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Staff Profile

Owen Hopkins

Farrell Centre Director

Background

Owen Hopkins is Director of the Farrell Centre at Newcastle University – a new public centre for architecture and cities which he has led through its opening in April 2023. In this role, he is responsible for all aspects of the centre's programme and management. Previously he was Senior Curator of Exhibitions and Education at Sir John Soane’s Museum and before that he was Architecture Programme Curator at the Royal Academy of Arts. Currently, he is part of the curatorial team for the British Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale.

He is curator or co-curator of numerous exhibitions including, most recently, GBR – Geology of Britannic Repair at the British Pavilion in Venice, and at the Farrell Centre, Concrete Dreams (2024–25) the centre’s inaugural show, More with Less: Reimagining Architecture for a Changing World (2023). At the Soane Museum, he curated the major exhibitions Langlands & Bell: Degrees of Truth (2020), Eric Parry: Drawing (2019) and The Return of the Past: Postmodernism in British Architecture (all 2018), as well as a range of smaller projects, including Code Builder (with Mamou-Mani Architects), Out of Character (with Studio MUTT) and Adam Nathaniel Furman: The Roman Singularity (2017). His exhibitions and displays at the RA included Origins: A Project by Ordinary Architecture (2016), Urban Jigsaw (2016) and Nicholas Hawksmoor: Architect of the Imagination (2012).

He is author or editor of over twenty books, journals and other publications, including, most recently, The Manifesto House (Yale University Press, 2025). His writing has been translated into 13 languages. Details of his books can be found in the publications tab below.

His work as a curator and writer has been featured or reviewed in a range of international media, including BBC Television and Radio, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, El Mundo, Wallpaper* and Dezeen.

He has written widely on architecture for publications such as The Independent, CNN, Dezeen, e-flux Architecture, domus, Icon, The Architectural Review, Blueprint, Architecture Today, The Architects’ Newspaper, topos, Footprint, The Architects’ Journal, Building Design, Apollo, and The Burlington Magazine. A list of these publications can be found on his personal website.

An experienced public speaker, he has lectured internationally at institutions such as Yale School of Architecture; University of Oxford; University of Cambridge; Vizcaya Museum and Garden, Miami and the Courtauld Institute of Art, London.

He is a regular guest critic at a number of architecture schools, and has been a judge for the BD Architect of the Year Awards, the AJ Architecture Awards and at the World Architecture Festival.

He has appeared on BBC2 Newsnight, BBC Look North, ARTE, the European culture TV channel, Asharq News, BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio London, and Monocle Radio.

Publications