Welcome to issue 469, which is crammed with even more features and pictures than the last.
Made in London is such a big topic that this journal could easily have been a book. Its pages bring the glittering kaleidoscope that is London today into focus, a city built on so many incarnations of skill and structure that, as towers spring up, it evolves in front of our eyes. But it is the people who design and make things who are the lifeblood of this glorious place ‚ whatever bankers like to think. Chief GLA regeneration officer Levent Kerimol looks at the small industries being squeezed in the East ‚ the examples he gives are fascinating, some quite unexpected. A photo essay by Grant Smith of these hard workers, from the cheesemakers to the beer brewers, is at the heart of the journal. There’s also a piece on the oldest tailor on Savile Row, whose cutters are as skilled at intuitive tectonics as many architects. But where that company relies on tradition, others rely on new techniques to get ahead, with the new discipline of so-called empathic design‚. A piece on the Isokon building in Hampstead examines how that meticulously considered building, unique to London, could have a role today in informing how best to build a new generation of affordable homes. We look at ancient London edifices, from churches, photographed over a 25-year period by David Secombe, to the Tower of London, in a book reviewed by novelist Giles Waterfield. Plus there’s a first-person take on London by someone themselves made in London‚ ‚ MP Rupa Huq, one of the increasingly rare, and very proud, born-and-bred Londoners. Last, for readers of a creative bent, we’ve got an exclusive excerpt from a forthcoming book by Phaidon, which shows how to make a chair out of a discarded pallet. Designed by world-famous UK-based designer Martino Gamper, it is London upcycling at its idiosyncratic and distinctive best. You can buy a copy of the Journal for just £7.50 (p+p free in the UK). Just click here. Philippa Stockley Editor