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Architect Norman Foster and author Margaret Atwood to spearhead partial tie-up between festivals

Norman Foster and Margaret Atwood are to star in a collaboration between two of Edinburgh's largest festivals as part of a new initiative to expand the reach and audience of the city's international book festival.

In a joint project with the Edinburgh film festival this August – the first on this scale attempted by two of the city's 12 annual festivals – Foster and Atwood will be amongst a number of prominent guests exploring the different techniques film-makers and writers use for biographies.

The events will be staged at the Filmhouse cinema complex, where this year's film festival is now taking place, as part of plans by the new director of the city's international book festival, Nick Barley, to develop an event based for nearly 30 years in a "tented city" in the gardens of Charlotte Square in the city's Georgian New Town.

Barley unveiled his first programme today, which features 750 authors. It includes a rare public appearance by Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau in conversation with Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell, three Nobel prize winners, including Joseph Stiglitz, the poet Seamus Heaney, the hairdresser Vidal Sassoon and an opening debate on Jesus between the atheist author Philip Pullman and former bishop of Oxford Richard Harries.

The former chancellor Alistair Darling is to give his first speech on politics and the economy since Labour lost the general election, while seven leading South African poets and writers prevented from attending this year's London book fair by the Icelandic ash cloud will fly in for a series of events.

The Australian writer Christos Tsiolkas, author of a controversial novel on race and class, The Slap, and the first Edinburgh Unesco City of Literature writer in residence, will be speak on the opening day. The festival closes with a discussion on "the new world order" and geo-politics – a theme of this year's festival – with the Portuguese Nobel laureate José Saramago.

Foster, one of Britain's most famous architects and designer of Wembley stadium, the Reichstag, the British Museum's "great court" and one of the towers at "ground zero" in New York, is appearing at the UK launch of his biography How much does your building weigh Mr Foster? It has been made into a feature-length film by the Art Commissioners consultancy.

Atwood will appear at the joint book and film festival event by satellite link from Canada, to talk about her recent novel The Year of the Flood. Other major names for this mini-festival are to be announced next month.

There had been speculation that Barley would move events outside Charlotte Square, or even relocate it entirely. In an interview with the Guardian, Barley said he was committed to remaining there. "It provides an oasis of calm in the chaos and bustle and joy of the rest of the festivals, and I'm not interested in changing that," he said. "Having said that, I'm perfectly happy doing things elsewhere and collaborating with other festivals."

He suggested the festival could even eventually colonise surrounding roads on Charlotte Square with marquees, closing two sides to traffic, if the city council agreed.

Barley said his revamped programme featured five "innovations", among them the idea of inviting four guest "selectors", including Bell, Ruth Padel, great-great granddaughter of Charles Darwin, and Don Paterson, the poet, to invite writers and cartoonists to take part in different strands of the festival.

The four worked on the themes of poetry, political satire and cartoonists, the future of fiction, and the relations between parents and their children. The latter theme, co-curated by Padel, will culminate in a debate between Fay Weldon and Fatima Bhutto, niece of the assassinated Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto and daughter of Murtaza Bhutto, who was shot dead by police, about the tragic and violent loss of a parent.

Barley said this model would be followed at future festivals. A novice at directing festivals and given only seven months since his appointment last October to build this year's programme, Barley denied the guest curators were there to help lighten his workload. His predecessor, Catherine Lockerbie, credited with building Edinburgh's reputation as the world's largest book festival, stepped down last year after being seriously ill with stress and exhaustion.

"Far from being a lightening of the load, it has been an increasing of the workload but a joyful one," he said. "The key to it has not so much been a lightening of the load but about acknowledging that choosing 750 events from one person's head is a particular thing, and I'm interested in a variety of perspectives on the world."

Other strands include week-long themes such as the US's role in the world. This strand will feature 45 American authors such as Trudeau, Lionel Shriver, Joyce Carol Oates and David Vann, chaired by the BBC journalist Allan Little. There will also be a focus on first books by new writers, a "first book award" chosen by the festival audience, and a series of free evening events hosted by as yet undisclosed writers, musicians and cartoonists.

Barley said he had no plans for an overnight revolution in the way the festival was staged. But he said there was a pressing need to innovate, partly to see off competition from other events. In 1983, there were only four literature festivals in the UK. There are now nearly 400. "I do envisage many, many new innovations," he said. "We're very friendly with all the other festivals in the UK and abroad, but we're very aware we have to keep innovating to stay ahead."

From sugary sculptures to a madcap midnight cycling tour, Jonathan Glancey rounds up 10 festival treats that promise a fresh perspective on the capital

The fourth biennial London Festival of Architecture is an enormous affair, boasting some 300 events in the West End, East End and south London between 20 June and 20 July 2010. These range from the arcane and baffling to walks and cycle rides aimed at opening up fresh perspectives of the miasmic city. I've chosen seven of the best tours (there's no better way of getting to grips with London's architecture than getting on your bike or stepping out), as well as three fixed events as different from one another as St Mary Abchurch is from 30 St Mary Axe.

Dogs for Architecture!

When I turned up to work for the first time in Canary Wharf Tower some 15 years ago, I was refused entry. A pair of jaw-jutting blokes in faux-American security outfits pointed at William, my veteran London mongrel, and said he couldn't come in. Guide dogs only, they said. This dog guides me through London (as through life), I said, hopefully. The guards only looked more aggressive. Odd, I can't help thinking, that so much modern architecture is anti-dog. My favourite City church, St Mary Abchurch, once housed a kennel-like pew especially for four-legged visitors. Luckily, dogs are still welcome in many parts of town, as well as in proper churches, pubs, cafes and offices; so it's good to see a walking tour of architecture in and around Bloomsbury aimed at dogs and their guardians. Even if your bulldog takes against the 60s brutalism of much of the University of London, or your boxer barks disapprovingly at the rebuilt Brunswick Centre, there are graceful Georgian terraces to trot past, Charles Holden's coolly enigmatic Senate House to pad through (well, the lobby anyway) and, best of all, a chance to sniff around Russell Square Gardens as well as Bedford and Bloomsbury Squares while taking in their enthralling skylines.

• Sunday 20 June, 10:30-1:00pm. Only dogs owners and well-behaved dogs need apply. £9.50/£7.50 concession. Please email tours@open-city.org.uk or telephone 0207 383 2131, Mon-Fri 9.30am-6pm (advance booking is essential).

Pimp Your Pavement!

