The healing power of Bauhaus at London's St Mary's hospital

The work of Josef and Anni Albers has given a bright, bold new look to a children’s intensive care unit

The role of art in hospitals rarely extends beyond hanging pictures on the wall. But for Josef and Anni Albers, art was always much more than that. Both pioneers of modernism, the couple met in 1922 at the Bauhaus school, an establishment with a revolutionary approach to art. Bauhaus blurred the boundaries between craft, design and fine art and championed the concept of gesamtkunstwerk: the complete work of art, typically in the form of a house.

But why not a hospital department? That was the thinking of the Albers Foundation which, since the couple’s deaths late last century, has worked to continue their legacy. “Josef and Anni both believed that what we experience through our eyes can divert and elate us in unparalleled ways,” explains Nicholas Fox Weber, the foundation’s director. Taking inspiration from the Albers’ geometric patterns and confident use of colour, the foundation has created a bold new look for the children’s intensive care unit at St Mary’s hospital, London.

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Homes for fitness fanatics – in pictures

Get in shape for the new year with these properties with gyms, from Kent to South Wales

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Country diary: a population explosion of garden pests on my windowsill

Crook, County Durham: Unnoticed in the withering roses, the overwintering aphid eggs experienced a premature spring

Virgin births took place on our dining table at Christmas. After a frost-free December, I had cut the last rosebuds from the garden and by Christmas Eve they had opened enough to make a table decoration. It was left forgotten on the windowsill until Twelfth Night, when the withered flowers, infested with rose aphids (Macrosiphum rosae) and sticky with honeydew, were about to be consigned to the compost heap.

Unnoticed, overwintering aphid eggs had experienced a premature spring. What followed was spectacular, thanks to these insects’ capacity for parthenogenesis, asexual reproduction from an unfertilised egg, without male involvement. When they emerge from an egg they are all females, multiplying via virgin birth, cloning themselves with production-line efficiency: a rosarian’s nightmare. It only takes one greenfly hatchling to start a population explosion.

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Country diary: a population explosion of garden pests on my windowsill

Crook, County Durham: Unnoticed in the withering roses, the overwintering aphid eggs experienced a premature spring

Virgin births took place on our dining table at Christmas. After a frost-free December, I had cut the last rosebuds from the garden and by Christmas Eve they had opened enough to make a table decoration. It was left forgotten on the windowsill until Twelfth Night, when the withered flowers, infested with rose aphids (Macrosiphum rosae) and sticky with honeydew, were about to be consigned to the compost heap.

Unnoticed, overwintering aphid eggs had experienced a premature spring. What followed was spectacular, thanks to these insects’ capacity for parthenogenesis, asexual reproduction from an unfertilised egg, without male involvement. When they emerge from an egg they are all females, multiplying via virgin birth, cloning themselves with production-line efficiency: a rosarian’s nightmare. It only takes one greenfly hatchling to start a population explosion.

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Thinking of buying a second home? A guide to stamp duty for future landlords Nottingham Estate Agents

Ten key points to consider when buying a second home for your own use or as a buy-to-let investment To buy-to-let or not to buy-to-let, that is a difficult question! It can be quite a conundrum for people with capital to invest who are dithering between the stock market or bricks and mortar. Since April […]

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Five common mistakes first time buyers should try to avoid Nottingham Estate Agents

Buying a home is one of the most exciting and self-affirming life experiences but it can also be one of the most stressful. Martin & Co can help you stay one step ahead. Martin & Co has put together some of the most frequent mistakes that first time buyers continue to make to help you avoid them. 1. Becoming financially […]

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A growing concern: is it ever OK to steal plant cuttings?

Gardeners and collectors have shared cuttings for generations, but as certain plants have become status symbols, questions of ethical grey areas have arisen

In December, Cory Jarrell of Portland, Oregon, posted a photo he never imagined he would have to share with his 16,000 Instagram followers: loose, limp cuttings of plants, pinched off without permission from over a dozen rare plants.

Jarrell’s specialty plant shop, Potted Elephant, had suffered a fate experienced by a small but growing number of nurseries, shops and botanical gardens in the wake of the booming specialty plant market: unscrupulous collectors and sellers pilfering cuttings (and sometimes, entire plants) without permission in order to resell online and net a profit.

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