The Architectural Review #1517

What is a good room? For this issue, we asked architects, curators and writers to describe a good domestic setting – real, remembered or imagined. For some, the room is one designed by Álvaro Siza or Jean-François Zevaco; for others, it is one depicted in an artwork, from a Berliner Zimmer in an 1845 painting by Adolph Menzel, to a pavilion painted in a 14th-century Chinese scroll by Ni Zan. A few offered reflections on the absence of satisfactory living spaces in subdivided apartments or the disappearance of the living room in London’s overheated housing market. Good rooms are also recognised in the AR House awards, now in their 15th year and continuing to question the possibilities of the house’s form and programme.