This promises to be an eye-opening event, especially for those with green fingers. Richard Reynolds, author of On Guerrilla Gardening, will lead a 90-minute walking tour of the "guerrilla gardens" of deepest London, SE1 – not tobacco plantations founded by former Cuban revolutionaries, but pavements and urban nooks and crannies where local people have begun to plant and cultivate every spare bit of land. London's streets are in need of trees; but beans, tomatoes, marrows and potatoes (with their beautiful flowers) would make many of them more attractive, too. Central London might have lost all too many of its food markets; now, says Reynolds, it's time to take "guerrilla" action and grow our own. Reynolds would like to show you how.

• Sunday 20 June. For further details, see the Pimp Your Pavement website.

Midsummer Madness

From "Greenwich to Primrose Hill to Bankside via the deserted sleeping city and the Nash boulevards" – and starting at 2am ... This solstice bike ride, organised by Southwark Cyclists, might seem for insomniacs only, and yet this is a fine time to see central London and its architecture. The one and only time, in fact; the streets are almost quiet, and cyclists can look up at their surroundings rather than down and from side to side for raw survival's sake. There is a coffee stop at 3am at Bar Italia, Soho, still almost the only place you can buy a proper cappuccino in London, and which looks pretty much as it did when it opened in 1949. Breakfast is at the Leon bar and café, Canvey Street, immediately behind Tate Modern, which is opening at 6am, specially for cyclists on this ride.

• Monday 21 June. See the London Festival of Architecture (LFA) website for further details.

Building Skywards: Aldgate and City of London Towers

Afternoon and evening walks on three days (23, 24 and 25 June) setting off from Aldgate underground station and taking in the soaring new towers of the City. Actually, the very first of these buildings was Aldgate itself, originally a Roman gateway leading into Londinium from the busy road to Camulodunum (Colchester). Until remarkably recently, the towers and spires of the churches (rebuilt for the most part by Christopher Wren) were the City's "skyscrapers"; today these modest, if sometimes exquisite, buildings seem like toys compared with the enormous towers shooting up in honour of mammon. Sadly, for reasons of business and security, it's not possible to reach the top of the latest towers by Foster, Rogers, Grimshaw, Kohn Pedersen Fox and co, although you could end this tour with a drink in the Vertigo bar at the top of Tower 42, formerly the NatWest Tower, a 70s structural tour-de-force designed by Colonel Richard Seifert and his regiment of commercially astute architects.

• 23, 24 and 25 June. Book through the LFA website.

Birds of Bankside

From earliest childhood until a decade or so ago, one of the things I liked doing best in central London was feeding the sparrows from the bridge spanning the lake in St James's Park. Try this today, though, and you might wait all year. There are several theories as to where all the cockney sparrows have gone (their Parisian cousins appear to thrive); one of mine is that our new, or made-over, buildings are hermetic, defensive things with no nooks and crannies for sparrows to nest. You will be given a more informed answer from Peter Holden, who is leading this early morning walk around Bankside in search of birds and other London wildlife. The tour will also be taking in some new architect-designed nests by 51% Studio on behalf of the Architecture Foundation close to Tate Modern. Holden has worked for the RSPB for 30 years and is author of the authoritative and delightful RSPB Handbook of British Birds.

• Thursday 24 June. Book through the LFA website.

The Green Room

Architects in London, or those hoping to find work in London, have faced very hard times indeed over the past year or so. Few practices have got away without making staff redundant. Chetwood Architects is making a fully serviced room available to architects at its office at 12-13 Clerkenwell Green, opposite the Marx Memorial Library (where Lenin published Iskra) and the Crown Tavern (where the revolutionary was joined for a beer by a young Stalin in 1903). Up to six architects at a time will be able to use the Green Room for a week "to showcase their work, arrange/prepare for meetings and interviews in a relaxed coffee-house-style environment". Employment exchanges have never been quite so alluring. A "prominent display space in Chetwood's front window will showcase selected drawings and designs", says the practice, and given that London is always on the look-out for fresh talent, seats in the Green Room will doubtless be in great demand.

• From Thursday 24 June until a year afterwards. If you believe you have a legitimate reason to use the Green Room, contact Geoff Cunningham.

The Best of France in London with Stephen Bayley

Stephen Bayley – author, critic, curator, bon viveur – leads a bicycle ride through French-influenced London. The tour starts at Michelin House, Fulham Road, the curiously delightful and beautifully restored former headquarters of the Michelin Tyre Company designed by the engineer François Espinasse in a flouncy art nouveau style that belies its radical ferro-concrete structure. From here, Bayley (astride his single-speed, Korean-made, North American Cannondale Capo bicycle) will lead his designer team to Westminster Abbey "to see the influence of Reims, Amiens and Chartres", to the Wallace Collection and its French art and furniture, to Ernö Goldfinger's "homage to Le Corbusier" in Piccadilly (French Tourist Office, 1956), Jean Cocteau's murals in Notre Dame de France in Leicester Place, the French Church in Soho Square and One New Change, a massive new office block by Jean Nouvel in the shadow of the dome of the very English St Paul's Cathedral. Those who survive Bayley's banter and the worst of London traffic will be rewarded with champagne.

• Saturday 26 June. Book through the LFA website.

Restless Cities Walking Tour

LFA invites the adventurous on this "saccadic stroll" led by Esther Leslie, professor of political aesthetics at London's Birkbeck College. Saccadic has something to do with seeing things in a fast-cut way – you're welcome to look it up too – and I think the idea, rooted in Restless Cities, a book of essays published earlier this year by Verso, is that city life is so full of fleeting images, occurrences and ideas that it can be unnerving to walk the streets – or, of course, it can be a wonderfully mind-blowing experience. Anyone who offers you a fresh way of looking at London has to be worth 90 minutes, and I'm sure Leslie will have dreamed up ways of stirring the imaginations of anyone willing to walk on the quasi-philosophical side.

• Sunday 27 June. The LFA website offers no details, but the walk starts at 3pm in front of the Whitechapel Art Gallery.

Sugar Cube, Tate Modern

Brendan Jamison has sculpted a copy of Tate Modern in sugar cubes. This sort of thing (such as ships in bottles in Trafalgar Square, or the Forth Bridge reproduced 1:1 scale in matchsticks) is always fun. Built on a scale of 1:100 (the chimney is 3.3ft high), Tate Sweet comprises no fewer than 71,908 cubes – or 52bn individual sugar crystals – that have taken three months to assemble. Other sources tell me that these figures should be revised upwards to more than 80,000 cubes and 60m crystals. Whatever the truth, there is enough sugar here for all the tea served in London in about an hour. I think. If you would like to see how he made this extraordinary architectural confection, Jamison will be running family workshops alongside the model on Saturday 3 July (NEO Bankside pavilion, Hopton Street, opposite the Turbine Hall entrance to Tate Modern). To register for a place, contact neobankside@camronpr.com or call Hannah, Ross or Lizzie at Camron PR on 0207 420 1700. If you attend one of these, you might just want to ask Jamison why on earth he did such a thing in the first place.

