John Simpson (architect)

John Simpson CVO (born 9 November 1954), is a British New Classical architect.

Education and career

Simpson is a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects. Simpson is part of the New Classical Architecture movement of contemporary architects designing in classical styles. A profile of Simpson's design for his own house featured on the Sky Arts programme The Art of Architecture in 2019. ^[1]

The Walsh Family Hall of Architecture at the University of Notre Dame

Major works

• The Royal College of Music, London - new recital rooms, recording studios, a museum and other facilities, opened by HRH The Prince of Wales in 2021 ^[2] , and received the Georgian Group Diaphoros Prize in 2024 ^[3] and the RIBA London Award 2025 ^{[4] [5]}
• The Defence and National Rehabilitation Centre, the new national facility for rehabilitation medicine at Stanford Hall near Loughborough where injured services personnel are treated.  This facility was opened jointly by HRH The Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge ^[6] .
• The new School of Architecture at the University of Notre Dame (known as Walsh Family Hall of Architecture, University of Notre Dame (2019)) in Indiana, USA, the world’s leading institution teaching architects Classical Architecture which was completed in 2020. ^[7]
• Masterplan for the area around St Paul's Cathedral, London (1992–1996).
• The new University Arms Hotel, Cambridge which was opened in 2018. ^[8]
• The West Range of Gonville Court, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge (1993–1996) ^[9]
• Masterplan and new buildings at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford (2010–2017), providing improved facilities for undergraduates and graduates through a series of quadrangles.  The final phase was completed in 2017. ^[10]
• Masterplan and new buildings at Peterhouse, the oldest college at the University of Cambridge, opened by HRH The Prince of Wales in 2015. ^[11]
• New buildings at McCrum Yard, a new quadrangle at Eton College, ^[12] involving several new schools as well as a debating chamber modelled on the Ekklesiasterion or council chamber at Ancient Priene and a new museum for Greek and Egyptian antiquities at the Jafar Gallery which was opened in 2015 by HRH The Prince of Wales. ^[13]
• New museum at Kensington Palace, opened by HM Queen Elizabeth II for her Diamond Jubilee in 2012.   ^[14]
• The Carhart Mansion on East 95^th Street, New York city, completed in 2006, which joined two Landmark Buildings together to form luxury apartments. ^[15]
• The King’s Gallery (formerly the Queen’s Gallery) at Buckingham Palace involving several new gallery spaces ^[16] for the Royal Collection which was opened by HM Queen Elizabeth II in 2002. ^[17]  
• The Brownsword Building at Poundbury, completed in 1999 ^[18] which was the first public building to be built, ^[19] providing community facilities and a covered market space in Pummery Square.
• Gonville and Caius College in Cambridge.  The project involved the remodelling of the oldest part of the college and added new extensions to the West Range of Gonville Court, opened HRH The Prince of Wales in 1998. ^[20]
• Masterplan for Fairford Leys, a village outside Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.
• Simpson first came to prominence in 1990 with his masterplan for Paternoster Square by St Paul’s Cathedral in the City of London.  Championed by the then Prince of Wales, he put together and submitted a counter proposal to the City of London proposing a mix of uses, restoring the urban grain around the cathedral, and allowing the dome of St Pauls to dominate the skyline surrounded by the spires and towers of the churches as Christopher Wren intended. ^{[21] [22]} Simpson submitted for planning consent with the planning fee paid by the London Evening Standard. ^[23]  Simpson’s design for Paternoster Square was featured in the Prince of Wales’s book ‘A Vision of Britain’ and exhibition at the V&A and was adopted by an Anglo-American partnership of developers made up of Greycoat and Park Tower Realty of New York ^[24] .  Although the buildings were never built, Park Tower having unfortunately fallen victim to the Property crash in the 1990s, the project served its purpose, and kick started the Traditional Classical movement setting a new direction for planning in Britain. ^[25]

References

1. "The Art of Architecture - S1 - Episode 9". Radio Times . Archived from the original on 2 December 2020. Retrieved 26 February 2021.
2. "Transformational spaces". www.rcm.ac.uk. Retrieved 16 January 2026.
3. "Savills UK | Georgian Group Awards 2024 - winners announced". www.savills.co.uk. 24 July 2017. Retrieved 16 January 2026.
4. "RCM More Music Transformation Recognised for Architectural Excellence – Royal College of Music | Venue Hire" . Retrieved 16 January 2026.
5. "RIBA News: 78 projects shortlisted for RIBA London Awards 2025". www.riba.org. Retrieved 16 January 2026.
6. Editor, A. T. (3 July 2019). "Delivering A Masonry Masterpiece - Architecture Today" . Retrieved 16 January 2026.{{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
7. "Walsh Family Hall of Architecture", Wikipedia, 13 October 2025, retrieved 16 January 2026
8. "John Simpson's neoclassical University Arms Cambridge". www.ribaj.com. Retrieved 16 January 2026.
9. Brown, Dennis (30 April 2014). "London architect John Simpson to design new architecture building at Notre Dame". Notre Dame News. Retrieved 22 November 2023.
10. "The Chancellor of the University of Oxford Opens New LMH Buildings | Lady Margaret Hall". www.lmh.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 16 January 2026.
11. "The Whittle Building | Peterhouse". www.pet.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 20 January 2026.
12. Features, Clive Aslet published in (19 June 2015). "Town mouse visits the new McCrum Yard". Country Life. Retrieved 20 January 2026.
13. Editor, Clive Aslet and Greg Hurst, Education (9 June 2015). "Eton's £18m hall is open to debate". www.thetimes.com. Retrieved 20 January 2026.{{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
14. Tackett, John J. (6 August 2013). "The Devoted Classicist: The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Kensington Palace". The Devoted Classicist. Retrieved 20 January 2026.
15. "The Carhart Mansion". Sciame Construction. Retrieved 20 January 2026.
16. "Simpson, John Anthony | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 20 January 2026.
17. "King's Gallery", Wikipedia, 5 December 2025, retrieved 20 January 2026
18. "Behind the Façade of Prince Charles's Poundbury". Architect Magazine. 3 December 2013. Retrieved 20 January 2026.
19. "Poundbury - Phase 1 Development". Poundbury.co.uk. Retrieved 20 January 2026.
20. "Cambridge: Gonville and Caius College, alterations to the Hall, 1792 (3)". collections.soane.org. Retrieved 20 January 2026.
21. "Paternoster Square", Wikipedia, 7 December 2025, retrieved 20 January 2026
22. "What has Prince Charles given architecture?". The Standard. 12 April 2012. Retrieved 20 January 2026.
23. Sudjic, Deyan (2 May 2004). "Peace in our time". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 20 January 2026.
24. "The Prince, the Architects And a Question of Influence (Published 1989)". 4 November 1989. Archived from the original on 13 October 2022. Retrieved 20 January 2026.
25. Contributor, A. J. (30 October 2003). "Squaring up". The Architects’ Journal. Retrieved 20 January 2026.{{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)

Further reading

• Richard John and David Watkin, John Simpson; The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace and Other Works. Andreas Papadakis pub, London, 2002.
• David Watkin, The Architecture of John Simpson: The Timeless Language of Classicism. Rizzoli International Publications, 2016.

External links

• John Simpson Architects Ltd