Robert Thorne

It is a perennial joke amongst those returning from their holidays that the things they had most hoped to see on their journey were lost from view – closed, removed for restoration, or sent away for exhibition elsewhere.

Museums are getting increasingly self-conscious about the artificialities they embody. Even if they can stave off the claim that objects collected through wealth and conquest ought to be sent home again they are showing more recognition that taking things from their original settings destroys an important part of their meaning.

Robert Thorne on London's architects and their work.

Robert Thorne asseses and appreciates Nikolaus Pevsner's approach to the English buildings he so assiduously and so personally surveyed.

The publication of Exploring the Urban Past edited by David Cannadine and David Reeder, The Rise of Suburbia edited by F.M.L. Thompson and The English Terraced House by Stefan Muthesius, occasions Robert Thorne to reflect on the burgeoning interest of historians in suburban history.

'A kind of apotheosis of terracotta', the Natural History Museum has been open for a hundred years as a scientific institution to serve the huge lay audience who are knowledgeable about nature and eager to learn more. Robert Thorne reflects on how, in its centenary year, the museum's architectural perfection is under threat.