In a Parisian suburb, Edouard François has reconciled three kinds of local housing – by stacking them one on top of the other.

Pyongyang is a magpie collection of authoritarian forms and styles which draw on influences such as Moscow’s Metro and Haussman’s Paris. Owen Hatherley dips into a collection of essays on and photographs of the North Korean capital’s maniacal monuments.

What were the cultural highlights of 2011? Icon asks nine international critics, curators and experts to select their half-dozen stand-out moments in architecture, design and art.

The undulating forms of Odile Decq’s dining room curve around the structure of the Paris opera house without ever touching it.

In its first hotel project, esoteric fashion house Maison Martin Margiela has refurbished a 19th-century townhouse in Paris in minimalist style.

A Parisian nightclub designed by David Lynch recreates the director’s dreamlike aestheticwith the help of traditional French craftsmanship.

Christo, the artist who gift-wrapped the Pont Neuf and Reichstag, has spent years battling for permission to realise his extravagant installations.

If you’ve spent the past four years chasing her exhibitions around the capital, breathe easy – celebrated curator Libby Sellers is about to open her first permanent gallery in central London.

The designer’s glassware is a playful response to the gestures of drinking: the clinking of tumblers or a warming hand on the bowl of a cognac glass.

Dominique Coulon has built an angular and colourful educational complex on the site of a notorious housing estate in the Paris banlieues.