Born from the ruins of the second world war, few architectural styles are as polarising – or aptly named – as brutalism. But the famously stark concrete monoliths – long since associated with communist countries – are having a moment.
The top eight countries doing their bit for the planet. While so much attention is given to what more we can do to combat climate change (and rightly so!), Verve celebrates what is already being done.
Through radical and progressive initiatives and policies like city-wide cycling systems, smart sewers, waste-to-energy plants, seawater abstraction for cooling, and green urban gathering spaces, Copenhagen has long been viewed as a paragon of urban design and planning.
Positano sits on the Amalfi Coast, neatly between Sorrento and Amalfi. Notwithstanding a dark period of pirate raids, Saracen sacking and Pisa pillaging, the continuous sunshine and wonderful scenery has attracted artists and poets along with the rich and famous since Roman times. And now it was my turn.
Atop of Abbey Craig, a 100-metre hill to the north of Stirling in the heart of Scotland, stands the 67-metre National Wallace Monument, a muscular, Victorian gothic structure befitting the rebel leader whom it commemorates.









