John Simpson & Partners - Chartered Architects & Urban Designers

CARHART MANSION, EAST 95TH STREET, NEW YORK

THE COLYTON ROOM, GONVILLE AND CAIUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

ARMCHAIR, THE COLYTON ROOM, GONVILLE AND CAIUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

MONOGRAPH

John Simpson is one of the leading architects in Europe and America who have returned in recent decades to the classical language of architecture, with all its richness, subtlety, and historic resonances.
His public and private works show how this language lends itself with particular ease to the incorporation of the latest developments in technology. Describing a wide range of work from furniture design to town-planning, this beautifully illustrated book gives pride of place to his principal commission so far, the new Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace.

This major new centre for the visual arts in London was opened by Her Majesty The Queen in May 2002 as part of the celebrations of her Golden Jubilee. All in a sparklingly inventive and beautifully crafted classical language, the new additions include a Greek Doric entrance portico and entrance hall, with sculptured friezes and free-standing sculpture by Alexander Stoddart. A richly polychromatic staircase hall leads up to three large new galleries, a number of smaller galleries, and a lecture hall. Behind the scenes, Simpson has completely remodelled the Royal Kitchen, staff quarters, and Trades Yard.

John Simpson has also played a key role in the revival of traditional urbanism, as in his design for Paternoster Square next to St Paul's Cathedral, and, most recently in the ambitious Market Hall he has built at the Prince of Wales's new town of Poundbury, Dorset. Other chapters cover his interiors at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, a development inspired by the work of Soane and Cockerell, and Ashfold House, Sussex, which also takes Soanean themes in new directions.

The authors are both well known architectural historians. Dr Richard John was a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford and is now at the Faculty of the School of Architecture in Miami. Professor David Watkin is a Fellow of Peterhouse and Professor of the History of Architecture at the University of Cambridge. He is also a leading authority on the work of C.R. Cockerell and Sir John Soane, architects who profoundly influenced John Simpson. Interestingly, both John Simpson and David Watkin taught at the Prince of Wales's Institute of Architecture when Richard John was its Director.

The book is a unique and compelling demonstration of the fruitful interchange of history and practice in modern architecture.

Catesby Leigh: "The Prince's Architect - John Simpson; The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace and other works" Book Review, National Review, 11 November 2002

Authors Dr Richard John

Dr Richard John was educated at Cambridge, where he took a starred First in History of Art, at Columbia University, and at the Warburg Institute in London. He taught at the Architectural Association School of Architecture for three years before being elected a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, where he taught Medieval and Renaissance History from 1991-94. He worked for HRH The Prince of Wales from 1995-98, first as Director of the Prince's Institute of Architecture in London, and then as founding Director of the Prince's Summer School in Architecture in the United States. In 1999 he joined the Faculty of the School of Architecture at the University of Miami. His publications include The Vitruvian Path (Oxford 1994), Julian Bicknell and Associates: Buildings and Projects (London 1996), Alec Cobbe: Thirty Years of Design and Painting (London 1996), and Thomas Gordon Smith: The Rebirth of Classical Architecture (London: Papadakis Publisher, 2001).

Professor David Watkin

Professor David Watkin is a Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, Professor of the History of Architecture at the University of Cambridge, and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects. He is Vice-Chairman of the Georgian Group, and was a member of the Historic Buildings Council and its successor bodies in English Heritage from 1980-1995. His publications include The Life and Work of C.R. Cockerell, RA (London 1974), awarded the Alice Davis Hitchcock Medallion by the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain; English Architecture: A Concise History (London 1979; rev. ed. 1991); A History of Western Architecture (London 1986; 3rd rev. ed. 2001); Sir John Soane: Enlightenment Thought and the Royal Academy Lectures (Cambridge 1996), winner of the Sir Banister Fletcher Award; and Morality and Architecture Revisited (London 2001).

Email us if you would like to order the book: info@johnsimpsonarchitects.com

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