The Big Smoke

Sophie Howarth outside her new thinking persons' shop

Like a cuckoo’s egg, the School of Life nestles within the University of London campus, a tasteful front concealing a wicked mind that promises a completely different educational experience to that on offer at the nearby Birkbeck and UCL.

‘Adult education doesn’t have to be dowdy,’ says Sophie Howarth, the former Tate curator who has spent the last 12 months preparing the very glamorous School of Life for its launch with an Open Day that will allow you to get advice from Alain De Botton, Julian Baggini and the Devil. Feature continues

‘The School of Life is about the practical application of philosophy on life’s core subjects – love, politics, work, family and play,’ explains Howarth, ‘the courses are structured around the burning questions that keep you awake at night – how important is sex or what’s so great about democracy? We’re rooted in the big thinkers, but always at the service of “how will this be useful to me?” ’

Each course – of six evening classes or one weekend – has been designed by Howarth with the input of well-known writers, journalists, philosophers and artists including De Botton, Geoff Dyer, Toby Litt and Martin Parr. How has she got such big hitters involved? ‘I’ve been working on it for a long time and I never ask anybody to do anything boring.’

Ain’t that the truth. The School of Life does ‘Holidays’, in which you go to the Isle of Wight with Parr; ‘Meals’, dinner parties with conversation topics chosen from a carefully calibrated menu; ‘Sermons’, polemics on modern living delivered every Sunday morning at the nearby Horse Hospital; and ‘Bibliotherapy’, where experts diagnose your reading requirements. All from an impeccably designed shop/ classroom on Marchmont Street.

‘School and learning is a little bit stuffy, so I was keen that design would be a really strong element,’ says Howarth. ‘It would be authentic and honest and it would be in a shop – because the one thing everybody knows how to do is go shopping. We’re not a worthy project hidden down a back alley in Hackney or in a stodgy local authority building: I wanted us to be accessible and I wanted us to be beautiful.’

The shop doubles as a ‘cultural apothecary’. ‘You come in with various concerns – “I’m love sick” or “I’m worried I’m a bad parent” – and these books are our remedies. They are selected by faculty and constantly change – at any one time we’ll have no more than 50 titles. We’ve also got boxes that we’ve asked people to fill, so we give author Robert McFarlane the theme “people who have spent too long in the city” and he’s filled a box with the books you need, a leaflet of advice and a compass designed by artist Alec Finlay with no directions. It’s the intellectual equivalent of Space NK.’

Stripped of Howarth’s contagious enthusiasm and removed from the heady environment of the shop, all this can sound a bit Pseuds’ Corner, but the courses are rigorously researched and steeped in solid thinking. Howarth has tried to ensure there is no political bias – ‘we don’t want people to feel that if they don’t come here with the Guardian under their arm they won’t be welcome’ – and has ensured courses are quietly subversive in the way they take learning out on to the streets, to furniture factories on Brick Lane, check-out tills in Waitrose, nail bars in Soho and the Unison office. London has never seen anything quite like this before.

‘We’re maverick but we’re not trivial,’ says Howarth. ‘And we’re not taking any risks about whether it is any good. Otherwise you’re just selling hot air in a fancy shop.’

The School of Life, 70 Marchmont Street, WC1N (020 7833 1010/www.theschooloflife.com). Open day Sept 6, 10am-6pm. Time Out readers can get £20 off any course booked at the School of Life in September.