the-sheet.com Your Architecture Resource

Architect brands Lenin-commissioned structure as a work of 'dazzling genius' and inspiration that must be saved

From a distance it looks a bit like an upturned wastepaper basket, soaring over the concrete skyline of southern Moscow.

The Russian capital's unique Soviet-era radio station was built in 1922 to spread the message of revolutionary communism around the world, but it is badly neglected and suffering from corrosion.

Now British architect Lord Foster has backed a campaign to save the 150-metre-high steel tower designed by the engineering genius Vladimir Shukhov.

In an open letter, Lord Foster describes the tower as "a structure of dazzling brilliance and great historical importance". Calling the structure Shukhov's masterpiece, Foster says it is the "first major landmark of the Soviet period".

Made up of a delicate lattice structure, the tower has five interlocking "hyperboloids", each smaller in size, giving the impression of an inverted telescope. The revolutionary design is an inspiration for several of Foster's own landmark projects including the Gherkin, or Swiss Re building, in the City of London.

Lenin commissioned the tower to adorn his new Soviet Union during a period of romantic optimism. It was built between 1919-1922. Nearly 90 years on, it is badly neglected and suffering from corrosion.

Russia's federal and local government are locked in dispute over which one of them should pay for repairs. Neither seems willing to stump up the cash.

In the meantime, Foster says, the structure is "neglected and dying" and without "faithful restoration" is doomed to fail. Several other leading European and US architects have backed Foster's letter, sent last month to the Moscow authorities. The art critic Andrew Graham-Dixon is another fan, and rode to the top in his recent BBC series on Russian art. Dixon-Smith hailed it as "one of the great monuments of the constructivist post-revolutionary period".

Today Shukhov's grandson, also called Vladimir, said the tower near Moscow's Shabolovskaya metro station was inaccessible and closed to visitors.

The idea was to restore it and turn it into a major Moscow tourist attraction, he said. Last year Russia's prime minister, Vladimir Putin, expressed his support for the scheme, but since then nothing had happened, Shukhov said.

The steel framework had not undergone any anti-corrosion treatment for 20 years, he said, and was at risk of falling down. "We are in a very dangerous situation. There's been a lot of talk but no activity. You have the architectural equivalent of a diamond here, and yet nothing is being done to save it."

Under the headline "corroded masterpiece", Russia's Izvestiya newspaper contrasted official Russian indifference to the building's fate with Foster's vigorous campaign.

"Only foreigners care about its destiny," the paper said.

Russia's state TV and radio station – which owns the tower – had no money and even less desire to save it, the paper added.

Shukhov was one of the greatest structural engineers of the early 20th century and the leading engineer of his era in Russia.

He pioneered the use of new structural systems, creating hyperboloid structures of double curvature whose lightness and geometric complexity defy the imagination, even in the computer age. He also built Russia's first oil pipeline as well as numerous railway bridges.

Architect John Wilkes' virtual recreation of Gloucestershire town reaches final of Model Your Town competition

In bygone days he might have used cardboard, plastic or even matchsticks to create a scale model of his home town. But architect John Wilkes has reached the final of an international competition by making an intricate 3D virtual model of Dursley, in Gloucestershire.

Wilkes spent more than 1,000 hours reproducing almost 200 buildings and structures ranging from a church to modern storage sheds, the swimming pool and even his own house.

After the recession left him short of work, Wilkes began modelling Dursley using 3D software in February last year having seen a virtual version of San Francisco online. "I thought, that looks great, why don't I do it for Dursley?" Wilkes said.

The first building he created was Jacob's House, which once housed his father's shop and is now the town council's headquarters. Someone suggested he model one of the local churches, and he went on from there. Last autumn Wilkes decided to enter Google's Model Your Town competition.

"I only started this as a hobby when I was out of work but I thought I've got a bit of a head start on this so I'll just carry on what I'm doing and enter my submission," he said. "Now naturally I'm hoping I can win the competition. I've now modelled virtually the whole town of Dursley, 197 separate buildings in very high detail."

Wilkes was one of 500 individuals and teams who took part in the contest and faces stiff competition in the final from modellers from Spain, Germany and Peru. There is also a spectacular recreation of West Palm Beach in Florida, created by a 20-year-old university student.

