Ken Worpole is an author and policy advisor. Among his books are Here Comes the Sun: Architecture and Public Space in 20th Century European Culture (Reaktion Books, 2000), Last Landscapes: the Architecture of the Cemetery in the West (Reaktion Books, 2003) and (with Jason Orton) 350 Miles: An Essex Journey (ExDRA, 2005 ). His website is at www.worpole.net.

Recent articles

The author of "Waterlog" and the forthcoming "Wildwood" explored the natural landscape in fresh, surprising and influential ways. Ken Worpole pays tribute to Roger Deakin, and introduces his openDemocracy "swimmer's journey" article from July 2001.

John Davies' beautiful panoramic photographs of the British landscape capture an industrial world now lost and a modernity running away from its past, says Ken Worpole.

The landscape artist Ian Hamilton Finlay created an extraordinary fusion of sculpture, inscription and philosophy in his Little Sparta garden. Ken Worpole considers a complex figure.

"When we get down to swimming, we get down to democracy." Ken Worpole finds a political challenge in the revival of a public arena where sensuous and spiritual pleasures combine: the lido and open-air swimming pool.

"Most books about architecture or town planning are earnest treatises: this book sings"