Meet the Speaker: John Simpson CVO, RIBA

John Simpson CVO, RIBA is principal of John Simpson Architects. He is a leading proponent of New Classicism and believes Architecture, as a public art must draw on our collective experience and traditions as a society in order to create towns and cities that are inclusive and are places that everyone can enjoy. In order to do this buildings need to be designed using an Architectural Language that in familiar and that everyone can understand. 

His work came to prominence in the 1990s with his masterplan for Paternoster Square by St Paul’s Cathedral in London. He pioneered mixed use urban planning long before it was adopted as Government policy in the UK. Through his work, he has had considerable influence in bringing the Classical tradition into prominence with buildings such as the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, his buildings at Poundbury for the Duchy of Cornwall, Kensington Palace for the Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee and the National Defence Rehabilitation facility for injured service personnel near Loughborough.  Within academia his works include buildings at Gonville and Caius College and at Peterhouse at the University of Cambridge, at Lady Margaret Hall at the University of Oxford, at the new McCrum Yard quadrangle at Eton College, Windsor, his addition and new music rooms at the Royal College of Music, London and the Walsh Family Hall School of Architecture at the University of Notre Dame, USA.

John Simpson taught at the Prince of Wales’s Foundation and Has been professor of Architecture at Buckingham University since 2017. In 2021 he was also appointed professor at Cambridge University and is a Fellow at Gonville and Caius College.