Wilkes' masterpiece is a combination of the lovely and mundane. Online visitors can take a close look at the old church of St James from all angles or imagine goings-on inside the Carpenters Arms pub. There are phone boxes – old and new – benches, trees and the doctor's surgery. Wilkes has modelled the Grade II*-listed market hall, and taken the same care recreating two different public toilet blocks.

He said he had not realised how many beautiful buildings there were in the town when he started the project. "There are some real hidden gems," he said. The winner of the competition will receive $10,000 (£6,480) for a local school.

Meanwhile, Google has made its first UK acquisition, buying the mobile visual search startup Plink for an undisclosed sum. The Google chief executive, Eric Schmidt, has said he aims to acquire at least one company each month – as well as recruit more staff – to expand the business post-recession.

Founded by PhD students Mark Cummins and James Philbin, Plink's first product was PlinkArt, a visual recognition app that analyses pictures of well-known artworks and paintings and identifies them. Users can share the photo with friends and click through to buy a poster version.

The developers claim the app was downloaded more than 50,000 times in the six weeks following launch, and Plink has held discussions with galleries including the Tate over potential partnerships.

• This article was amended on 13 April 2010. It originally said that Dursley market hall was listed Grade II, rather than Grade II*. This has been corrected.

A new online archive records painted advertising across the country. Find out where your local signs are
• Get the data

The History of Advertising Trust launches its Ghostsigns Archive today, documenting and archiving painted advertising on buildings across the UK.

Painted signs were once common but have been replaced by printed billboards, and those that survive are fading fast, or being demolished during building work.

Project manager Sam Roberts has documented over 650 painted 'ghostsigns' around the country, with the help of interested photographers through the Ghostsigns Flickr group.

The spreadsheet here records the location of each advert (with partial postcode where available), enabling you to find your local signs. The History of Advertising Trust has also provided image links for some of the ghostsigns, and further URLs will be added as they become available.

Are there painted adverts in your area that haven't been documented yet? If so contact the Ghostsigns archive, and help the History of Advertising Trust to preserve this important piece of our advertising past for future generations.

Check out the list of images below, or download the spreadsheet for the full dataset of archived adverts, and see what you can do.

Download the data

• DATA: Ghostsigns archive with location and image links

World government data

• Search the world's government with our gateway

Can you do something with this data?

Flickr Please post your visualisations and mash-ups on our Flickr group or mail us at datastore@guardian.co.uk

• Get the A-Z of data
• More at the Datastore directory
• Follow us on Twitter

Data summary

How do you compare a social housing scheme and a fashion collection? As a judge of the Brit Insurance Design awards, I had to decide

Last night, Britain's most prestigious design prize was awarded to a plug. At a ceremony at the Design Museum, the Brit Insurance Designs of the Year award was carried off by an unknown Korean who only graduated from the Royal College of Art last summer. Min-Kyu Choi was probably not the first person to notice the disparity between his Macbook Air laptop (thin enough to slide into a manila envelope) and the plug attached to it (so bulky you need a duffel bag). But he was certainly the first to sit down and redesign the plug so that it folds flat. This piece of electrical origami says all you need to know about the power of designers to transform our everyday world.

The shortlist for the award included social housing in Mexico, an electric plane, some bamboo furniture and a fashion collection by the late Alexander McQueen. How on earth do you compare such things? In my case, the question wasn't merely rhetorical. "How on earth do you compare such things?" I asked my fellow judges at the Design Museum. As one of the seven-strong jury selected to pick the category winners and ultimately a grand prize winner, I had to come up with an answer.

In many ways, it comes down to what you believe design is. The problem is that, increasingly, design is everything. You used to be able to get away with a simple definition such as "Design is the process of making objects for consumer society". These days, we design our lifestyles, our service industries, our businesses, our bodies and our babies. It's not about nice chairs any more, or the styling of the plastic shell that hides a circuit board and a bundle of wires. The expansion of design beyond the production of desire, beyond consumables, will be one of the driving forces of the 21st century.

There is a new social and ethical imperative at work, and the two previous winners of this award testify to that: a super-cheap laptop for children in developing countries and the poster that helped get Obama elected. On one level, that sets a clear agenda: design is a tool for improving life, a lever towards change. This year's shortlist bears that out: the interactive category was won by a device called the EyeWriter, which allows sufferers of ALS, a form of paralysis, to draw using just their eye muscles. In architecture, a social housing scheme in Monterrey, Mexico, beat a particularly strong field that included David Chipperfield's Neues Museum in Berlin, one of the most sensitive and powerful pieces of museum design in recent times.

