DESIGN & INTERIORS: Interiors notes

Burn baby burn

It's amazing how much you can spend on a candle so it's worth remembering the humble tea light (pounds 1 a sack). Designer Jacob de Baan has created a polished aluminium candle holder that makes the most of the tiny candle's flame casting light high up and across the wall towards the ceiling. Piccola, pounds 15 from www.dutchbydesign.co.uk

Soup for the soul

There's something about stripes, especially multi-coloured ones, that's very appealing (and we're not talking about Paul Smith stripes for once). These dessert bowls are part of the Origo dinnerware collection by designer Alfredo Haberli for Iittala (ee-ta-la), the Finnish company whose product range is inspired by two very basic fundamentals: cooking and socialising. The range includes mugs, larger bowls and egg cups and comes in three colourways; pink, blue and orange striped. Bowls are pounds 14 each, available from Twentytwentyone, 18c River Street, London EC1 (020-7837 1900).

Groovadelic

Publishers Taschen can always be relied upon to produce highly desirable books full of lush photography (and tri-lingual text). Their latest looks back to the design of the Sixties in all its psychedelic glory with chapters dedicated to pop culture (see left) and the space age. Also under discussion is the less talked about anti-design movement which was set in motion by the Hippie reactionaries and became a creative high point of the decade. `Sixties Design', by Philippe Garner, published by Taschen, pounds 9.99.

Looking to the future

Architecture seems to come hand-in-hand with controversy, and in Britain, Alison and Peter Smithson had it in bucketloads. For the latter half of the 20th century their intellectual approach and visionary designs provoked heated debate and put them at the forefront of British modernist architecture. The Design Museum is celebrating their revolutionary House of the Future which was first shown in 1956 at the Daily Mail Ideal Home exhibition (yes, it's been going that long) alongside their Hexenhaus (above) in rural Germany, which was being tweaked right up until Peter's death earlier this year. The Smithsons -The House of the Future to a House for Today is at the Design Museum, Shad Thames, London SE1 (0870 933 9955) until 29 February.

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