John Pawson's Timeless Home

British architect John Pawson is one of the most well-respected architects of our time with his rigorously simple aesthetic. His interest is understanding our senses, and by perfecting them, each of his works renews our senses.

Some of his works are Casa delle Bottere, Treviso, St Moritz Church, Augsburg, New Design Museum, London, Montauk House, Long Island, Calvin Klein Store, New York, and his own family country house Home Farm, Oxfordshire.

 

I had a great opportunity to interview him 2 years ago through a Korean lifestyle magazine I worked for, and the theme of the interview was "Elements that make you your home as yours." My questions might have been somewhat romanticized, but the answers I received were beyond inspiring, thrilling. 

Please allow me the joy of sharing his timeless answers alongside one of his recent works, his family country house 'Home Farm' (2013-2019) in Oxfordshire, UK.

 

Please tell me architectural elements that you think are the most important in human dwelling and how they affect one's life.

Everything about a spatial environment - from the quality of its light, to its proportions, surfaces and atmosphere - has a profound impact on how we feel. When you walk into a space where all of these conditions are right, the sense of quiet exhilaration is immediate and immense - for some people the reaction is a literal exhalation, accompanied by a lowering of the shoulders, as tension is released. For me, the absence of visual distraction is key and it is only when you sit down to design a space that you realise just how many things can stop the eye. I am put in mind of an anecdote by the great English writer Bruce Chatwin, who was also a friend and client…

 

'I once went to see a former pupil of Mies van der Rohe, who had put into effect the master's dictum, "Less is more". He lived in a spare one-room apartment in mid-town Manhattan. He was a very rich man. All his possessions he kept in cupboards — and amongst them was a cubist Picasso. I recall him saying that if you had to live in a crass, claustrophobic 20th century city; if, outside your door, you were bombarded by the demands of consumerism — "BUY ME! OBEY ME!" — the greatest of all luxuries was to be able to walk, unimpeded by furniture or pictures, around your own bare walls. For, no matter how small the room, providing your eye could travel freely around it, the space it contained was limitless. He was repeating, in effect, the premise underlying medieval monasticism that the monk, who sat in his cell, was free to travel everywhere'.

 

 

Would you share your opinion on what makes one's home truly oneself? 

Shortly before the start of the pandemic, I finished work on a very personal project, which involved the renovation of a rundown farmyard and its associated buildings and land in rural Oxfordshire. During the first lockdown, my wife and I were joined there by my grownup children and these weeks and months together gave me ample opportunity to reflect on what had I had made. I realised with new force that, while there are architectural details that give me pleasure every time I walk into a room or contemplate a vista, the real joy is the way the place functions as a context for life - as a gathering place for family and friends, where we and all who join us feel at home.

During the pandemic, people have had a chance to rethink the order of priority of their life, especially a house where they spend the majority of time. We have become more sensitive about lighting, connectivity with nature, details, and its layout. I am wondering if there was any find that occurred to your own life or architectural direction on dwelling during this time.

I remember the tremendous sense of calm I experienced at home in Oxfordshire, during the pandemic, when the usual frenetic routines of my life were temporarily suspended. I became immersed in the grain of this circumscribed set of spaces and by the changing character of the surrounding landscape. As I adjusted to these deeper rhythms, I felt a stillness that, for me, had a spiritual dimension, which I was reluctant to leave behind when restrictions were lifted.

 

Words by Ye Joon Han-Mann - Photos by Gilbert McCarragher. Originally published in Casa Living Korea, April Issue, 2023. ©John Pawson