee Galerie d'Art Nader, perched on a hillside overlooking Port-au-Prince, a sign greeted visitors. "On top of the town, top in the arts," it boasted. Inside, the walls were plastered with thousands of paintings recording nearly a century of Haitian history.

Now the three-storey art gallery is gone, reduced to a dusty heap of rubble and torn canvases. Broken picture frames from irreplaceable local masterpieces poke from the gallery's ruins.

"My dad has about 12,000 paintings here and we are trying to save what is left," said Georges Nader, the son of Haiti's best-known art collector and the owner of the gallery, as he scanned the debris. "We have only been able to save about 2,000 of them."

The human cost of Haiti's worst earthquake in more than 200 years – at least 150,000 lives lost – has been well documented. But the disaster also struck a knockout blow to the heart of Haiti's vibrant arts community.

Several galleries were destroyed and thousands of paintings lost under the rubble of flattened government buildings and art museums.

The Cathédrale Sainte-Trinité, built in the early 1920s, was almost completely destroyed, taking with it a series of celebrated 1950s murals depicting scenes from the life of Christ. A painting by Guillaume Guillon Lethière, the 18th century French neoclassical painter, is thought to have been destroyed when the presidential palace collapsed.

"There are paintings from 1905 that have been lost," said Cedoir Sainterne, an artist from the city's Pétionville district. "It's terrible. We are going to have to start all over again."

Nowhere was the destruction greater than at the Musee Galerie d'Art Nader, Haiti's largest private collection of Haitian and Caribbean art.

"When it [the earthquake] started I said, 'What the hell is that?' And I ran out," said Nader, whose father, also called Georges, was one of the biggest patrons of the local art scene. "I was in an 11-storey building and I saw the building shaking and shaking and moving in all directions.

"The next day when I came here and I went downtown I saw everything. I don't think there is any word to explain that [what happened] to the world … You have to be here to see what is going on."

Nader's parents, both 79, survived. When the quake struck they were sleeping in the only room of the museum that emerged unscathed.

Stunned, they fled to the neighbouring Dominican Republic, where Nader says his mother suffered a heart attack. They then headed to Miami. "The first day my reaction was that anything material was not that important for me. When you see your dad is safe and your mum is safe I was OK," said Nader.

"But when I came it was very sad. My dad loves Haitian art. He lives for Haitian art. His life is Haitian art. This is a guy that won't buy a house [because] he would prefer to buy Haitian art."

Nader quickly called in some Haitian friends from New York in an attempt to save some of the collection. Several paintings by Hector Hyppolite, Haiti's most revered painter, have already been plucked from the wreckage.

At the Musee Galerie d'Art Nader dozens of men were wading through the rubble. Occasionally they emerged clasping canvases depicting scenes of rural life or voodoo ­ceremonies. Some of the paintings were by Alexandre Gregoire, one of Haiti's first generation of naive artists, whose work has been sold at Sotheby's in New York.

Also among the rubble was an information card from an exhibit by the Haitian artist Adam Leontus. "Leontus has taken part in many national and international exhibitions," it read in black typewriting. Leontus's paintings were nowhere to be seen.

Nader said the museum's losses, estimated at up to $30m (£19m), could not be replaced with any amount of money. "We have lost the biggest collection of Haitian art, not only in Haiti but in the world," he said, clambering down from the roof of what was once his family gallery. "There are pieces that you won't be able to find any more. This is finished."

Amid the destruction and despair, some Haitian artists are seeking inspiration in the disaster. One graffiti artist has taken to daubing a map of Haiti on walls around the city: a weeping eye looks out from Port-au-Prince's location, above the words "We need help".

Artist Frantz Zephirin has painted more than a dozen canvases inspired by the quake, showing distraught faces trapped in ruined buildings and hands reaching up through a sea of blood.

Elise Francisco, an artist who has sold paintings to Nader's father, said it was important artists registered the ­earthquake. "I'll paint the houses that have fallen, the buildings that are destroyed, the cracked land," he said. "We are going to show our children what happened here. This is our history."

Cultural wealth

Haiti may be the poorest country in the western hemisphere, but fans of its art say it is the Caribbean's most culturally wealthy nation.

From the intricately crafted tap-tap buses that clatter through Port-au-Prince to the explosively colourful paintings that once adorned the walls of its many art galleries, it is impossible to miss the creative spirit of the world's first independent black republic.

While there are records of art schools dating back to the early 19th century, Haitian artists only began to gain international recognition in the 1940s, following the creation of Port-au-Prince's Centre d'Art. Dozens of "naive artists", among them voodoo priests and small-time farmers, gathered there to depict Haiti's turbulent history in unmistakably colourful and often surreal paintings and patchworks of "voodoo flags".

The centre's role in promoting Haitian art is disputed. Some say it discovered and nurtured a generation of talented but untrained artists; ­others say it merely helped already skilled artists make contact with overseas buyers, bringing much-needed funds to the local art scene.

Through the centre, Hector Hyppolite, a one-time shoemaker and voodoo priest, became Haiti's most internationally revered artist, leading a generation of local painters whose instantly recognisable canvases featured religious imagery and scenes of the country's life.

More than 60 years after his death, Hyppolite's works fetch six-figure sums while several other Haitian folk artists, including Philome Obin and Wilson Bigaud, have become well-known. The Haitian-American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, a one-time collaborator of Andy Warhol, often alluded to his Haitian roots in his paintings, which have been sold for millions at auctions.

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German museum once dubbed the most beautiful in the world set to welcome back artworks banished by the Nazis

On a visit in 1932, Paul J Sachs, the co-founder of New York's Museum of Modern Art, referred to it as "the most beautiful museum in the world", whose influence stretched way beyond German borders. But then one of Europe's first and finest public collections of contemporary art was declared "degenerate" by the Nazis, the Folkwang was brutally broken up and 1,400 of its works – including Chagalls, Picassos, Matisses, Kirchners and Gauguins – were strewn around the world.

