from the editor
On a recent visit to Cambridge, I was struck by the way that design and engineering have come together over the centuries to create one of the UK’s most architecturally interesting places to visit.
It’s a city of contradictions. An ancient centre of learning where Tudor houses and yellow-stone structures sit alongside cutting-edge examples of modern buildings. With its 31 colleges steeped in history and the punts bobbing along the River Cam, it’s no wonder it’s such a magnet for tourists. If you have never been, I wholeheartedly recommend braving the crowds and heading there this summer.
The university’s alumni are equally diverse, from scientists and great thinkers to lauded writers and the most esteemed artists. They also include Alan Turing, who studied at King’s. He was a war hero, who cracked the Enigma code in WWII and was prosecuted and persecuted for his homosexuality, culminating in his suicide in 1954.
In the 2014 film The Imitation Game, based on Turing’s life, he’s played by actor Benedict Cumberbatch, who utters the line: ‘It is the people who no one imagined anything of who do the things no one can imagine.’ It is a matter of debate whether Turing actually ever said these words, but it’s a true summation of what he achieved and the sentiment has always stayed with me.
The phrase could equally be applied to the people of Ukraine, whose tenacity, resilience and ability to withstand the might of Russia’s force since the invasion in February 2022 have astounded and inspired the world. The country’s creative community – always strong – continues to work together, producing great results under extreme conditions, and we were determined to highlight this success by focusing on the Ukrainian design scene in this month’s edition (p81).
The combined tragedy and heroism of Turing’s story and that of those in Ukraine have other parallels. These need to be remembered, and kept at the forefront of our minds, not to disappear into a cloud of complacency, so that learnings continue to be made, so the support keeps coming, so that we help to alleviate the ongoing suffering and strive to never let such horrific situations come about again.
As ever, this issue of ELLE Decoration is a coming together of contradictions. We look both forward and back, indoors and out, to luxury and the mainstream. Ultimately, I hope you find that – like the buildings of Cambridge – these diverse elements exist in some sort of beautiful harmony.