John Pawson, born in Halifax, UK, 1949 is one of the most influential architects of recent times. Famous for his rigorously minimal style, he is exploring fundamentals - space, light and materials. Pawson has published numerous books, including the world best seller Minimum.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Educated at Eton, Pawson worked in his family's Yorkshire textile mill before spending four years teaching in Japan. He returned to study at the Architectural Association in London, setting up his own practice in 1981.

His architectural career to date has spanned a wide variety of projects, ranging in scale from a compact apartment for the writer Bruce Chatwin, to Calvin Klein's flagship store in Manhattan and airport lounges for Cathay Pacific in Hong Kong.


Known for his starkly minimalist approach to architecture, John Pawson was drawn in the most unlikely way to his current project of designing a monastery for an ancient order of monks: Requiring a new dwelling for some of their Czech brothers, the Cistercians of Sept-Fons - who are based in central France - had seen in a book an image of Calvin Klein's store in Manhattan, which had been designed by Pawson. Admiring this, and reading the architect's acclaimed 1996 book Minimum, they recognized in him a kindred spirit, and so requested that he convert the site they had earmarked - a sloping patch of land west of Prague that incorporated a crumbling 18th Century manor house - into a new, 70,000-foot complex for the monks.


Current Projects (selection):
Calvin Klein Apartment New York | Novy Dvur Moneastery, Abbaye, Notre-Dame de Sept-Fons, Czech Republic | Sedow House, Moscow | Taira House, Okinawa | Sterkmann House, Seychelles.


Built Projects (selection):
1982 Bruce Chatwin Apartment, London | 1987 Saatchi House, London | 1992 Wagamama Restaurant, London | 1996 Calvin Klein Store, New York | 1996 Jigsaw Store, Yokohama | 1998 Cathay Pacific Lounges, Hong Kong | 2002 Calvin Klein Store, Paris | 2003 Delafontaine House, Knokke


Bibliography (selection):
1996 Minimum, Phaidon Press| 1999 Barn, Booth Clibborn Editions | 2000 Sudjic, Deyan, John Pawson Works, Phaidon Press | 2000 Architecture of Truth, Phaidon Press | 2001 Pawson, John and A Bell, Living and Eating, Ebury Press.