This weekend the museum, in the western German city of Essen, will be returned to its former glory as a temple to modern art with the opening of the British architect David Chipperfield's much-vaunted new glass and concrete space.

The building, say critics, exudes calm. One described it as "resembling a meditation centre", another likened it to "snowflakes in a glass skirt", so weightless does it appear from inside and out compared with much of the Ruhr valley's heavy industrial architecture.

Summing up what he thought important about his design, Chipperfield – who beat other celebrated architects including Zaha Hadid and David Adaye to win the commission – said: "You want to lose yourself in it, as well as being able to orientate yourself."

The Folkwang building, a series of cubes whose windows are made out of recycled glass, reinforces London-born Chipperfield's status in Germany as a darling of modern architecture. It comes hot on the heels of his highly ambitious transformation of Berlin's war-torn Neues Museum.

The Folkwang redesign, which to the Germans' delight was completed on schedule and within budget, will come into its own in March with the opening of the exhibition The Most Beautiful Museum in the World. The show will bring together for the first time in more than 70 years the artworks that were stripped from the gallery's walls by the Nazis in 1936.

Among the returning treasures will be works by Oskar Kokoscha, Wassily Kandinsky and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Marc Chagall's vibrant Purimfest, a dusky self-portrait by Giorgio di Chirico, Paul Gauguin's Contes Barbares, as well as Grazing Horses by Franz Marc, currently in the Harvard Art Museum, will hang once again in Essen.

The Folkwang collection – the name derives from Hall of Freyja, the Norse goddess of love and beauty – was first established in 1902 by the cultural philanthropist Karl-Ernst Osthaus, whose vision was to anchor modern art in the centre of urban life. The Folkwang model subsequently inspired many art museums around the world.

The €55m reconstruction was made possible by Berthold Beitz, a philanthropist and former steel baron whose name is inextricably linked with the fortunes of industrial Germany and who initiated his Krupp Foundation to finance the project.

The 96-year old, who greatly plays down his little-known role in saving 800 Jews from the Holocaust by convincing the Nazis they were vital to the war effort, said returning the museum to its former status was his gift to the citizens of Essen. "My only wish had been that I'd be alive to see it, and now my dream has been fulfilled," he said.

The Sheet Architecture News Architecture, Art, Art and design, Culture, Germany, guardian.co.uk, Museums, News, World news

Theo van Doesburg was one of the most daring and influential artists of the avant garde, yet he is often overshadowed by his contemporaries. A new exhibition is set to change this, writes Simon Mawer

Everyone knows Piet Mondrian, so why is it that almost nobody knows the equally Dutch, equally abstract Theo van Doesburg, subject of a forthcoming exhibition at Tate Modern? Why is Mondrian the celeb while Van Doesburg is a mere footnote to 20th-century art, a name that keeps cropping up while never taking centre stage? It can't be the paintings, because if you're honest you'll admit that the two men – almost direct contemporaries (Van Doesburg was eight years younger) and, for a while, close friends – did virtually the same thing in paint, although I suppose tiny detail is significant in such arcane matters: according to some commentators, Van Doesburg's daring introduction of the diagonal into his work was enough to cause a rift between the two men. We live in days when an artist would have to bottle his grandmother in urine before anyone would be mildly shocked, so it's refreshing to know that in the 1920s an argument over the use of diagonal lines was sufficient to break off a relationship.

Presumably another reason for ­Mondrian's greater fame is those ­little dresses that Yves Saint Laurent ­created in the 60s, which elevated the reclusive Dutch artist to the status of a design icon. But perhaps the major reason is that Mondrian stuck to his guns. Both artists evolved out of the Dutch figurative tradition into complete abstraction at exactly the same time, but while Mondrian remained with his bleak, geometric painting throughout his life, Van Doesburg had other ideas, dozens of them. You reach out to grab Mondrian and what have you got? An abstract painter, rather solitary, rather austere. You try the same thing with Van Doesburg and he's as slippery as an eel. Painter, poet, art critic, designer, typographer, architect, performance artist – he was all those things and more. Proteus himself. A fox to Mondrian's hedgehog.

So who was he? Born Christian Emil Küpper in 1883 into an artistic family in Utrecht, he only became "Theo Doesburg" when he started painting – his adopted name being borrowed from his stepfather. The "van" was added later, in much the same way that Ludwig Mies added "van der" when he merged his mother's maiden name, Rohe, with his own paternal surname. One detects a similar feeling of social insecurity in the two men.

At the start of his career Van Doesburg was a competent figurative painter, his work reminiscent of Van Gogh in early, potato-eater mode; but he soon came in contact with non-figurative painting and in 1916 met Mondrian, newly returned from Paris. The devotion of both men to the creation of a purely abstract art led to the formation of the De Stijl group in 1917 and the publication of its magazine, De Stijl, which Van Doesburg edited and published from its foundation that year until its demise following his early death in 1931.

Van Doesburg's life may have been short but it was energetic. Throughout the 20s his saturnine features, often topped with a homburg and usually accompanied by a cigarette – think Humphrey Bogart – appear in photographs of divers artistic groups from Paris to Weimar, from Berlin to Zurich and Milan. Neo-plasticism, constructivism, suprematism, dadaism, elementarism – the "isms" of the time are bewildering to anybody but a specialist, but Van Doesburg was involved in all of them. Indeed he invented some. He was both gregarious and eclectic, a centripetal element in a diverse and chaotic artistic world. He lectured and published, talked and theorised, attended conferences and congresses and exhibitions, many of which he organised himself. So it is fitting that Tate Modern, in collaboration with the Municipal Museum of Leiden (where De Stijl was launched), has decided to give the man his due. Perhaps as a result of this exhibition he will begin to take his deserved place in the public imagination.