1:1 – Architects Build Small Spaces

The V&A's contribution to LFA is this hugely enjoyable exhibition featuring seven imaginative new buildings, each one specially commissioned for the seven miles of corridors within this glorious South Kensington museum. From a fairytale Japanese teahouse on stilts to a pavilion made of geometric acrylic panels in the guise of a computer-imagined tree, here are miniature buildings designed to provoke and delight the imagination.

• At the V&A Museum, London, until 30 August.

Stevie Wonder hits the UK, Toy Story goes 3D, and it's the last ever Big Brother – our critics pick the unmissable events of the season

Pop

Stevie Wonder

Anyone who can't face braving Glastonbury to see the Motown legend's Sunday-night set can head to London's Hyde Park for this headlining show. It's likely to be heavy on the hits, but a little too heavy on the audience participation, if complaints from disgruntled punters at Wonder's recent shows are anything to go by. And be warned: Jamiroquai seems to have been enticed out of retirement to provide support. Hyde Park, London W2, 26 June. Box office: 020-7009 3484.

T in the Park

This beloved Scottish festival is prized as much for its atmosphere as its lineup. And they're certainly wheeling out the big hitters this year: Eminem, Muse, Kasabian, Jay-Z, Black Eyed Peas, Florence and the Machine, La Roux, Dizzee Rascal and Paolo Nutini, among others. Balado, Kinross-shire, 9-11 July. Box office: 0844 499 9990.

Wireless

There are those who would argue that going to a festival with no camping doesn't strictly constitute going to a festival: equally, there are those who wouldn't countenance doing anything else. Either way, this year's Wireless lineup looks strong: it includes Pink, the Ting Tings, LCD Soundsystem, Lily Allen, Missy Elliott, Jay-Z, Plan B and Friendly Fires. Hyde Park, London W2, 2-4 July. Box office: 020-7009 3484.

Benicassim

If you're prepared to travel abroad for your festival jollies, Spain's Benicassim can offer things no British event can: a beach and guaranteed good weather. This year you can also catch Kasabian, Ray Davies, the Prodigy, Lily Allen, the Specials, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Vampire Weekend, PiL, Dizzee Rascal, Hot Chip, Goldfrapp and the intriguingly named Love of Lesbian. Benicassim, Spain, 15-18 July. Box office: tickets.fiberfib.com

Green Man

Of all the boutique festivals, Green Man is the longest-established. This year's eclectic bill sees something of a shift away from its nu-folk roots – but they presumably know their audience well enough to know what they'll like. Doves, Joanna Newsom and Flaming Lips are among the headliners; also on the roster are Billy Bragg, Fuck Buttons, Wild Beasts and Steve Mason. The traditional end of things, meanwhile, is held up by the Unthanks and Alasdair Roberts. Brecon Beacons, 20-22 August. Box office: 0871 424 4444.

Film

Greenberg

An indie comedy from Noah Baumbach, creator of The Squid and the Whale. Ben Stiller is Roger Greenberg, an unfulfilled middle-aged guy who house-sits for his more successful brother Phillip in LA, and begins a relationship with Phillip's nervy assistant Florence, played by mumblecore star Greta Gerwig. Released on 11 June.

Inception

The Batman movies made Christopher Nolan one of Hollywood's biggest hitters; now, he raises the stakes with this non-superhero film. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Cobb, a guy with a unique gift in a strange dystopian future where corporate espionage has engendered an unsettling new technology. Released on 16 July.

Toy Story 3

The first two Toy Stories were sublime, so hopes are high for the third instalment. Woody, Buzz and his toy pals are facing the much-feared betrayal/abandonment issues hinted at in the previous film. Their owner has grown up, and they are headed for the charity bins, to be played with by kids who do not appreciate them. So the toys plan a daring escape. Released on 21 July.

Mother

This movie from South Korea has acquired cult status on the festival circuit, and makes a welcome appearance in the UK. Kim Hye-ja plays an elderly woman whose twentysomething son still lives with her. When he is charged with murder, it is up to her to right what she is convinced is a terrible wrong, and to track down the real killer. She is a formidable amateur sleuth. But what will she – and we – discover? Released on 20 August.

The Illusionist

Sylvain Chomet, the director of the hugely admired animation Les Triplettes de Belleville, has scored another hit by resurrecting an unproduced script by Jacques Tati and bringing it to life with complete fidelity to his spirit. It is a gentle, melancholy tale about an old-school vaudevillian magician and entertainer who finds that modern showbusiness is leaving him behind. But a young girl still thrills to his act. Released on 20 August.

Scott Pilgrim vs the World

Comic fans suffering from withdrawal after Kick-Ass can find comfort in this adventure. Based on the graphic novel by Brian Lee O'Malley and directed by Edgar Wright, this stars Michael Cera as the introspective rock musician Scott. He falls hard for Ramona Flowers, but discovers that he has to vanquish her seven ex-boyfriends before he can win her heart. Released on 6 August.

Books

Ghost Light by Joseph O'Connor

In Edwardian Dublin, a young actress begins an affair with JM Synge. This latest from historical novelist O'Connor, author of Star of the Sea and Redemption Falls, is loosely based on the real story of the great Irish playwright's affair with Molly Allgood, moving between 1907 Dublin and 1952 London. Harvill Secker, 3 June.

Imperial Bedrooms by Bret Easton Ellis

Twenty-five years after Ellis burst onto the scene with Less Than Zero comes this sequel to his story of disaffected LA teenager Clay and friends. Middle-aged Clay is now a screenwriter, returning to LA to cast a movie and catch up with ex-girlfriend Blair, childhood best friend Julian (now a recovering addict running an escort service) and their old dealer Rip. Picador, 2 July.

Faithful Place by Tana French

Every holiday needs a good crime novel and French's skilful thrillers are tailor-made to terrify. This follows the story of Frank Mackey, who planned to run away to London with his girlfriend Rosie, aged 19. She failed to turn up; 20 years later he's still in Dublin, working as an undercover policeman. And then Rosie's suitcase is found. Hodder, 19 August.

A Truth Universally Acknowledged: 33 Reasons Why We Can't Stop Reading Jane Austen

Authors from Jay McInerney to Fay Weldon, Alain de Botton and Susanna Clarke ponder Austen's enduring appeal in this collection, edited by Susannah Carson. Martin Amis, for one, dreams of a 20-page sex scene between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy, with Darcy "acquitting himself uncommonly well". Particular Books, 3 June.

