John Pawson

John Pawson ( born May 6, 1949 in Halifax, Yorkshire ) is a British architect.

Life

John Pawson was born in 1949 in Halifax, Yorkshire. After attending the College Eton College at Eton and Oxford, he should take over his father's request the textile plant of the family. However, Pawson left school without qualifications and tried to engage in the family business, where he however realized early on that he did not have the business acumen of his father. First, he undertook extended trips through India and Australia until he was offered in 1973, the opportunity to visit Japan. His interest in Buddhism led him first to Tokyo. On the trip from Nagoya airport made ​​him his host, his former karate instructor, a country known, which has little in common with the expected Pawson world of samurai and tea ceremonies. Your path led past desolate landscapes with factories and endless housing developments from concrete.

However, Pawson was determined to want to experience the Japan of his ideas, he insisted on the accommodation in a traditional Japanese guest house, but the strict Buddhist rules made ​​him the desire to become a monk, forbear, whereas the concepts of Buddhism still an important inspiration for Pawson's designs are. Without having further plans, Pawson taught for three years, English conversation at Nagoya University, and then spent a year in Tokyo.

There he came across a book by the architect Shiro Kuramata, wanted this to know each and visited him in his office. Kuramata was probably the first Japanese interior designer who gained international reputation with his work. Pawson was now able to see firsthand how a Kuramata combined the simplicity of Japanese tradition with contemporary aesthetics. Although Pawson never was his apprentice, he held as often as possible in Kuramata office. After Kuramata did not implement some of it is transmitted by Pawson projects, he suggested Pawson to the study of the architecture in order to realize his ideas from now itself.

Because of financial problems Pawson was forced to return to the UK and moved to London. There he met the art dealer Hester van Royen, which then began to work for the influential gallery owner Leslie Waddington. The design for van Royen's office Waddington liked so much that he commissioned Pawson with the design of his office. Pawson began in London in 1979 with the study at the Architectural Association, this broke but in the third year, took a job at Waddington for a gallery and opened his own office. In the discussion with Waddington Pawson quickly realized that for the presentation of art, a functional environment was needed and not an attempt to make the architecture come to the fore over the exhibited art. Pawson therefore did not understand the contract for Waddington Gallery as artistic carte blanche, but to be useful for formative task. The art had to be presented as effectively as possible. Pawson tried to reduce to a minimum any kind of visual irritation. The soil should be neutral act for exhibiting sculptures, thereby prohibiting herringbone parquet or intrusive colors because white walls and ceiling not compete with the exhibited art. After the completion of this project was followed by further orders for galleries, which Pawson this helped because of their different approaches to formulate basic elements in the design of galleries.

Pawson now took on projects which had not only to do with art, however, were closely associated with this, such as dwellings for art lovers or artists' studios. Van Royen had Pawson familiar with the artist Donald Judd, who was to exert a great influence on him. Pawson's architecture hardly could be classified in any of the then existing flows. He had never worked for another architect, he was neither attributable to the stock of high technology nor that of the post-modernists. Only the Japanese culture and Kuramata influence were part of his experience. Equally important were the ruins of Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire, in their environment he grew up, and his respect for the work of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

Work (selection)

  • 2012 remodeling of the former Commonwealth Institute in Kensington, London, to the Design Museum London.
  • 2011 reorganization of Moritz Church in Augsburg, Germany
  • 2004 Monastery of Nový Dvůr, Czech Republic
  • 1999 Pawson House, London, England
  • 1998 Cathay Pacific Lounge, Hong Kong
  • 1995 Tilty Barn, England
  • 1994-2002 Calvin Klein Stores Tokyo, Seoul, Paris, New York
  • 1989 House Neuendorf, Mallorca, Spain (in cooperation with Claudio Silvestrin )
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