Of all the arts that Van Doesburg touched perhaps his greatest influence lay in the area of architecture and design. Together with the architects JJ Oud and Gerrit Rietveld, it was he who took the flat, geometric painting of the De Stijl group and burst it out into the third dimension. Indeed he even tried to inform his work with a fourth dimension, although with what success is a matter of debate. Certainly he was fired with a thrilling spatial imagination. His axonometric projections of ideal houses, created in conjunction with the young architect Cornelis van Eesteren, are crucial in understanding this concept so it is a shame that they do not form part of this otherwise comprehensive exhibition. A plastic model of one of the proposed buildings (the "Maison Particulière") gives some idea but a 3-D model is not as striking as the original drawings. A model is too literal. In the drawings perspective is ambiguous; walls are no longer supporting structures but floating, intersecting planes of primary colour; rooms are not static boxes but conceptual spaces hovering in the air. The volumes of the buildings seem to explode from an ­inner core, as though erupting into the third dimension and straining for that elusive fourth.

In 1921, armed with such architectural visions (he had been talking of the fourth dimension since 1917), Van Doesburg set off for Weimar, apparently with the intention of mounting an assault on the portals of Walter Gropius's newly founded Bauhaus. Whether or not he expected to be taken on to the staff of the Bauhaus is not clear; what is certain is that his presence was a yeast in the ferment that swirled around the design school. Some, such as Gropius himself, were alienated by Van Doesburg's dogmatic and aggressive views; others, such as the young Mies van der Rohe, were inspired. In June he was publishing De Stijl from Weimar and the next year he began his own De Stijl architecture course, poaching students from the Bauhaus itself. This was a crucial time in the development of the Bauhaus, when it was in the process of moving from its individualistic arts and crafts origins to embrace the uniformity and austerity of style that was soon to be given the epithets "modernist" or "international"; the first architectural style for almost a thousand years not to imitate something else. Van Doesburg's contribution to this shift in emphasis was crucial. He preached geometry and the use of primary colour and the submersion of the individual in the collective, things that later became an integral part of the Bauhaus philosophy.

The German period lasted for almost two years – of frenetic writing, publishing, lecturing and organising – but behind all this activity there is a love story: with Van Doesburg from the start was the redoubtable Nelly van Moorsel. Nelly was a pianist whom he met at an exhibition of the Section d'Or group of abstract painters that he organised in the Hague in 1920. He was 15 years her senior and already married but that did not stand in Van Moorsel's way: she abandoned her orthodox Roman Catholic family and went off with him to Paris. From the outset she considered herself married to him, although in fact Van Doesburg was not divorced from his previous wife until January 1923. They finally married in 1928. They were inseparable; whenever Van Doesburg appears in a photograph – and there are plenty in the exhibition – there is Van Moorsel beside him, often the only woman in the group, her mischievous grin a wonderful counterpoint to his solemn gaze. One can almost hear her laughter.

And there was a great deal to laugh about: besides the rational philosophy of De Stijl, Van Doesburg was actively involved in a movement that seems to embody the exact opposite: Dada. To understand Van Doesburg one must understand this marked polarity in his life: De Stijl on the one hand and Dada on the other. From the sublime to the ridiculous.

Nothing was more influential, or outrageous, or emblematic of its time, than Dada. "Dada is useless, like every­thing else in life," announced the founder of the movement, the poet Tristan Tzara. Dada swept aside traditions and all perceptions of what constitutes art. Its influence is felt right up to the present day. Tracey Emin's unmade bed is Dada. Randomly selected members of the public doing whatever they pleased on the fourth plinth of Trafalgar Square in London is Dada. The only difference is that Emin's bed and Antony Gormley's curation of the fourth plinth were rather tame, while Dada raised hell.

In Weimar, while pursuing his ideas at the Bauhaus, Van Doesburg had organised the Congress of Constructivists and Dadaists which included such luminaries as Hans Arp, Kurt ­Schwitters, Tzara and El Lissitzky, the Russian constructivist. In 1923, directly after returning to Holland from Germany, the Van Doesburgs partnered the wonderfully barmy Schwitters in a grand Dada tour of Holland. They'd done this performance in Jena the year before; now they performed in 10 different cities before a succession of suitably bewildered audiences. Nelly would play the piano – perhaps Rieti's "Wedding Breakfast of a Crocodile" or an Erik Satie piece they advertised as "Ragtime-Dada". On stage, wearing a monocle and with his face whited up, Van Doesburg would recite from his recent pamphlet Wat is Dada???, while Schwitters, incognito at the back of the auditorium, would interrupt the lecture by barking like a dog. Later Schwitters would be invited on stage where, indifferent to laughter or abuse, he would recite one of his mad Dada poems. In Utrecht a fight broke out after members of the audience invaded the stage and tried to present Schwitters with a wreath of dead flowers and a copy of the Bible. It was, everyone agreed, a most successful evening.

Although few knew it at the time, Van Doesburg's active involvement in Dada predates all this. In 1920 De Stijl magazine published a Dada poem by a certain IK Bonset. More Bonset poems followed in subsequent editions and the same poet also edited the short-lived Dada Magazine Mécano (1922-24) as well as contributing to other Dada publications. "IK Bonset" is actually a Spoonerism (surely the most Dada figure of speech) for "I am a fool" in Dutch (Ik ben sot): it is a nom-de-plume for Theo van Doesburg. To complete the picture there is a wonderful photograph of Nelly playing the part of IK Bonset, wearing false moustache, ­aviator's helmet and goggles, and smoking a pipe. All this is very Dada. The true identity of the poet was not revealed to most of Van Doesburg's friends until after his death.

Shortly after the Dada tour of Holland, like some maniacal product of its own imagination, Dada self-destructed, the Dada Soirée at the Théâtre Michel in Paris famously ending in chaos with the actors attacked on stage by an enraged by then-ex Dadaist ­André Breton. He broke one actor's arm with his walking stick, the poet Paul Éluard was knocked into the footlights, the audience rioted and the auditorium was wrecked. Finally the police were called. More "Rock Around the Clock" than the fourth plinth. Of course, Theo van Doesburg and Nelly van Moorsel were in the audience.

