About

I am a cultural leader, curator and writer. I am currently Director of the Farrell Centre at Newcastle University. Previously, I was Senior Curator of Exhibitions and Education at Sir John Soane’s Museum and before that I was Architecture Programme Curator at the Royal Academy of Arts (RA). I was part of the curatorial team for the British Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, which was awarded a Special Mention for National Participation.

Over my time at the Farrell Centre, I’ve acted as client for the award-winning £4.6 million building project to transform a late Victorian building into the centre’s new home, while formulating the vision for the centre, establishing its brand, visual identity, and website, and, more recently, developing its programming and building the team to deliver it. This culminated with the centre’s opening to widespread public and critical attention in April 2023.

I am curator or co-curator of numerous exhibitions, including GBR – Geology of Britannic Repair at the British Pavilion in Venice, and Concrete Dreams (2024–25) and More with Less: Reimagining Architecture for a Changing World (2023) at the Farrell Centre. In my role at the Soane Museum, I curated the major exhibitions, Langlands & Bell: Degrees of Truth (2020), Eric Parry: Drawing (2019) and The Return of the Past: Postmodernism in British Architecture (2018), as well as numerous small projects. My previous exhibitions and displays at the RA include Origins: A Project by Ordinary Architecture (2016), Urban Jigsaw (2016) and Nicholas Hawksmoor: Architect of the Imagination (2012).

Alongside my curatorial activities, I am author or editor of over twenty books, journals and essay series, as well as over 150 articles, reviews and opinion pieces. My writing has been translated into 13 languages. More information about all of these projects can be found via the links at the top of this page.

My work, both as a curator and author, is regularly reviewed and featured in the trade, national and international press, including BBC Television and Radio, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, El Mundo, Wallpaper* and Dezeen.

I have lectured internationally at a number of prestigious universities and institutions and I am regular a commentator on architecture in the broadcast media, having appeared on BBC2 Newsnight, BBC1 Look North, ARTE, the European culture TV channel, BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio London, BBC Radio Newcastle, and Monocle radio among others.