How do you compare a supreme piece of high culture with a dirt-cheap housing scheme? It comes down to arguments like this one: it is always possible to create cultural monuments with millions of pounds; it is almost impossible to conjure transformative design out of almost nothing. And that is what the young Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena has done for hundreds of families in Chile and Mexico. Given that half of the world's population now lives in cities, and a third of those in slums, Aravena's practice, Elemental, is one of the most relevant architectural firms working today. Elemental has created a new model of social housing: it provides a family with half a house – the half they can't build themselves, such as the structure – and leaves room for them to add the rest either when they need it or can afford it. What Aravena offers the urban poor is a platform that they can adapt to their needs. In other words, it is the iPhone of architecture. And rather than regimenting the city, like modernist social housing did, it promotes an organic diversity.

Now, none of this is very glamorous. And if design awards are now destined to go only to the worthiest ethical projects, then why did this year's prize go to a plug? Surely this is just old-fashioned industrial design? Yes, but it is also a vote for the art of looking. The British electrical plug, largely unchanged since 1947, is one of the most overlooked objects in the country. No wonder everyone who sees Min's elegant variation experiences an obvious jolt of delight, followed by an "about time".

To those who say it's only relevant in the UK, the point is that it should encourage designers everywhere to consider the unconsidered. Our everyday environment is made up of countless irksome details. If plugs are the only bits left that design hasn't touched, then great. But I think you'll find they're the tip of the iceberg.

Despite its wobbly beginnings, the capital's giant ferris wheel has become a much-loved symbol of London. And even urban sprawl seems beautiful from the top

Tony Blair officially opened the London Eye on 31 December 1999. But it was only after a number of technical glitches had been sorted out that the public was finally allowed aboard in March 2000 – 10 years ago this week. Since then, well over 30 million people have taken the vertiginous but breathtaking half-hour journey, in air-conditioned capsules, up and around what was, until two years ago, the world's biggest ferris wheel. That honour now belongs to the Singapore Flyer; with a height of 165 metres, it outranks the London Eye by a full 30 metres. But, while the Flyer looks like a gigantic version of a 19th-century original (the first of the breed, designed by George Washington Ferris, began revolving at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago), the London Eye is a fighter jet to Singapore's biplane. The Eye has since become as much a part of tourist London as Westminster Abbey, the Tower and Big Ben; a friendly curiosity, an urban eye-catcher, and an engineering wonder to compare with the Eiffel Tower.

When it was first announced, though, it was hard not to think that the London Eye was going to be some sort of Victorian throwback, an enormous music hall-era fun-fair ride among London's new wave of challenging millennium monuments– Tate Modern, the Millennium Bridge and the Millennium Dome itself. At the time of its opening, the joke went that the Eye was a perfect symbol of contemporary British political culture, going around and around uselessly and getting nowhere in the process.

When, however, the design by the architects Marks Barfield was unveiled, most doubts were cast aside. The husband-and-wife team had come up with a striking and rather beautiful hi-tech big wheel. It wasn't just the high-spec design that drew attention, it was the bravura manner in which the Eye's prefabricated components were brought up the Thames on river barges to Jubilee Gardens, and the week-long drama during which, inch by inch, the giant wheel was raised from the river and up into place alongside County Hall. Now, every view in and through Westminster, and along the Thames, was changed. Suddenly, this spidery and beautifully resolved ferris wheel crowned Victorian terraces, filled unexpected views along avenues of plane trees and sat like a tiara atop government offices.

Perhaps its best aspect is that it also offers awe-inspiring and uninterrupted views over London. From up top on a clear day, the entire city can be peered down upon and encompassed. The patterns of London's growth can be seen spreading into subtopia and the green belt like rings marking the age of venerable trees. Rides on the Eye in rain, snow or at night offer their own haunting attractions.

Of London's deafeningly trumpeted rival millennium projects, the Eye has been, perhaps, the most endearing. The Dome was undermined by the unforgivably crass and soulless Millennium Experience exhibition of 2000; it was many years before it redeemed itself as today's O2 music venue. The Millennium Bridge linking Tate Modern and St Paul's Cathedral wobbled, and it was some while before its virtues could be discerned. Tate Modern became almost too popular for its own good, a heaving cultural souk – acutely in need of its planned extension – where art can occasionally be seen between massed heads and shoulders. Other millennium projects, such as the refurbishment of the Royal Opera House, were fine things, yet tame in terms of fresh design.