Perhaps the end of Dada was a signal to settle down. The Van Doesburgs re-established themselves back in Paris, living in the outer suburb of Meudon. He began painting again – he had done no painting at all in Germany – and design commissions came his way: the Flower Room in the modernist Villa Noailles in the south of France ­being the first. This was an opportunity, albeit a small one (the room is a mere 1.2m by 1.5m), to put his ideas into practice. Shortly afterwards came a collaboration with Arp and his wife Sophie Taeuber-Arp to redesign the ­interior of one wing of the Aubette building in Strasbourg as an entertainment centre. This work is Van ­Doesburg's masterpiece of interior design. For the first and only time, his powerful and dynamic diagonal blocks of primary colour march across the walls and ceilings of large, public rooms. Sadly the designs did not meet with public ­approval and were covered over in 1938. Only recently have the rooms been restored, finally being opened to the public in their entirety in 2009. The whole complex is now classified as a Monument ­Historique.

With money she had been left in her father's will, Nelly bought a plot of land in Meudon. There, at 29 Rue Charles Infroit, the couple built a studio-house to Van Doesburg's own design. Construction was slow, partly because of difficulties with the building material, which was "solomite", an insulating fabric of compressed straw used by Le Corbusier. Perhaps symbolically, Van Doesburg was building a house of straw: he died within a few months of completion, not in Meudon but in Davos, of a heart attack following a bout of asthma. He was just 47. Painter, poet, critic, architect, of all the dimensions of his short life the most important one was as intangible as the fourth dimension for which he searched: the influence that he had among the avant-garde of the 1920s, an artistic movement that has shaped our own world. This influence cannot be easily measured, but you can get the flavour of it through the more than 400 exhibits, from paintings by Mondrian and Arp to furniture by Rietveld and sculpture by Brancusi, that the Tate has brought together in this important and extensive exhibition.

Nelly van Doesburg, a tireless promoter of her husband's vision, lived on in the house in Meudon until her death in 1975; the house still stands, a modest and poignant memorial to a man who for 10 years was one of the major catalysts of the art world in the 20th century.

Van Doesburg and the International Avant-Garde: Constructing a New World is at Tate Modern, Bankside, London SE1 from 4 February to 16 May 2010. Ticket office: 020 7887 8888. www.tate.org.uk/modern

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23 January 2010 Preview a major retrospective of works by Dutch artist and founder of the De Stijl movement Theo van Doesburg. At Tate Modern from 4 February 2010

The Sheet Architecture News Architecture, Art, Art and design, Culture, Editorial, Exhibitions, guardian.co.uk, Painting, Tate Modern

Ouseburn's once derelict factories and warehouses are buzzing again with artists' studios, music venues and cinemas. Stephen Emms guides us around

Ouseburn was, until 10 years ago, a monument to an industrial past, its derelict factories, red-brick warehouses and mills lurking in the shadow of Victorian bridges and viaducts less than a mile from Newcastle city centre. Now, this picturesque valley, either side of the river Ouse (once used to carry coal by boat from Spital Tongues down to waiting barges on the Tyne), is the creative heart of Newcastle.

Following years of post-industrial decline, its regeneration, kick-started by community-driven enterprise rather than corporate business (the Ouseburn Trust in partnership with the local authority), has given the area's unique architecture and riverside setting a new lease of life – in the form of artists' studios, live music venues, an independent cinema and galleries. Here's a quick tour to get you started.

1. Cumberland Arms

Not just the best pub in Ouseburn, but arguably the finest in Newcastle itself. Built in 1836 (owner Jo will show you the hatch where women, refused entrance to the main bar, used to be served), it's boozer heaven: wood-panelled, roaring fire, simple furniture, leaded windows, a smattering of salvaged art, and shelves heaving with paperbacks. Session ale is the "Rapper", named after the Northumberland sword dance, and there are six guests, as well as 12 types of cider. An upstairs room plays host to music, theatre and comedy. Its isolated position overlooking the valley means stunning views not only from its terrace, but also the windows of its four spacious, very comfortable bedrooms.

• James Place St, +44 (0)191 265 6151, thecumberlandarms.co.uk.Doubles from £70 a night including breakfast.

2. Star & Shadow Cinema

A converted former prop department for Tyne Tees Television, this tiny cinema is run by volunteers, from film programming and projecting, to gigs and promotion. Every year there is a charmingly named "Building Festival" where volunteers come and help build, improve and restore. One Sunday a month there is a "Make & Mend" arts, crafts and flea market. Meetings every Monday at 6pm, films every Thursday and Sunday, and gigs, films, club nights and art events programmed on Weds, Fri and Sat.
• Stepney Bank, +44 (0)191 261 0066, starandshadow.org.uk. Open daily.

3. Biscuit Factory

Britain's biggest commercial art gallery is a whopping 35,000 square feet over two floors of exhibition spaces and artists' studios. Paintings, drawings prints, ceramics, and jewellery including artists such as Emma Tooth (whose Concilium Plebis are Caravaggio-style portraits of those dismissed as "chavs and hoodies"), and Maria Rivan's stunning 3D collages. My tip is to refresh yourself at the café, which groans with inviting home-made sandwiches and cakes, while contemplating the industrial views over the Byker Wall (see below), rather than at the blandly-furnished, expensive restaurant.

• Stoddart St, +44 (0)191 261 1103, thebiscuitfactory.com. Open daily

4. The Cluny

A former whisky bottling plant a stottie's throw from Byker Bridge, The Cluny is owned by iconic party boozer the Head Of Steam (worth a visit, opposite Newcastle Central Station). As well as a live venue, which showcases both young Geordie bands and international artists, the simple main bar and lounge (runner-up in the Observer Food Monthly's awards 2006 for best quick eat in north-east) offers local ales and informal yet hearty snacks, such as good quality house salads (£6), home-made burgers (£6) and Sunday roasts (£7).

• 36 Lime Street, +44 (0)191 2304474, theheadofsteam.co.uk.

