Glass has long transformed the architectural landscape. From the Crystal Palace through to the towering glass spires of today's cities, few architectural materials have held such immense symbolic resonance in the modern era. The Age of Glass explores the cultural and technological ascension of glass in modern and contemporary architecture. Showing how the use of glass is driven as much by changing cultural concerns as it is by developments in technology and style, it traces the richly interwoven material, symbolic, and ideological histories of glass to show how it has produced and dispersed meaning in architecture over the past two centuries. The book's chapters focus on key moments within the modern history of architecture, moments when glass came to the forefront of architectural thought, and which illustrate how glass has been used at different times to project different cultural ideas. A wide range of topics are explored - from the tension between expressionism and functionalism, to the persistent theme of glass and social class, to how glass has reflected political ideas from Nazism through to today's global consumer capitalism. The book also grapples with current arguments about sustainability, while, taking into account the advent of digital LED screens and 'smart glass', offering new cultural perspectives on the future and asking what glass architecture will signify in the digital age. Combining close readings of buildings with insights drawn from research, plus good storytelling and strong contemporary relevance, The Age of Glass offers a fascinating new perspective on modern architecture and culture.

A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 'The first significant biography of the artist' Michael Prodger, The Times' 'Best art books of 2021' 'Exemplary ... a scintillating read' Alastair Sooke, Daily Telegraph 'For those who love Magritte and those who do not, Danchev's biography will come as a revelation' Literary Review Rene Magritte's surreal sensibility, deadpan melodrama, and fine-tuned outrageousness have all become inescapably part of our times. But these groundbreaking subversions all came from a middle-class Belgian gent, who kept a modest house in a Brussels suburb and whose first one-man show sold absolutely nothing. Through a deep examination of Magritte's friendships and his artistic development, Alex Danchev explores the path of an highly unconventional artist who posed profound questions about the relationship between image and reality, challenged the very nature of authenticity and whose influence can be seen in the work of everyone from Jasper Johns to Beyonce.

Foreign Currency Volatility and the Market for French Modernist Art examines how the collapse of the French franc in the decades following the First World War activated powerful 'push' and 'pull' economic forces that compelled French art collectors to monetise their collections while simultaneously elevating the purchasing power of international art collectors. These factors are shown to have played a significant, and previously under-recognised role, in the large-scale translocation of French modernist art that radically accelerated its commercial and critical reception across the globe and positioned it at the apex of the newly established hierarchy of modern art.