The London Eye was always a brave and daring adventure, a throwback to 1951's Festival of Britain, held on the same site – an era when Britain could still claim to lead the world (just) in supersonic-era design and engineering. It looks to the past as well as the future.

Benji Lanyado's Twitter-led trip in search of the soul of Leeds took him from baroque music in a Grade II-listed building to a punk gig in an old working men's club - via the oldest pub in the city, naturally

This TwiTrip had a tough act to follow. The finale of my last Twitter-fuelled adventure - to Blackpool - involved a transvestite cabaret act. Hopefully, Leeds was up to the challenge.

As with all of our previous adventures, nothing was planned. I was to turn up at Leeds station, sling questions into the Twittersphere, and wait for tips to be fired at my profile. Then I would do exactly as I was told. You can see how it played out here ... and below you'll find what the good people of Twitter helped me find.

The Twitter tips

It has become TwiTrip tradition to precede the day's events with a little train-time trivia. As I set off from King's Cross, whizzed through snow-covered Peterborough and headed for Leeds, I requested some intriguing facts to keep me entertained. The Twitterers delivered. I was informed by kateigray that the tripe stall in Kirkgate market was the first on the internet; by Seven_Arts that Jimmy Saville lived in Roundhay Park; and by MatMurray that he once saw a woman fall over in the Leeds City Markets, after which a nearby dog tried to mount her.  Not all trivia is created equal.

Then I was there, posing like a hopeless tourist in front of the station. And I was hungry. The mob roared loudly, and there seemed a near-unanimous recommendation. According to BigLittleThings, LeedsGrub, and tenderbranston, the best sarnie in town was to be found at Pickles & Potter. It seemed dangerous to ignore the sandwich advice of anyone who traded as 'tenderbranston', so I duly plodded into the town centre and joined a queue stretching out of the door and into the Queens Arcade - this was clearly a popular choice. Inside, they made me a thing of beauty: slices of red-centred beef joined in gastronomic matrimony with a hunk of smoked cheese, a wholegrain bap, and some kind of marmalade. A very good start indeed.

Next up, I requested some cultural tips ... a wide remit that was answered by scores of tips. I was most intrigued by Marc_Leeds' suggestion of a "forty-part motet" at Opera North in the Grand Theatre. The installation is housed in an assembly room on the upper levels of the Grade II-listed Grand Theatre on New Briggate, and comprises 40 audio speakers arranged around the room, each playing an individual part of Thomas Tallis' Spem in Alium. The effect was extraordinary. In pale midday light filtered by stained-glass windows on all sides, people were drifting in and out,  settling on benches equidistant from all 40 speakers, and closing their eyes to listen. I joined them, and - quite literally - became surrounded by music. Have a listen for yourself below.

I needed to refuel, and took the advice of amandeep86 and loveleedsmore by nipping to the Opposite Cafe stand in the Victoria Arcade, where a nifty barista made me a coffee topped with a beautiful swirling foam motif. It powered me onwards, to the marvellous tiled hall of the Leeds Art Gallery, as recommended by djdavedanger and leedslibraries, who had tweeted at me from their offices inside the building.

Having tasted the cultural offerings of a couple of Leeds blockbusters, I wanted something a little off-grid. Luluartist came up with the goods, directing me to Project Space Leeds, a fascinating venue on the ground floor of a newly-built block on the banks of the canals south of the train station. Inside the industrial, high-ceilinged space, the work of local artists was displayed on sparse walls - Matthew Shelton's piece was a collage of drawings on pieces of paper found scattered across the city, including certificates of achievement, shopping lists, and ASBOs. Inventive.

It was Friday, and it was 5pm. I had little choice but to go to the pub. Tonypreece directed me to Whitelocks, the oldest pub in Leeds, first licenced in 1715. It took me half an hour to find it. The pub is hidden down a tiny alley leading off Briggate, accessed by a blink-and-you'll-miss-it gap in between a Carphone Warehouse and a branch of Northern Rock. Once located, under a illuminated lantern and a fug of cigarette smoke wafting from the smokers congregated outside, it was superb; a nostalgic ye olde pub of polished brass pumps, stained glass and a cacophony of post-work chatter.