5. Seven Stories

The first museum in the UK dedicated to the art of British children's books protects the heritage of British classics for families and curious adults alike. Temporary exhibitions at the former flour mill (such as the current retrospective for Tiger Who Came To Tea author Judith Kerr, which runs until May 2010) complement the permanent collection, whose earliest acquisition was Puffin Books editor (and Puffin Club founder) Kaye Webb's archive. Philip Pullman is a great supporter and has given work from the His Dark Materials trilogy and the Sally Lockhart quartet. The huge bookshop is free to enter, as is one of the best cafes in Ouseburn, which offers sleepy views over the Ouse – and great mugs of coffee.

• 30 Lime Street, + 44 (0)845 271 0777, sevenstories.org.ukpen Mon-Sat 10-5pm, £5.50 adults £4.50 children

6. Mushroom Works

The scream of gulls and clink and hammer of the docks fill the air outside this hard-to-find gallery, originally a Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, in an area once known as the "Mushroom". Opened in 2004 by furniture-maker Nick James, there are 12 studios, including painters, illustrators, jewellery makers, animators, architects, and glass artists. They host eight exhibitions a year, and the shop, with its emphasis on affordability, currently stocks work by 32 artists. The Stairwell Gallery has just opened upstairs, given over to exhibitions by other artists. A 50% off "studio sale" runs from Jan 9-Feb 6.

• St Lawrence Road, +(0)191 224 4011, mushroomworks.com. Open 12pm-5pm Weds-Sat.

7. Northern Print

Northern Print began life in 1994 on Fish Quay, North Shields, and moved in 2006 to a former pottery in Ouseburn. Now a gallery and contemporary print-making studio offering affordable prints as well as classes, it's worth also spending a penny in ceramic artist Paul Scott's impressive tiled toilet. Also, don't miss the large screen-prints decorating the sides of the offices opposite.

• Stepney Bank, +44 (0)191 261 7000,northernprint.org.uk. Open Weds to Sat 12pm to 4pm.

8. Byker Wall

Set between the roar of the flyover and silence of the river, the Grade II-listed Byker Wall, a 1970s primary-coloured brick, wood and plastic-built unbroken block of 620 maisonettes, was placed on UNESCO's list of outstanding 20th-century buildings. Designed by Ralph Erskine in Functionalist Romantic style, the low-rise construction represented a break with the high-rise architectural orthodoxy of the time. Its iconic, triangular Tom Collins House is visible from miles around.

9. Victoria Tunnel

Testament to the achievement of Victorian labour, this two-mile tunnel was built in 1838 for transporting coal from Spital Tongues colliery on the Town Moor to the river Tyne, and in the second world war converted to an air-raid shelter. A short section, with its last remaining accessible entrance on Ouse Street (behind the Hotel Du Vin, see below) re-opened in 2008 to give visitors and locals an experience deep below the city.

• newcastlecommunityheritage.org.

10. Hotel Du Vin

The first hotel in Ouseburn opened in 2008 in the former headquarters of the Tyne Tees Steam Shipping Company, which once served as the company's maintenance depot and storeroom. As such, a nautical theme pervades the 42 rooms, many of which have outstanding views over the Tyne Bridge. Its glass and brick bistro is the most glamorous evening eating option in Ouseburn, even if you're not a resident (great value too with two-course menus boasting locally-sourced ingredients from £15.50).

• Allan House, City Road, +44 (0)191 229 2200, hotelduvin.com/newcastle. Standard rooms from £160. On Sunday nights, spend £75 in the bistro and room is only £25 if you book online.

• Newcastle is served by East Coast Trains: for the best deal on advance fares, book online via nationalexpresseastcoast.com, or call 08457 225225.

The Sheet Architecture News Architecture, Art, Art and design, Bars and clubs, Cultural trips, Culture, Editorial, Film, Food and drink, guardian.co.uk, Heritage, Music, Newcastle, Travel, United Kingdom

Cambridge University Library, which turned 75 in October last year, is probably the ugliest building in Cambridge, but those of us who regularly use it love it very much. To us, its undeniable ugliness is as irrelevant as the warts on the face of a beloved mother. It may have fewer early-printed books than the British Library, and fewer literary manuscripts than the Bodleian in Oxford, but it is far better run than either. Readers are allowed to search for their books in the stacks, which does not mean that the entire collection is mis-shelved – only that you have a better chance of ending up with the book you're looking for than in either of the other institutions. For those of us who have the right to enjoy it, the library is heaven on earth.

The building was designed by Giles Gilbert Scott in the rationalist-fascist style of the mid-1930s. Its most conspicuous feature is a blunt tower, visible for many miles – even from the M11 – making it a far more significant identifier of Cambridge than King's College Chapel (though you won't find the tower on too many tea towels). It stands 12 storeys high; the rest of the original library stands at six. As the tower often has a plume of steam emerging from it, the whole structure has the air of a place where books are burned rather than read. The building is built around two internal courtyards, like prison yards, which cannot be accessed from outside; the entrance facade stands atop an intimidating flight of stairs.

Whatever else you say about the library, you must confess that it is bold. But this boldness is now being vitiated by endless rather ordinary accretions. The least impressive of these was unveiled last September, and consists of 14 bollards that block off the approach to the library steps. Although this seems in part intended as a means of reducing parking space, it is an installation: 1% of the library's budget has to be spent on public art (as outlined in the Per Cent for Art scheme, monitored by Arts Council England).

The bollards are bronze, in the form of columnar piles of books. Imagine the library built like a fortress to safeguard our intellectual inheritance, and outside it piles of apparently rejected books. The idea is not so much shocking as humiliatingly naff. Ten of the columns are fixed, but in four the individual books can be made to rotate. If you line them up right, you get the words "Ex Libris", the name of the sculpture, which according to the artist (a local man, Harry Gray) is "a metaphor for the library itself; you can't just look at the books, you have to use them to gain understanding, to get the bigger picture". Gray appears not to know that Ex Libris is also the name of the best-known purveyors of electronic library resources, now guaranteed free advertising in perpetuity.

