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I am a historian, teacher, writer and broadcaster about cities, architecture, geographies and visual culture.
I am the author of The Age of Spectacle: the rise and fall of iconic architecture (Windmill Books, 2017), and the official guide to the architecture of 2012’s Olympic Games, The Architecture of London 2012: Vision, Design, Legacy (John Wiley & Sons, 2012).
I also teach the history and theory of cities and architecture at the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, University College London.
My research and teaching focuses on how cities, landscapes and architecture are represented or depicted in and through other media, from literature and photography to television and cinema; and on the intersections between urban space, the human landscape, architecture, politics, culture and society – through the theoretical lens of critical spatial practice.
For the past 20 years, I have written and presented many series for television and radio, including: four seasons of BBC’s The Great Interior Design Challenge, Channel 4’s The Secret Life of Buildings, and BBC’s The Culture Show (as its design and architecture reporter) and Saving Britain’s Past. I have also written and presented many radio documentaries, podcasts and series, including BBC Radio 4’s The Design Dimension.
I am currently design judge on Channel 4’s design-and-making competition series, Handmade.
For a decade in the 00s, I was the architecture and design critic for The Times newspaper, and, before that, deputy homes and design editor at The Guardian. I wrote a weekly column for The Guardian newspaper’s Weekend magazine for 20 years, and have written for a wide range of publications including Esquire, GQ, Wallpaper, New Statesman, Domus, Icon and Blueprint.
In the 90s I was head of exhibitions at the Royal Institute of British Architects gallery, associate editor of Design magazine for the UK Design Council, and assistant editor of Perspectives on Architecture magazine.
I am an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and a trustee of the London Festival of Architecture. I have also been honorary senior research associate at the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, University College London; a trustee of the Architecture Foundation; and sat on the Arts Council’s architecture committee and the Twentieth Century Society’s committee. I have been part of juries for many design and architecture prizes and competitions, such as, from 2008-2011, the national shortlisting jury for the Stirling Prize for architecture, the selection jury for the 2006 British Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale, and, in 2013, the Stirling Prize finalists.
Telephone
+44 (0)20 7514 7444