Visual art

Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception

Belgian artist Alÿs, now based in Mexico City, has pushed a block of ice through sweltering streets, had 500 volunteers move a Peruvian sand dune, and walked the 1948 Armistice line between Palestine and Israel, trailing green paint behind him. This will be the largest survey of his work ever held. Tate Modern, London SE1 (020-7887 8888), 15 June-15 September.

Martin Creed: Down Over Up

A mid-career survey show of the Turner Prize-winning artist who made the lights go on and off, filled galleries with balloons, and had runners sprinting through Tate Britain. Creed works increasingly with performance, both with his band Owada and with dancers. His art can be funny, touching and outrageous, all carried off with wit, charm and a lack of pretension. Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (0131-225 2383), 30 July–31 October.

Alice Neel: Painted Truths

Alice Neel (1900-1984) was a tough, single-minded and wonderful American portraitist whose subjects included her family and art-world friends, such as Andy Warhol (whom she painted in bandages after he was shot). An artist's artist, her work is idiosyncratic and acute. Expect art schools to be filled with teenage mini-Neels next term. Whitechapel Gallery, London E1 (020-7522 7888), 8 July–17 September.

John Cage: Every Day Is a Good Day

Cage did much more than compose 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence. The composer, writer, mushroom-hunter, unconventional artist and collaborator with Merce Cunningham and Jasper Johns is undergoing a major revival. This show is curated by artist, writer and long-time fan Jeremy Millar, and is organised according to Cage's ideas of chance and indeterminacy. Baltic, Gateshead (0191-478 1810) 19 June‑5 September.

Picasso: The Mediterranean Years (1945-1962)

Complementing Tate Liverpool's current Picasso show, this exhibition, curated by Picasso biographer John Richardson and Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, focuses on the artist's Mediterranean roots, with portraits, sculptures, ceramics and prints, mostly taken from Picasso's own collection. Gagosian Gallery, London WC1 (020-7784 9960), 4 June–28 August.

Wolfgang Tillmans

Based in London for 20 years, Tillmans takes his relationship with the city as the starting point for this show. Abstract photographs and snapshots, portraits and places, old things and new: Tillmans's subjects are as rich and varied, as surprising and askew as the world itself. Serpentine Gallery, London W2 (020-7402 6075), 10 July–17 October.

Close Examination: Fakes, Mistakes and Discoveries

An exhibition for anyone interested in the skulduggery of forgery; the mangling of old paintings to make them fit later taste; or in the science of restoration and CSI-type investigation. The show analyses work from the gallery's own collection. National Gallery, London WC2 (020-7747 2885), 30 June–12 September.

Theatre

Women, Power and Politics

Nine dramatists, including Bola Agbaje, Moira Buffini, Rebecca Lenkiewicz and Sue Townsend, join forces to create a two-part show exploring the role of women in British politics. Given that there are more Lib Dems than women in the current cabinet, it seems a timely venture. Tricycle Theatre, London NW6 (020-7328 1000), 4 June-17 July.

Morte d'Arthur

Having adapted The Canterbury Tales for the RSC, the writer-director team of Mike Poulton and Gregory Doran now give us a compressed version of Malory's epic on Arthurian legend. Expect the round table, the holy grail and the hot, adulterous passion of Lancelot and Guinevere. Courtyard, Stratford-upon-Avon (0844 800 1110), 11 June-28 August.

Alice

Playwright Laura Wade and director Lyndsey Turner have just had a hit with Posh at the Royal Court. Now things get curiouser as the pair collaborate on a new version of Lewis Carroll's novel, in which Wonderland looks suspiciously like Sheffield. Over-eights only. Crucible, Sheffield (0114-249 6000), 17 June-24 July.

Greenwich and Docklands International festival

This outdoor festival can hold its head up proudly among its European peers. French company Ilotopie return with a new show, Oxymer – and there is a dazzling array of work from Catalonia. All events are free. Various sites around London, 24 June-4 July.

The Critic/The Real Inspector Hound

Sheridan is matched with Stoppard in two of the funniest plays ever written about theatre. In the first, a ludicrous play about the Spanish Armada descends into chaos; in the second, two critics get caught up in a Christie-style whodunit. Jonathan Church, who has boldly restored Chichester's fortunes, directs. Minerva, Chichester (01243 781312), 2 July-28 August.

You Me Bum Bum Train

Two hundred performers and an audience of just one – you. This show has been six years in the making, and now gets a full-scale production courtesy of the Barbican's BITE programme. LEB Building, London E2 (0845 120 7511), 6-24 July.

Earthquakes in London

Rupert Goold directs a Mike Bartlett play promising a rollercoaster ride through London from 1968 to 2525. Themes include social breakdown, population explosion and paranoia: a chance for Goold to exercise the expressionist talents he used in Enron. Cottesloe, London SE1 (020-7452 3000), from 28 July.

The Gospel at Colonus

Classic Greek drama is given a twist by US director Lee Breuer, who relocates Sophocles's tragedy to modern America and throws in a gospel choir, Blind Boys of Alabama, to collectively play the role of Oedipus. Edinburgh Playhouse (0131-473 2000), 21-23 August.

Architecture

The Serpentine Gallery summer pavilion

The gallery's 10th summer pavilion is as red as a London double-decker. It's also Jean Nouvel's first building in Britain, but only just: the French architect, best known for the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, has nearly completed a controversial office block in the City of London. This boldly geometric pavilion will be home to a series of cultural events. Serpentine Gallery, London W2 (020-7402 6075), 10 July–17 October.

Venice Biennale

The 12th International Architecture Exhibition is curated this year by the Pritzker prize-winning Japanese architect Kazuyo Sejima. This is one of the most delightful places to encounter the latest ideas in architecture. Venice, 29 August–21 November. Details: labiennale.org

Television

Secret Diaries of Anne Lister

Anne Lister was a woman way ahead of her time. A Yorkshire industrialist, land-owner and traveller, she was also a lesbian and lived with her lover, long before lesbians officially existed. Best of all, she was an avid diarist, recording her life in great detail – and often in code. Maxine Peake stars as Lister in this one-off 90-minute drama, written by Jane English and directed by James Kent. BBC2, June

Big Brother

Love it or hate it, there's no denying BB's influence and impact on the first decade of the 21st century. Remember the chickens, and Nasty Nick? And how much nastier it got over subsequent series? This is the end – the last BB ever. (To be read in Marcus Bentley's Geordie voice: It's D-Day in the Big Brother house ...) Channel 4, June