The money for the bronze book bollards was provided by the Arcadia Fund, run by the academic and philanthropist Lisbet Rausing and her husband Peter Baldwin. Altogether the fund has provided the library with $980,000 (£612,000), intended "to create new programmes and services, particularly for undergraduates, and also improve the external environment of the ^­ library". But if you are contemplating some bronze bollards of your own, don't approach the fund, which does not consider unsolicited applications. Instead, it invites applications on the suggestion of its advisory board, which includes the vice-chancellor of Cambridge University.

The new librarian, Anne Jarvis, took office in April last year and cannot be blamed for the bollards. Still, she has taken it upon herself to defend them against their critics, saying that it was she who wanted to bring "the library out beyond its walls and create a welcoming space". As anyone who has tried to smoke a cigarette or eat a sandwich in that space could tell you, it is usually in shadow, draughty and cold much of the year. All they had to do to create a welcoming outside space would have been to rip up the tarmac and make a sheltered garden, at a fraction of the price.

Jarvis's next proposal is to sell the library's name to anyone who is vainglorious enough to pay for it. The CUL already includes libraries named for other benefactors; Jarvis now seeks an over-arching donor, who will out-donate all the others. Could the CUL become the Coca Cola Library, or the Barclays Library? Would there be anything members of the university could do to prevent it?

The Sheet Architecture News Architecture, Art, Art and design, Books, Comment, Culture, Education, Heritage, Libraries, The Guardian, University of Cambridge

Can Martin Scorsese pull off a horror movie? Is Glasgow the new Venice? And what's Ricky Gervais up to in Reading? Our critics pick next year's hottest tickets

Film

Cemetery Junction

Having conquered Hollywood, Ricky Gervais is coming home. With his long-time collaborator Stephen Merchant, he has set out to create a British film in the tradition of Billy Liar and the Likely Lads – and of course his own masterpiece The Office – about three blokes working for the Prudential insurance company in Gervais's hometown of Reading. Released on 7 April.

A Single Man

The smart money says Colin Firth will be bringing home a certain gold, bald-headed statuette for his performance as a bereaved gay man in Los Angeles. Based on the 1964 novel by Christopher Isherwood, the movie – fashion designer Tom Ford's directorial debut – follows one day in the life of Firth's literature academic as he confronts his own mortality. Released on 12 February.

A Prophet

Tahar Rahim is Talik, a scared young Arab guy in jail who is made an offer he can't refuse by Corsican mobster César, played by Niels Arestrup: he must murder a supergrass, or be killed himself. A gripping prison movie from French director Jacques Audiard. Released on 22 January.

Shutter Island

Martin Scorsese's much-anticipated new movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio was originally slated to come for autumn; the delay was reportedly due to its promotional budget getting credit-crunched. Anyway, better late than never. It's a mystery thriller with a generous spoonful of horror – a new generic twist for this master director. Released on 12 March.

The Headless Woman

A wealthy woman accidentally hits something in her car. Was it a dog? A person? She slips into woozy confusion, and the movie mimics the woman's disorientation and denial as she attempts to carry on with her life. An arthouse cult classic from Argentinian director Lucrecia Martel. Released on 19 February.

Scott Pilgrim vs the World

Edgar Wright is the British director who struck gold with Shaun of the Dead. Now he tackles his first proper Hollywood project – a wacky comedy based on the Bryan Lee O'Malley comic-book series. Michael Cera plays bass guitarist Scott Pilgrim, who, having fallen in love with a woman, must now do battle with her seven former boyfriends. Released on 27 August.

Father of My Children

A discreetly directed and superbly acted drama based on the tragic life of the French film producer Humbert Balsan. Grégoire is a much-loved mover-and-shaker in world cinema whose finances are crumbling. The ensuing crisis is brilliantly portrayed. Released on 5 March.

Visual art

Glasgow international festival of contemporary art

A huge, budget-melting installation by Swiss artist Christoph Büchel in the vast Tramway; a major new film by Gerard Byrne; works by Fiona Tan, Douglas Gordon, Linder and many more spread around Scotland's liveliest city, in the UK's best annual visual arts festival. Forget Edinburgh, forget Liverpool: this is the one. Venues across Glasgow (0141-287 8994, glasgowinternational.org), 16 April-3 May.

The Real Van Gogh: the Artist and His Letters

Van Gogh was erudite, intelligent, a great artist and an inveterate writer of letters. But he also did that thing to his ear, drank too much absinthe and killed himself. This show looks at his art in the light of his letters, recently published in English in full. Royal Academy of Arts, London W1 (020-7300 8000), 23 January-18 April.

Chris Ofili

Manchester-born Chris Ofili has rolled joints from elephant dung, made paintings decorated with dung, and moved on to territory that brings together German expressionism, Trinidadian myth, lovers, prophets, gods and ghosts. Promises to be blasphemous and inspiring, elegiac and sexy. Tate Britain, London SW1 (020-7887 8888), 27 January-16 May.

Jenny Holzer

There's more to American artist Holzer's work than an endless tickertape of words spelled out  in LED lights. There are billboards, benches, condom wrappers and paintings. This is poetry with a plug, light shows with literature, an art of anger and beauty. Baltic, Gateshead (0191-478 1810), 5 March-16 May.

Sixth Berlin Biennial

The Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art is always fascinating, and sometimes great. In a city infested with artists and overshadowed by history, it attracts fewer wannabes, hangers-on, art-surfers and arrogant airheads than Venice. Berlin is serious, the food is a joke, the weather uncertain and the art at the time of writing a complete mystery. Go anyway. Venues across Berlin (00 49 [0] 302 434 5910, berlinbiennale.de), 11 June-8 August.

Gauguin

Paul Gauguin, stock-broker turned post-impressionist and symbolist painter and sculptor, mystified Van Gogh, with whom he shared a house for a while. What an odd couple. Gauguin died in French Polynesia in 1903 at the age of 54. His art, however, is a time bomb, still ticking in the 21st century; and this is the first major show in Britain for 50 years. Tate Modern, London SE1 (020-7887 8888), from 30 September.

