art & design
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Echoes of Guantánamo in a children's slide‘This is from my Guantánamo series about the homes of ex-detainees. The architecture of the room is very confining’ -
The scariest monsters in artFrom Da Vinci’s live animal mashups to a macabre giant skeleton, a horrifying new history of monsters gives our writer nightmares
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Architect Glenn Murcutt on his Melbourne Mosque projectAcclaimed architect whose Melbourne mosque project has rejected traditional elements says he ‘would die’ if he had to live in an outer suburban housing estate -
Masayoshi Matsumoto's balloon animalsJapanese artist Masayoshi Matsumoto makes his amazingly detailed balloon animals with no glue or seals – then pops them when he’s done
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Is Rio's Olympic architecture a success or failure?After the ‘worst ever’ preparations, how are the park, arena and athletes’ village holding up? And are the designs for the mascots, torch and kits medal-worthy?
in pictures
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Love and loneliness: how Hanya Yanagihara learned to see – in picturesThe Booker-nominated author of A Little Life has curated an exhibition of 12 photographers whose work expresses ‘the perennial mystery of being alive’
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talking points
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Freud's study, Rio favelas and Hillary Clinton's niqab – the week in artTracey Emin to David Shrigley reveal their visions for Team GB, Edinburgh explores the macabre and x-rays reveal Degas’s hidden face – all in your weekly art dispatch
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Vincent van Gogh: myths, madness and a new way of paintingA new exhibition at the Van Gogh Museum sets out to separate the artist’s late work from the myths surrounding his ‘madness’. But does a clinical interpretation of his paintings miss the mystery of his vision?
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reviews
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Mark Wallinger at the Freud Museum review – mirror mirror on the ceilingThe British artist transforms Sigmund Freud’s study into a Dalí-inspired hall of mirrors for a meta-surrealist look at art, psychoanalysis and self-obsession
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Ugly beauty in the Jekyll and Hyde cityDarkness has descended on Scotland’s capital, with monstrous statues, robot babies and macabre examinations of the human soul. Go and be corrupted
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London Eye team goes pole dancing at the seasideIt took husband-and-wife designers 13 years to get this 162m-tall ‘vertical pier’ built in Brighton – but is it a feat of architecture or a corporate branding post?
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Pop goes balloon art: why Bill Clinton isn't its only grown-up fanBalloons injected much-needed joy into the US presidential campaign this month and artists are co-opting the old tricks of the party entertainer too
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Kippa Matthews obituaryMagazine and newspaper photographer who created a remarkable archive of images of North Yorkshire
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Best photographs of the day: Pokémon, beach parties and a pope on a scooterThe Guardian’s picture editors bring you a selection of photo highlights from around the world, including Pikachu, partying and a popemobile
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Underwater babies in Ukraine – in picturesUnderwater photographer Andrey Nekrasov captures the expressions of babies as they learn to swim at a pool in Odessa
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The 20 photographs of the weekThe opening of the Rio Olympics, ongoing violence in Syria, elections in South Africa – the best photography in news, culture and sport from around the world this week
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Original Observer photography: July 2016Norman Cook, Serena Williams and geek chic all feature in this showcase of the best photography commissioned by the Observer in July
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Lost cities #1: Babylon – how war almost erased ‘mankind’s greatest heritage site’Justin Marozzi tells the story of this once-mighty city in Iraq – a microcosm of human history. Besieged by wars and weather, ‘restored’ by Saddam Hussein, what has become of mystical Babylon?
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Thames garden bridge delays raise risk of major boat collision – expertLeading marine civil engineer warns of potential for accident on scale of 1989 Marchioness disaster as major projects on river overlap
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Modernism on the coast: Le Corbusier and Eileen Gray shine at Cap ModerneA peninsula near Monaco is home to an array of modernist architecture, including houses by two stars of the scene, and a revamped visitor centre is helping to show it all in the best light
the big picture
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Katie Scott's psychedelic flora and faunaNike trainers sprout plants and French perfumiers inspire by mysterious scientific icons in Katie Scott’s visions that take botanical illustration into the digital age
you may have missed
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I turned the Olympic torch into an ice creamTracey Emin, David Shrigley, Sam Taylor-Johnson and more talk us through the posters they’ve made for Team GB – and what the Olympics mean to them
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A way to face up to ugly truths – and possibly change mindsExhibitions in Sydney and Melbourne seek to humanise asylum seekers, so they are not viewed exclusively ‘through the lens of their past suffering’
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People hate Islam, but they're titillated by it tooAs her first solo show opens in New York, the Qatari-American artist talks about Gulf pop culture, gross veil fetishes – and why she’s not playing the ‘native informant’
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Boris Johnson’s nine biggest design blundersAs plans for the Garden Bridge teeter, behold Boris’s most public design disasters, from Thomas Heatherwick’s mobile sweatbox to an Olympic white elephant
video
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The forces at work here are brutalColombian sculptor Doris Salcedo takes us on a tour of Bogotá and her studio
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What is rubbish to some people is not to meAs a child, Stanley Spencer was always rummaging in dustbins – a tea pot, jam tin and cabbage stalk seemed to him a holy trinity. In this short film, Spencer’s paintings glorifying the everyday are brought to life in the artist’s own words
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Bristol school is given Banksy mural – videoChildren return to Bridge Farm primary school after their half-term break to find a Banksy mural on the school wall
Rem first-look review Jet-setting portrait of world’s most talked-about architect