Father & Son

A four-part thriller written by Frank Deasy (Prime Suspect: The Final Act and The Passion) about an ex-crim who returns to Britain from a quiet life in Ireland, to save his teenage son from prison. Starring Dougray Scott, Stephen Rea, Sophie Okonedo and Ian Hart. ITV, June

Vexed

A three-part comedy drama about a pair of cops (Toby Stephens and Lucy Punch) with a lot of chemistry between them, as well as issues at home. Written by Howard Overman, who penned the hit show Misfits for E4. BBC2, August

I Am Slave

A one-off drama from the people who created the feature film The Last King of Scotland, tackling the issue of slavery in contemporary Britain. Inspired by real events, it tells the story of a young woman's abduction from her home in Sudan to London, where she is enslaved. Channel 4, August

Classical and opera

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

Bryn Terfel finally sings a role he was born to play – that of Hans Sachs, in Wagner's most life-affirming work. Welsh National Opera presents Richard Jones's new production in Cardiff and Birmingham, before bringing it to the Proms as a concert performance. Millennium Centre, Cardiff (029-2063 6464), 19 June-3 July; Hippodrome, Birmingham (0844 338 5000), 6 & 10 July; Royal Albert Hall, London SW7 (0845 401 5040), 17 July.

What are Years

The highlight of Pierre Boulez's first-ever appearance at the Aldeburgh festival promises to be the world premiere of 101-year-old Elliott Carter's Marianne Moore song cycle, with Boulez conducting soprano Claire Booth and Ensemble Intercontemporain. Snape Maltings Concert Hall (01728 687110), Aldeburgh, 26 June.

The Duchess of Malfi

English National Opera and the theatre company Punchdrunk join forces to take over a vacant site in London's Docklands for an "immersive" production of Torsten Rasch's new opera, based on John Webster's 17th-century revenge tragedy. Great Eastern Quay, London E16. Tickets are not yet on sale, but you can register your interest here" 13-24 July.

Bach Day

As usual, the Proms will mark most of the year's significant musical anniversaries – Schumann, Chopin, Scriabin, Mahler – and will devote an entire day to Bach. John Eliot Gardiner conducts the Brandenburg Concertos, David Briggs plays organ works and Andrew Litton takes on an evening of orchestral arrangements. Cadogan Hall & Royal Albert Hall, London SW7 (0845 401 5040), 14 August.

Montezuma

The European colonisation of the new world is the theme of this year's Edinburgh international festival – and Carl Heinrich Graun's rarely performed opera from 1754, with a libretto by Frederick the Great of Prussia, fits into it perfectly. A Mexican production team stages this story of the Spanish conquest of Mexico, with a cast drawn from both the old and new worlds. King's, Edinburgh (0131-473 2000), 14, 15 & 17 August.

East Neuk festival

Expect high-class chamber music at this Scottish event, with both the Belcea and Elias quartets in residence. Programmes range across more than three centuries, from Tallis to Britten. Various venues, Fife (0131-473 2000), 30 June to 4 July.

Jazz

Wynton Marsalis

Marsalis and the Lincoln Center orchestra celebrate 80 years of big-band jazz history with three big London concerts, as well as workshops and jams at the Vortex Club and elsewhere. The Hackney gigs feature both an afternoon family concert and evening show, while the Glasgow performance is part of the Glasgow international jazz festival. Barbican Hall, London E8 (0845 120 7500), 17-18 June; Hackney Empire, London E8 (020-8510 4500), 20 June; Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow (0141-353 8000), 27 June.

The Necks

Every performance by Australia's cult improv trio the Necks is different – though you can be sure that each will be a seamless episode of free improvisation. Hypnotic hooks emerge and fade from trance-like drones, jazz phrasing is touched on and abandoned, and drum sounds are both textural and rhythmic. It's a unique ensemble, with a big cult following. Tron Theatre, Glasgow (0141-552 4267), 22 June.

Pat Metheny Band

Guitar star Metheny came to Britain with his one-man-band Orchestrion project earlier in the year, but this show represents the Metheny his long-time fans know: the leader of an accessible quartet fusing Latin music, jazz themes and lyrical guitar. Regulars Lyle Mays (piano), Steve Rodby (bass) and dynamic drummer Antonio Sanchez complete the lineup. Barbican, London EC2 (0845 120 7500), 10 July.

Kurt Elling

Jazz singer and multi-award nominee Elling has it all – Sinatra's soaring sound and charismatic cool, a dazzling jazz-improv technique, and an intelligent audacity about picking unusual material. Ronnie Scott's, London W1 (020-7439 0747), 30 June-3 July.

World music

Womad

This festival can either be a miserable mudbath or an easy-going weekend in the Wiltshire countryside – but it's worth risking it for an impressive lineup. From Congo, Staff Benda Bilili play rousing rhumba-rock from their wheelchairs; and from Australia there's the soulful Aboriginal star Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu. Plus Nigeria's master drummer Tony Allen, the Kamkars from Kurdish Iran, and great American veteran Gil Scott-Heron. Charlton Park, Malmesbury, Wiltshire, 23-25 July. Box office: 0845 146 1735.

Cambridge Folk Festival

There are dozens of good UK folk festivals this summer – but Cambridge still has the highest profile, partly because it has become an international event with increasing emphasis on American stars. This year the line-up includes country legend Kris Kristofferson, the Carolina Chocolate Drops and the multilingual Pink Martini, along with Malian star Rokia Traoré. The British contingent includes the Unthanks and Seth Lakeman. Cherry Hinton Hall, 29 July to 1 August. Box office: 01223 357851.

Dance

Pleasure's Progress

Will Tuckett visits the dark underbelly of 18th-century England, mixing dance and opera in this homage to William Hogarth. The cast includes the excellent Matthew Hart. Jerwood DanceHouse, Ipswich (01473 295230), 18-19 June, then touring.

Russian ballet in London

Heavyweight Moscow ballet giant the Bolshoi and the St Petersburg featherweight, the Mikhailovsky, fight it out for London's summer ballet audience. The Bolshoi have a new staging of Coppélia and Ratmansky's Russian Seasons, while the Mikhailovsky bring the classic Gorsky-Messerer Swan Lake, as well as Chabukiani's uber-Soviet ballet Laurencia. The Mikhailovsky are at the Coliseum, London WC2 (020-7632 8300) from 13 July; The Bolshoi are at the Royal Opera House, London WC2 (020-7304 4000), from 17 July.

Carlos Acosta

Acosta returns with his latest mixed programme – and his performances include debuts in the beautiful Russell Maliphant solo, Two, and Edwaard Liang's Sight Unseen, with Zenaida Yanowsky. Coliseum, London WC2 (020-7632 8300), from 28 July.

Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch: Agua

Following Bausch's death last year, her company opted to continue touring her work. Agua, seen here in the UK for the first time, is a tragicomic take on life played out against Brazilian landscapes. Playhouse, Edinburgh (0131 473 2000), 27-29 August.

Comedy

Penn and Teller

Stand aside, Derren Brown. Perform your disappearing act, Paul Daniels. Las Vegas magic act Penn and Teller are coming to town, for five nights in London this July. The duo's 30-year partnership has yielded multiple Emmy nominations, an appearance on The Simpsons – and, of course, their hit 1990s Channel 4 series, The Unpleasant World of Penn & Teller. This is their first live UK appearance in 16 years. Hammersmith Apollo, London W6 (0844 844 4748), 14-18 July.

Hans Teeuwen

Already confirmed for the Edinburgh fringe this year, the once-seen, never-forgotten Dutch comic Teeuwen unleashes his new show Smooth and Painful on an unsuspecting world. Even if you've seen the twisted cabaret of this demoniacal Nick Cave of comedy before, you've no idea what he'll come up with next. Pleasance Beyond, Edinburgh (0131-556 6550), 4-29 August.

My Name Is Sue

Winner of a Total Theatre award at last year's Edinburgh fringe, this frumpy cabaret once again unites the talents of composer/performer Dafydd James and director Ben Lewis, of the terrific Inspector Sands theatre group. James dons a blouse and skirt to play the titular housewife, who sits at a piano and whacks out the musical story of her unheralded life. Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff (029 2031 1050), 4 and 5 June. Then touring.

Emo Philips

A UK comedy favourite since the 1980s, Philips returns for the first time since 2006 to play – er, a tent in a field in Suffolk. Signing up the falsetto-voiced man-child is a real coup for Latitude: judging by his last British shows, age (he's now in his mid-50s) hasn't mellowed this relentless dispenser of disturbed one-liners. Latitude festival, July 18, then touring; at the Pleasance Cabaret Bar, Edinburgh (0131-556 6550), 5-29 August.

• Previews by Peter Bradshaw, Alexis Petridis, John Fordham, Michael Billington, Lyn Gardner, Robin Denselow, Brian Logan, Andrew Clements, Sam Wollaston, Judith Mackrell, Adrian Searle, Jonathan Glancey and Alison Flood

• This article/item was amended on 24 May 2010 to remove a box office
phone number at the request of ENO, as tickets must be registered for
online.

Shanghai Expo; London

I've always hoped that expos and world fairs would lie down and die. They are vast, extravagant pretexts for national and commercial posturing. They are miserable to visit, entailing foot-aching tramps and long queues to visit pavilions that are essentially 3-D powerpoint presentations. They are endless campuses of bluster, wind, spin and deceit. They are insanely expensive. With stunning hypocrisy they give themselves environmental themes: "Humankind – Nature – Technology", for example, or "Love the Earth". There are few things less sustainable than building several billions worth of structures that will last a few months, and inviting millions to fly to see them.

Like the Olympics they proclaim regeneration and leave behind wildernesses of decay and debt, but they lack the excitement and point of the Games. There was a time, touring the floundering Hanover Expo 2000, when I dared to believe it might be the last of its kind, but they have come back bigger than ever. The Shanghai Expo, opening on 1 May, has cost twice as much as the Beijing Olympics and is expected to attract 70 million visitors.

The British government has often had a tepid approach to expos, contributing national pavilions that look like trade show escapees, and too-obviously follow the agendas of their commercial sponsors. This attitude could be seen as uninspired philistinism, which it possibly was, but it could also be seen as giving expos an appropriate degree of respect.

In Shanghai, however, they have pulled out all the stops, and for obvious reasons. We want to be friends with China, or at least our government does, so we don't want to snub their big party with a below-par pavilion. UK Trade and Investment, the government agency that is one of the project's sponsors, wants to show that Britain is a modern, creative country and not just the land of Harry Potter. Such agencies always want to do this, but apparently the Chinese are particularly persistent in thinking of Britain as a place of fog and bowler hats.

So a pavilion was commissioned from the designer Thomas Heatherwick that, despite reports of creative conflicts in its making, promises to be the star of the show. Polls held in China in advance of the expo ranked its design second only to the Chinese pavilion. When the expo had a trial opening last week, crowds stormed the security guards at the entrance to the British pavilion, and overwhelmed them.

The most arresting thing about Heatherwick's design is that it looks like a head of hair, or a dandelion in seed, or a hedgehog. Its centrepiece is a round-cornered cuboid formed by translucent wands, which wave in the wind. As we expect buildings neither to be hairy nor in motion, these qualities give it a certain charm.

The hairy thing sits on an uneven plane something like crumpled paper, to symbolise, in the gushy rhetoric of expos, a just-unwrapped gift from Britain to China. The plane, the size of a football pitch, is a gathering place, where people can sit or wander, and where performances will be held. Its raised edges also enable the duller parts of the brief – offices, hospitality suites – to be tucked underneath.

A tour around the site takes visitors past a series of installations themed on the role of nature in British society, culminating in the interior of the hairy cube/dandelion/hedgehog. Here the other ends of the wands form a glowing fuzz, and the end of each wand entraps rare seeds, 217,300 in all, from Kew Garden's Millennium Seed Bank project which aims to preserve the world's most endangered seeds. Heatherwick calls this space the "seed cathedral", and waxes lyrical on the beauty of the exhibits. "One seed could be the reason why your granny goes on living, or a whole country's economy can be based on a particular crop. Nothing could be more important than that."

Heatherwick's design is a brilliant response to what an expo pavilion is. It is outstandingly memorable. It does not rely on endless texts, or video projections, or touch screens, for its effect. You can just look at it, and get it, and the crumpled plane means that people experience the pavilion even if they don't queue to go inside the seed cathedral. It will offer refreshment amid the deep fatigue that expos generate.

It possibly won't deliver new insights into the human condition, or even say much that is meaningful about modern Britain, but deep insight has never been the way of expos. The shame is that, in order to achieve this nugget, the waste and dross of an expo has been created. Wouldn't it be better to have one without the other? Wouldn't it also be better if this kind of creative effort were expended on the places where people actually spend their daily lives?

Meanwhile, back in Blighty, the latest twists in the Chelsea Barracks saga are doing their best to disprove the expo message that we are a happening, go-ahead country. About a year ago this site became famous when Prince Charles backed opponents of a Richard Rogers-designed row of glistening blocks for the site, which was then dropped by the site's owners, Qatari Diar. The prince was, he said, acting on behalf of local people.