Pop

Whitney Houston

Houston's misadventures during the last decade made the likelihood of her touring again seem nil. But here she is playing her first UK dates since 1998, rehabbed and in robust voice – although her ability to hit those power notes has diminished somewhat. Which may be a good thing. MEN Arena, Manchester (0844 847 8000), 8-9 April. Then touring.

Green Day

Here's a thing: an overtly political US band who are big enough to play stadiums. Mind you, if Green Day's views weren't complemented by radio-friendly rock, their two British summer dates would probably be somewhere cosier. Old Trafford (0871 2200 260), June 16; Wembley, London (020-7403 3331), June 19.

The xx

It's all about understatement and nuance with this indie band, earmarked just about everywhere as 2010's ones to watch. Don't expect fireworks or obvious "wow" moments on their first major headlining tour: they and their acclaimed self-titled album are very much insidious pleasures. Komedia, Brighton (0845 293 8480), 1 March. Then touring.

Lily Allen and Dizzee Rascal

Lily and Dizzee have more in common than you would think: they easily rank with 2009's most successful British musicians, and she's as influenced by Rascal's hip-hop milieu as he is by the pop world she inhabits. MEN Arena, Manchester (0844 847 8000), 5 March; 02 Arena, London (0844 856 0202), 7 March.

Glastonbury

The daddy of them all celebrates its 40th anniversary, and Glasto virgins U2 will be among those braving the mud to celebrate. Sold out, but returns go on sale in the new year. Worthy Farm, Somerset, 23-27 June.

Jazz and world music

Jerry Dammers Spatial AKA Orchestra

Specials and 2 Tone co-founder Dammers pays tribute to mystic free-jazz bandleader Sun Ra, who died in 1993, with a mix of jazz, funk, reggae, dub, hip-hop and rock. The all-star lineup includes Nathaniel Facey, Zoe Rahman and Jason Yarde. Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry (024-7652 4524), 4 March. Touring until 9 April.

Dan Berglund's Tonbrucket

Swedish pianist Esbjörn Svensson's death in 2008 wound up popular jazz trio EST, but bassist Dan Berglund and drummer Magnus ­ Ostrom visit not only EST's music, but Pink Floyd, Arvo Pärt and more in their new quartet. Queen's Hall, Edinburgh (0131-668 2019), 13 March. Touring until 1 April.

Wynton Marsalis

The prolific Marsalis and his Lincoln Center Orchestra celebrate 80 years of big-band history in three major concerts, with jams all over London, including the Vortex. Barbican, London EC2 (0845 120 7550), 17 and 18 June; Hackney Empire, London E8 (020-8510 4500), 20 June.

African Soul Rebels

Mali's Oumou Sangaré, famed for her bravely outspoken views, is one of the stars of the sixth African Soul Rebels outing. She's joined by the rousing big band Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou, and the veteran South African experimental political band, Kalahari Surfers. Poole Lighthouse (0844 406 8666), 18 February. Then touring.

Ali and Toumani

The most eagerly awaited African album of the year, this is the final recording by the great Malian guitarist Ali Farka Touré, and the kora virtuoso Toumani Diabaté – recorded a few months before Touré's death. Out 22 February.

Dance

Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch

After the shock of Bausch's death this summer, her company has announced plans to continue under the joint direction of Dominique Mercy and Robert Sturm. In April, they come to London with Kontakthof, Bausch's 1978 meditation on love and human foibles. It will be performed by two radically different, alternating casts – one made up of senior citizens, the other of teenagers. Barbican, London EC2 (020-7638 8891), 1-4 April.

Mark Morris Dance Group

Morris made L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, an ecstatic embrace of a dance, more than 20 years ago; it still ranks as one of the great experiences in the repertory. Handel's score will be played and sung by members of English National Opera. Coliseum, London WC2 (0871-911 0200), 14-17 April.

Hofesh Shechter

The rise and rise of Shechter continues with Political Mother, a large ensemble piece that plays with definitions of shock and normality, and comes with Shechter's own score. Dome, Brighton (01273 709709), 20 and 21 May; Sadler's Wells, London EC1 (0844 412 4300), 14-17 July.

Merce Cunningham Dance Company

A posthumous season for the late, great Merce includes the UK premiere of the work he choreographed just months before he died. Nearly Ninety belies its title with a score including music by Sonic Youth. Barbican, London EC2 (020-7638 8891), 26-30 October.

Theatre

Arthur and George

David Edgar adapts Julian Barnes's gripping novel about a Birmingham solicitor who, after being convicted of a grisly crime, recruits the help of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Fact merges with fiction in a story that deals with race, innocence, guilt and spiritualism - with echoes of Sherlock Holmes. Rachel Kavanaugh directs what promises to be that rare thing: a necessary adaptation. Birmingham Rep (0121-236 4455), 19 March-10 April.

Peter Pan

David Greig relocates JM Barrie's masterpiece to a gas-lit Victorian Edinburgh. Director John Tiffany (Black Watch, The Bacchae) and designer Laura Hopkins are at the helm, so this Pan shouldn't simply fly, but soar. Kings, Glasgow (0844 871 7648), 23 April–8 May. Then touring.

Hamlet

Once again, it looks like we're set for a major battle of the princes. John Simm has first crack at the title in a Paul Miller production in the refurbished Sheffield Crucible. Then Rory Kinnear takes on the moody Dane, with Clare Higgins as Gertrude, directed by Nicholas Hytner at the National. Some people, recalling the very recent David Tennant-Jude Law clash, resent this duplication. I say: "Bring it on." Crucible Theatre, Sheffield (0114-249 6000), from September; Olivier theatre, London SE1 (020-7452 3000), from October.

Posh

Just in time for the general election, Laura Wade's new play deals with a group of Oxford hearties, all members of an elite student dining society. They hunt, booze, take illegal substances (possibly) and are, it seems, destined to rule over us. It's good to see Wade, who made a big impact with Breathing Corpses in 2005, resurrecting the class war in a topical Court production, directed by Lyndsey Turner. Royal Court, London SW1 (020-7565 5000), 9 April-22 May.

