Stradivarius And City Planning

Looted Lauterbach

Fernanda Eberstadt | European Review Of Books | 8th May 2026

A Stradivarius violin, made in 1719 and missing since 1944, has resurfaced. Its last legal owner was a German amateur musician with strong Polish allegiance who died in 1939. He donated his possessions to the Museum of Warsaw, from where it was stolen by a German soldier during WW2. Efforts to trace it and restore it to its rightful owners reveal much about the continued ripple effects of Nazi looting (1,500 words)

Welwyn Garden City

Sam Farley | Far Out | 2nd June 2026

This planned city just to the north of London was conceived in the late 19C as a response to the squalor of Victorian London. Its architect, Ebenezer Howard, wanted the countryside to co-exist with the town. The model was influential, but there were few precise replicas of this utopian vision. George Orwell mocked the movement for appealing to the “fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac” (700 words)

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