Now a new plan has emerged, by Dixon Jones, Squire and Partners and Kim Wilkie Associates. Details are still sketchy, but images show an updated version of Georgian squares and terraces that handle shifts in scale more gently than Rogers's more abrupt design. It can be built in phases, which is practical for the developers.

The new scheme looks decent and reasonable while leaving you wishing that there was a third way that was neither Rogers's stridency nor the cautious conservatism now on offer. But some of the most significant aspects of the new scheme are nothing to do with architectural style.

There will be less to benefit the public, in the form of sports facilities, that the admittedly generous Rogers scheme offered. The new project offers half as much open space as the Rogers scheme, which also looks more constrained and regimented. Some will be used for productive gardens, which will be nice, but far less space is given to children playing or kicking a ball around.

This will be popular with many local residents, particularly those who live in the extremely expensive streets to the north of the site and don't especially want unruly kids nearby. On the other hand there are council and housing association blocks to the east, which are desperate for more open space. These same blocks find that the bulkiest parts of the new development are shovelled up against them, creating a chasm-like street where there were previously open views.

And the new plan shoves much of the required affordable housing onto a new block, not formerly part of the Chelsea Barracks site, close to the council estate. This threatens to reinforce the division between haves and have-nots that already exists in the area. It is also contrary to Westminster city council's policy of mixing affordable and, as it must be called, unaffordable housing. Thus the prince's influence has indeed worked on behalf of local people, but for the rich ones rather more than the poor ones.

The Flatpack film festival's Odeon bus tour unspooled the story of the rise and fall of Oscar Deutsch's 1930s art deco picture palaces

"Yellow 33, yellow 31, white 61, blue 42, white 62 ..." The voice of bingo, like time, marches on. Under a giant digital scoreboard, players in rows scan their cards. To the back of the auditorium, up a flight of stairs affixed with an Invalift, pensioners hunch over video gambling terminals. Outside the gents hangs a rack of pamphlets, How to Stay in Control (tip no 1: "Stop all gambling"). The roast dinner is a steal at £3.99, but nobody's hungry. Their eyes are glued to their cards and screens.

If they looked up, they'd see slim neon wall lights, stylish saucer lamps and a smooth, sloping ceiling with elegant fluting. It might be hard to imagine now, but this used to be one of the glitziest places a Brummie could go in the 1930s: the great Odeon Kingstanding in Birmingham, perhaps England's finest art deco cinema.

The old Kingstanding is one of 18 surviving Odeon picture-houses constructed by Oscar Deutsch during the 1930s, the glory days of cinema-building. They are not, by and large, in good shape. From the outside, the Kingstanding still retains a shabby grandeur: three fins strike upwards in a stylish front tower, and the curved frontage and baked ceramic tile evoke a dated glamour. But the tiles are cracked, and the old billing has been replaced by big, square, primary-colour alphabet blocks spelling M-E-C-C-A.

The Kingstanding was probably the most evocative old cinema on last weekend's Odeon bus tour, presented in conjunction with Birmingham's Flatpack film festival. But Perry Barr – now stranded on a motorway, just down the street from the Hand of God barber – was probably the funniest. This was the first cinema built in Birmingham by Deutsch, the legendary Odeon founder who died at 41 after a torrid construction programme that saw him open as many as three cinemas per week in the 30s. Perry Barr was a novelty building, a fantasy destination that played up its escapism. It was built in a Moorish style. The usherettes wore matching trousers, anklets, veils and turbans. For many of its patrons, this was the closest they could get to a little bit of luxury: a bit of carpet, a striking interior (designed, invariably, by Deutsch's wife, Lili), a friendly greeting by name, a permanently reserved seat.

The Odeon cinemas were influenced by the art deco and Bauhaus movements being imported by Jewish architects from the continent fleeing Nazi persecution: men such as Walter Gropius, Erich Mendelsohn, Mies van der Rohe. According to Juliet Gardiner, author of The Thirties: An Intimate History, everyday people during the Depression couldn't afford this fantastic new architecture, with its flat roofs and curved frontages, for their own homes. But for the price of a sandwich they could take themselves and their families into one of these beautiful moderne buildings, with their swooping curves, gentle fluting and red-and-gold neon signs (the work of the Harry Pearce company). Cinemas were intimately linked to suburbanisation: they were often constructed near new working-class housing developments such as the giant 4,000-home Kingstanding estate. Birmingham, with its enthusiastic embrace of urban sprawl, lapped them up.

After a hectic decade during which Deutsch built hundreds of cinemas a year, making Odeon into a competitor with the great Gaumont and ABC chains, the second world war began. On 3 September 1939, all theatres were closed by order of council. There was an outcry. When they hurriedly reopened, the cinemas were more crowded than ever. Many had more than 4,000 seats – and these were not multiplexes.

But Deutsch died in 1941 and economic factors eventually scuppered much of the Odeon chain. Perry Barr shut its doors in 1969. Like Kingstanding, it too went bingo. It was Perry Bingo, then Grenada bingo, then others. It's now the Banqueting Palace, or the Royale Suite (depending on which of its two huge white signs you believe) – one of Birmingham's more popular destinations for Asian weddings. It's got glass doors and poured-concrete steps and is flanked by a pair of ersatz classical columns. A dozen A4 posters advertise a Shadin Bangla concert. Heavy goods vehicles rumble and hiss past all day long. Only the elegant brick construction hints at its former glory.

The only Odeon in Brum that still functions as a cinema is what is now the Empire, in Sutton, a suburban district famed (if that's the right word) for being the home of Roger Moore's mother. The Sutton is a great example of the Odeon "house style": bold lines, squared red Odeon lettering, faience tile. The projectionist generously showed off the cinema's ancient projector, still going strong after nearly 60 years, unspooling Nanny McPhee for a terrifying crowd of children oblivious to the cinema's art deco heritage. The Sutton will go digital in April, the projector retired – one of the last pieces of the great Odeon chain in Birmingham to go.

Back at the Mecca bingo hall, the numbers roll relentlessly on. "Red 62, white 31, yellow 61 … and ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner!" Two, in fact: a pair of elderly women, who each win £225 and look thrilled. It's not unreasonable to think those two ladies could have been coming here since they were kids, to watch news reels and travelogues and Gracie "the Lancashire Lass" Fields. They're still here today, hoping for the occasional win. The building may no longer be an Odeon, but 80 years on, it still offers a relatively cheap way for people to buy a bit of glamour.