Oh! What a Lovely War

Joan Littlewood's timeless musical satire on the first world war gets its first major post-Iraq outing, with directors Erica Whyman and Sam Kenyon leading the troops over the top. Northern Stage, Newcastle (0191-230 5151), 6 March-27 March. Then touring.

The Persians

A Brecon military range becomes the setting for a site-responsive revival of Aeschylus's great play about war and defeat. Mike Pearson, who has been using found spaces with his legendary company Brith Gof long before it became fashionable, directs. Cilieni Village, Powys, Wales (01874 611622), 11-21 August.

Architecture

Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford

Dynamic reconstruction of the famous 1930s theatre. New work includes a 1,030-seat modern take on a 17th-century courtyard stage, a revamped art deco foyer, a rooftop restaurant and a bridging tower linking old and new spaces. November.

Folkwang Museum, Essen, Germany

Six rigorously geometrical new wings parade around four urban courtyards in this major extension by David Chipperfield of a fine museum devoted to 19th and 20th-century French and German art. The model of a modern building for a (hopefully) less wilfully ostentatious era. April.

Rolex Learning Centre, Lausanne, Switzerland

This exquisite Swiss building – a single, undulating floor boasting lake and mountain views – is a coming of age for Tokyo's Sanaa, designers of the 2009 Serpentine Pavilion. A science research centre that's as much landscape as architecture. February.

Television

Mad Men

The immaculately dressed alcoholic misogynists of the Sterling Cooper ad agency return to alternately horrify and entrance us. Nine months on, how is the company's merger with a London firm working out for boss Don, copywriter Peggy and co? And what state is Don's estranged wife Betty in? BBC4, from 27 January.

Glee

Nip/Tuck creator Ryan Murphy's new musical comedy-drama about a high-school choir (the "glee club" of the title) is huge in the US. The club's show tunes and chart hits have sold millions, while viewers and critics have embraced the cast of engaging misfits (Murphy has a sharp eye for school dynamics, as fans of his shortlived cheerleader show Popular will recall). E4, from 11 January.

Money

This two-part slice of 1980s nostalgia, based on Martin Amis's novel, should offer a thought-provoking look at the era of flash cash and queasy living. Nick Frost (Hot Fuzz, Shawn of the Dead) stars as anti-hero John Self in a cast that includes Mad Men's Pete (Vincent Kartheiser). BBC2, spring.

The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister

Maxine Peake (Shameless, Criminal Justice) plays a lesbian who keeps a coded journal of her love-life in a 19th-century Yorkshire village. Everything about this 90-minute drama screams "record", "hit" and "award-winning". BBC2, March/April.

Mistresses

Furtive hotel sex; frantic muffin-baking; guilty pinot grigio guzzling. This soapy drama about four Bristol thirtysomething women returns for a third series with some inspired new casting: Joanna Lumley joins as the bossy mother of muddle-headed doctor Katie, played by Sarah Parish. BBC1, late 2010.

Classical and opera

Mahler in Manchester

The most innovative celebration of Gustav Mahler's 150th birthday you'll hear all year: the Hallé and BBC Philharmonic's cycle of his symphonies, in which each symphony is paired with a new piece from an international line-up of composers, from Austrian surrealist Kurt Schwertsik to Parisian organist Olivier Latry. ­ Bridgewater Hall, Manchester (0161-907 9000), 16 January-5 June.

Placido sings Handel

Whoever thought you'd see this at Covent Garden? Placido Domingo takes the composer's greatest tenor role, Bajazet, in Tamerlano, with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in the pit. Mouth-watering. Royal Opera House, London WC2 (020-7304 4000), 5-20 March.

Elegy for Young Lovers

English National Opera continues its part-time residency at the Young Vic with Hans Werner Henze's 1961 opera on crazed creative amorality in the Alps, with a libretto by WH Auden, and a production directed by Fiona Shaw. The only chance to see Henze, the greatest living opera composer, in the theatre in the UK this year. Young Vic, London SE1 (020-7922 2922), 24 April-8 May.

WNO's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

The operatic role of the year: Bryn Terfel sings Hans Sachs for the first time in Wagner's Meistersinger. It's a part he should play even more convincingly than the Wotan he sang in Covent Garden's Ring. This new staging by Richard Jones could be the one that cracks Wagner's complex comedy. Welsh National Opera, Cardiff (08700 40 2000), 19 June-10 July.

Total Immersion: Wolfgang Rihm

No composer alive has written as much music as Wolfgang Rihm; yet no major figure in new music is as shamingly unfamiliar to British audiences. With this two-day event, part of its Total Immersion series, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, with the help of the London Sinfonietta and the Arditti Quartet, put that right. Barbican, London EC2 (020-7638 8891), 12-13 March.

Comedy

Dara O'Briain

From Three Men in a Boat to one man on a stage, TV favourite O'Briain takes to the nation's concert halls for a 64-date tour. A civilised and smart standup long before TV fame came calling, this is the Mock the Week anchorman's first tour in two years. Regent, Stoke (0844 871 7649), 1 March. Then touring.

Laura Solon

With her latest show, Rabbit Faced Story Soup, the winner of the last-ever Perrier award has turned her talent for creating comic characters into a comedy play about an ailing publishing house and its missing star novelist. Now she's taking it on a national tour. Junction, Cambridge (01223 511 511), 29 January. Then touring.

Pappy's Fun Club

The fast-rising young quartet take to the road with their Edinburgh 2009 hit show World Record Attempt: 200 Sketches in an Hour. It's less Fast Show, more nonsense cabaret, supplying music, anarchy and good cheer. Komedia, Brighton (0845 293 8480), 21 January. Then touring.

Chosen by Judith Mackrell, Michael Billington, Caroline Sullivan, Lyn Gardner, Jonathan Glancey, Peter Bradshaw, Adrian Searle, John Fordham, Robin Denselow, Brian Logan and Tim Lusher

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