Onwards. More pubs. Jccgardner, lindseyhampton and steererscott aided my crawl, pointing me towards The North Bar, home to a creative crowd and more beers than you could shake a drunkard at. I opted for a delicious pint of Roosters, brewed just north of the city in Knaresborough, before moving on to my next stop. Mostly due to its name, and Talullah and guyatkinson's recommendation, I headed to trendy bar A Nation of Shopkeepers, where the stringent door policy refused entry to those wearing sportswear, pirates, fancy dress, large groups, jefforys (anyone?), and grumpy faces. A largely student crowd were largely drunk, crammed on to leather sofas under arty projections as electro music beeped around the room.

My stomach needed lining, and foodiesarah and ecalpemosgreen recommended Nash's as the finest fish and chips in the city ... perfect. A giant lump of cod coated in thick batter and pillowed by chunky chips basted in salt and vinegar. Yes and more yes.

Fuelled by delicious carbs and salty fat, I headed for Headingley for my final stop of the day. Tips had been flying in about the Brudenell Social Club since the TwiTrip was announced - one tipster, djthedutchess, described it as a "gorgeous, shabby, ubercool ex working men's club in Hyde Park". The band playing that night, The Eureka Machines, had noticed the Twitter noise, and invited me along, too, bless their little punk rock socks. The venue was superb; on a suburban backstreet in the Hyde Park area, where a community pub hosts live music in a musty low-ceilinged side room. I also managed to snap my favourite photo of the day just outside, as an immaculately-Mohawked local loitered near the entrance.

And the Eureka Machines did the business, blasting out punk to an adoring local crowd as front man Chris Catalyst cracked jokes in between songs. Their final number even came with a wonderfully soppy intro that you can treat your ears to here:

From baroque polyphony in a Grade II-listed building to a punk gig in an old working men's club ... another end to another excellent TwiTrip. Thanks for all your help.

• Benji stayed at the Quebecs Hotel (doubles £89 per night including breakfast and VAT; +44 (0)113 244 8989; theetoncollection.com/quebecs), as recommended by LoveLeedsMore and tonypreece, which has double rooms from £89 B&B. East Coast's trains operate direct up to every half hour between London and Leeds. Advance returns, booked online, start from £26 Standard Class or £94 First Class. Times and fares also on 08457 225225 or by visiting any staffed station

• All photographs by Benji Lanyado

Astronomer Stuart Clark joins us in the studio to look at the latest thinking about the effects of variations in solar activity on the Earth's climate. Dark matter gets a mention too.

Over the coming days he will be conducting question-and-answer sessions on Twitter - both on solar activity and dark matter. Follow him at DrStuClark and post your questions using the prefix #AskDrStu. (2:00)

There's a new BBC TV series starting this week called Paradox. Its writer Lizzy Mickery comes into the studio to tell us about the challenges of getting a drama based on science onto prime-time TV. (12:10)

In the newsjam we look at a new drug hailed as the "female viagra" and Nasa's announcement that its LCROSS probe found water on the moon. (15:30)

Duncan Clark from environmentguardian.co.uk responds to the s*** storm of blog comments arising from last week's podcast on eco-myths. Who'd have thought people could get so excited about nappies? (23:25)

Steven Levitt talks about his controversial views on geo-engineering, expressed in his latest book SuperFreakonomics. Hear more of that interview in the Guardian's The Business podcast. (26:15)

All the way from Denmark, Dr Rachel Armstrong discusses living buildings and metabolic materials. She is giving a Lunch Hour Lecture at UCL this week. (30:15)

We finish the show with more music ... the winner of Discover Magazine's "evolution in two minutes or less" video competition. (33:15)

Science correspondent Ian Sample lends us his wisdom in the pod. We promise to give it back soon.

WARNING: contains strong language.

Post your comments below.

Join our Facebook group.

Listen back through our archive.

Follow the podcast on our Science Weekly Twitter feed and receive updates on all breaking science news stories from Guardian Science.

Subscribe free via iTunes to ensure every episode gets delivered. (Here is the non-iTunes URL feed).

BLDG BLOG

"Urban speculation, landscape futures" and mind-blowing drawings of space-age constructions.

Entschwindet Und Vergeht

Reporting from the Negative Equity Ghetto of Thamesmead, location of A Clockwork Orange

Architecturelist

Blogging on the latest super structures from China and Dubai, plus Russia's plans for the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Archi Look

Collecting architecture themed YouTube clips.

Pruned

Eclectic mix covering New York tunnels, desert golf courses and Manchester Bury & Bolton canal.

Archidose

Daily dose of architectural brain food.