Exhibiting a rotting tofu hut alongside a dragon made of underpants, Shenzhen's third biennale of architecture glories in the dizzying excess of China's urban growth

At the top of Shenzhen's Lotus Hill, a statue of Deng Xiaoping is frozen in purposeful mid-stride. From here he gazes down on this southern Chinese boom city, teeming with 14 million inhabitants, separated from Hong Kong only by a river and a border. Follow the path down the hill, through manicured gardens and past young families (the average age in Shenzhen is 30, the age of the city itself), and you reach the megastructure of the Shenzhen Civic Centre. Its overwhelmingly massive, blue undulating canopy evokes classical Chinese architecture, but is rendered in bold, postmodern, friendly style. It shelters Shenzhen's governmental buildings, and a vast complex of indoor and outdoor public spaces. This un-forbidden city is currently playing host to the extremely ambitious, yet awkwardly titled, Shenzhen and Hong Kong Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture, which attempts to document the pace of change in this unwieldy new metropolis.

When Deng declared Shenzhen China's first liberalised Special Economic Zone in 1980, the city – at that point a mere fishing village of 20,000 – became a sort of economic laboratory for the nation as a whole. Where Shenzhen went, the nation followed: into a fervent embrace of capitalism and urbanisation. One of the city's many entrepreneurs is Barack Obama's half-brother, Mark Okoth Obama Ndesandjo, who moved here in 2002 and opened a chain of restaurants called Cabin BBQ (strange, considering he's a vegetarian). Ndesandjo just self-published a semi-autobiographical novel, From Nairobi to Shenzhen, and last week was named the city's official "image ambassador". Shenzhen's patriarch, however, will always be Deng, whose image dominates billboards, and whose waxwork figure enjoys tea with Margaret Thatcher in a bizarre diorama at the top of the city's tallest skyscraper.

The biennale, now in its third edition, is a government-sponsored attempt to establish one thing Shenzhen lacks: a cultural scene. The theme is city mobilisation, which chief curator Ou Ning – who lived here throughout the 1990s, when growth was so fast that the phrase "Shenzhen speed" was born – says is an experiment to unite citizens "in a time that lacks centralised force, spiritual solidarity and practical organisation". While most architecture biennales are unappealing cocktails of dodgy architectural art and dense technical presentations, this one has a more popular touch. More than 60 installations by artists and architects occupy an underground hall at the civic centre, the massive public plaza above it, and various spots around the city.

Most of them are interactive and easy to understand. You're greeted in the main exhibition space by a Chinese dragon composed of 12,000 American Apparel vest tops and underpants, made in California and specially imported, hanging from the ceiling in undulating, colour-coordinated patterns. The piece, by LA-based art duo Ball Nogues, attempts a temporary reversal of the world's normal movement of goods, which usually flows from Guangdong province – known as the workshop of the world – into the US.

Other pieces in the biennale similarly reflect on China and Shenzhen's rampant growth, but without delivering polemics or concrete proposals. This isn't only because of the threat of censorship, but because the role of architecture in a modern city is relatively tiny. Some exhibits merely enrich your thinking about Shenzhen: a video by Danish artist Bjarke Ingels of parkour free runners leaping miraculously around the city's treacherous building sites; a small hut made out of tofu by artist group Polit-Sheer-Form, which is gradually collapsing, rotting, and stinking out the hall; and seemingly ancient images of a sleepy, smalltown Shenzhen, from the 1960s to the early 80s, by local photographer He Huangyou. One photo shows an almost empty Shennan Avenue in 1980. It's reminiscent of the photographs of Sheikh Zayed road in Dubai circa 1990 – another city that's just 30 years old – except here, instead of desert, the road is bordered by rice paddies and the last vestiges of jungle.

The biennale has a provisional feel to it: installations are constantly being rearranged and repaired, and video projections function only sporadically. But the main virtue of the exhibition is that it propels you out into the city with fresh eyes. Liu Xiaoliang's obsessively detailed metal sculptures, Demolition Relocation (2009), model the gradually disappearing "urban villages" of Shenzhen. These haphazard neighbourhoods of densely packed "shakehand" buildings (so close together that residents can reach out of their windows and greet their neighbours) have been constructed in the absence of planning regulations, many of them by former farmers now unable to work. A timeline by the Hong Kong-based architects IDU tells the story of Shenzhen's urban village of Caiwuwei, which had a population of 27,000 before it was demolished to make way for a new business district in 2005. IDU emphasise that this isn't an eviction sob story; the farmers set up the Caiwuwei Village Company to ensure they profited from the development of their land.

Even though Caiwuwei is now mostly gone, Shenzhen still has around 20 other urban villages, which accommodate unregistered migrant workers from all over China (Shenzhen has more than 6 million of them). But what do these villages actually look like? Curious to find out, I asked a biennale volunteer to write down the name of one in Chinese and hopped in a taxi, which eventually dropped me off outside a huge, luxurious mall called Holiday Plaza. I assumed that the taxi driver had misinterpreted the directions, or that this urban village had also recently bitten the dust. But, just a block away, opposite a surreal amusement park called Window of the World – complete with a replica Eiffel Tower bedecked in neon Chinese characters – I discovered the dark, intricate warren of the Baishizhou urban village. It's an outdoor shopping mall, with tiny storefronts and ramshackle stalls selling an unimaginable array of stuff, from knock-off DVDs to vegetables and vitamins. There's no division between indoors and outdoors: family life spills on to the streets and all business activity, such as shoe mending, sewing, wood-cutting, hair-cutting, internet surfing, pool-playing, and most of all, cooking, is done out in the alleyways and in the main square – which also has a hospital in it.

Urban villages might be Shenzhen's equivalent of the hundreds-of-years-old hutongs in Beijing. It would be a travesty if they too were demolished to make way for gated apartment complexes and sterile shopping centres. Might Shenzhen's urban planners learn from these unplanned but apparently highly functional neighbourhoods? In November, a 47-year-old woman named Tang Fuzhen in Sichuan province set fire to herself and died rather than be evicted from her home, which stood in the way of developers. Last week, the government resolved to defend residents' property rights against such illegal eviction and demolition. So perhaps there is hope for Shenzhen's exceptionally energetic, if dirty and often derided, urban villages. Alternatively, as IDU pointed out at the biennale, the farmers themselves may choose to cash in on their increasingly valuable property.

Back at the biennale, late at night, the sound of screeching and creaking cranes echoes wistfully across the plaza. It's merely a sound installation by the architects DnA. But I heard exactly the same noises from building sites everywhere in Shenzhen. And up on the civic centre plinth, overlooking the plaza and the city beyond, Bureau des Mésarchitectures have constructed a pair of swings, called Double Happiness (2009), raised on a 10-foot-tall platform. It's the biennale's most popular piece, and it sends you lurching out towards the luminous horizon of skyscrapers, as if propelling you into the future. You're made to feel both nauseous and exhilarated.