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The Dispatch

The journal

Journal

Reporting, photo essays and short dispatches, newest first.

  1. Cities

    Cities that answer to the water

    A harbour skyline seen through a frame of white steel, and a hill city after dark: two ways a city arranges itself to face the water.

  2. Culture

    A bookshop, one book at a time

    The most revealing moment in a bookshop is the one when a reader turns a book over. Notes on browsing by hand.

  3. Buildings

    Reading a red-brick museum front

    Arches, small domes and a great deal of red brick: how to read a historic civic facade from the pavement, one layer at a time.

  4. Photo essay

    After ten, the hills light up

    A night walk above a river city built on hills, reading its streets by the colour and rhythm of their lights.

  5. Landscape

    The shaded path through the park

    A wide stone path under a dense canopy, and why the best-used route through a city park is so often the one with the most shade.

  6. Landscape

    Boats along the fishing channel

    In a small fishing town the channel is the main street: boats moored along its length and the working day within a few steps of the water.

  7. Photo essay

    A city drawn as a star

    Seen from above, a triumphal arch sits at the centre of a star of avenues. What that plan does for the people walking it.

  8. Cities

    The street that climbs to the city hall

    A narrow uphill street of colourful houses, closed at the top by a reddish dome: a civic building placed where every walker will see it.