What does an architect’s house look like? There is nothing more fascinating than what a talented person does with that talent when it is for their own consumption. What does a chef cook at home? What does a writer read? What does a designer wear? These questions are answered in stunning fashion by this Financial Times article showing what an architect’s own home looks like. Frank Gehry, the designer of the Guggenheim in Bilbao, built a little house for himself in Los Angeles, US, and it is such a bonkers creation that it kicked off a whole architectural movement, Deconstruction. Gehry moved in in 1978 and lives there to this day. This piece showcases other delightfully twisted and stacked homes, highlighting that architects are rarely rich. As such, their own homes are the ultimate expression of both their characters and their specific needs and quirks. (Nesrine, Better Politics correspondent) Financial Times: The houses that architects build for themselves (reading time: 10 minutes)
Guantánamo Bay’s other secret "I would certainly hope that nobody who is sworn to uphold justice is going to hold it against me because I wear a black robe and scarf.” Probably the most memorable line ever in a courtroom drama. Reporter Carol Rosenberg and illustrator Wendy MacNaughton take you inside the trials of the accused 9/11 conspirators, zooming in on the protagonists’ wardrobes. The uneasiness and resentment associated with the Islamic attire of the accused and their lawyers is juxtaposed with the chief war crimes prosecutor’s "eight rows of ribbons, parachute and expert infantry badges". Read it for the searing political commentary lurking beneath its easy prose. (Tanmoy, Sanity correspondent) The New York Times: Inside America’s war court: clothing and culture at Guantánamo Bay (reading time: 10 minutes)
The many different ways of speaking English This text by Chilean author Alejandro Zambra, whose novels I love, brings up so many elements of my own life – a lot of which happens in translation. I was born and raised in Italian, have always worked in English, and got married into a Spanish-speaking family. How well or badly each one of us translates into another language is often on my mind – especially working at a transnational organisation like The Correspondent. In this text, Zambra goes full circle: he starts with the language he experimented with at school, talks about his literary work being translated and his own work as a translator, and ends up describing the way he communicates to his eight-month-old son. Even with his baby, some sort of translation seems possible. After all, saying that something is untranslatable would mean "to remove ourselves from the world".(Irene, First 1,000 Days correspondent) Believer Magazine: Translating a person (reading time: 30 minutes)

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