‘The banks thought we were mad’: coral castles and look-at-me loos reinvent New York housing

With building codes strict and land values high, Big Apple apartment blocks tend to be grim. But two firms, SO-IL and Tankhouse, are fighting back with lush courtyards, breezy landings – and glass-walled toilets 15 storeys up

The Secret Painter by Joe Tucker review – art for art’s sake

This beautifully written tribute to the author’s uncle Eric, whose death revealed hundreds of hidden paintings, serves as a northern corrective to the metropolitan art world

The big picture: a gaggle of visitors gather beneath London’s Shard

Photographer Andy Hall​’s atmospheric new series captures the capital’s eerie financial heart

On my radar: Alison Goldfrapp’s cultural highlights

The electropop star on her favourite quirky bookshop, Marmite and cheese pastries and the second series of Severance

Jules Feiffer obituary

American cartoonist and writer who portrayed angst-ridden New Yorkers and exposed the hypocrisy of government

Jules Feiffer, award-winning political cartoonist and writer, dies at 95

The provocative Pulitzer prize-winner was known for his edgy comic strip and his screenplay for Carnal Knowledge

Orgies, vampires and jewel-laden tortoises: it’s time we buried the myths of decadence in art

Is western civilisation being destroyed by its own decadence? Was the Roman empire? And does a preference for Lord of the Rings over The Matrix indicate that we are all doomed? Our critic tries to sift fact from fiction …

‘It will be jolly nice’: illustrator Helen Oxenbury, 86, on preparing for her first solo show – and a new book with Michael Rosen

Acclaimed for her work on children’s books, the artist is teaming up again with her collaborator on Bear Hunt

Medieval Women: In Their Own Words review – a bracing cold shower with Joan of Arc and co

A letter from the French saint and a lethal shopping list are among the stars of a mind-bending show of the words, mystical visions and everyday lives of women from 1100 to 1500

On my radar: Siobhan Finneran’s cultural highlights

The actor on the band she can’t wait to see, the best place to meet friends for food in Manchester, and performance poetry that made her laugh and cry

Islamesque by Diana Darke review – the diverse roots of medieval architecture

A beautifully-illustrated account of the Middle Eastern influence on Europe’s great buildings

Marilyn Monroe by Eve Arnold review – intimate, tender and witty photographs

In front of the camera Monroe was luminous, but in this reissued and sumptuous collection of pictures Arnold also captured the insecurity and pain

The big picture: every chocoholic’s dream?

Irene Poon’s alarming 1965 image of a sweet shop in San Francisco’s Chinatown exemplifies her knack for intimacy and surprise

The big picture: Colleen Kenyon’s new year portrait of her twin sister, 1977

The late feminist artists explored ideas of doubling and twinship, as well as helping to redefine notions of craft skills

On my radar: Jasleen Kaur’s cultural highlights

The Turner prizewinner on the art of the Gaza Biennale, the joys of a queer community choir, and a poet who speaks to today’s injustices