Deyan Sudjic

Deyan Sudjic is one of the most important authors, broadcasters and curators of architecture and design worldwide. He was born in 1952 in London, his parents being Yugoslavian immigrants. In spite of his several international experiences, the United Kingdom has remained the barycenter of both his private life and his career. He was trained at the University of Edinburgh, where he graduated in Architecture, though he has never actually worked as a practicioner. “This is because I am not good enough”: it is the self-ironic explanation that he usually comes up with when asked about the reasons for this choice. Nonetheless, Sudjic is a pivotal figure in the field of today’s architecture and design, for his consistent engagement with both disciplines’ research and dissemination. Over his career, he has carried out these activities through different, complementary media and platforms, which allowed him to target a wide, diverse audience, comprised not just of scholars and researchers, but also of a lay public of enthusiasts.  

He started his path as a journalist thanks to Peter Murray, an architecture critic from a slightly older generation, and with a similar professional profile as Sudjic’s. It is not by chance if he considers Murray as his main mentor. In 1983, they co-founded Blueprint Magazine, a monthly review of architecture and design, which at the time was supported by prominent British architects such as Norman Foster and Richard Rogers. Sudjic directed it until 1996.

In 2000, he succeded François Burkhardt at the head of Domus, and he made Simon Esterson, a former collaborator at Blueprint Magazine, join the editorial board, too. He passed the baton to Stefano Boeri in 2004. For four decades now, Sudjic has been regularly writing for the general press, mostly in the United Kingdom, where he has collaborated with several daily newspapers, in particular The Observer but also The Guardian and Sunday Times.

His production as an author reflects the multiplicity of his interests. His bibliography is remarkably diverse, spanning from illustrated monographs on contemporary authors to critical essays on historical or topical themes. The first category includes, among many others, volumes dedicated to Ron Arad (Ron Arad, Laurence King, 1999), to John Pawson (John Pawson. Themes and Projects, Phaidon Press, 2002) and to Norman Foster (Norman Foster. A Life in Architecture, Overlook Pr, 2010). The 100 Mile City (André Deutsch, 1992), The edifice complex. How the rich and powerful shape the world (Penguin, 2005), and the two tomes of The Endless City (co-curated with Ricky Burdett, Phaidon Press, 2007 e 2011) are among his most successful essays. In 2002, the direction of Next, the 8^th International Architectural Exhibition at the Venice Biennale, was an important moment in his international consecration in the field of curatorship. As opposed to the previous edition by Massimiliano Fuksas, Sudjic’s Biennale focused in the first place on built architecture, also shown through one-to-one scale models, that visitors could cross and explore. In parallel, his Biennale was particularly rich in texts. “There are lots of words to explain everything” Sudjic told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, “because architecture should not be afraid of speaking, even with a serious attitude, about itself. But it must do it through a language that is accessible to everyone”. From 2006 to 2020 he was the director of The Design Museum in London, where he also managed the relocation from the previous premises in Shad Thames to Holland Park, Kensington, inside the former Commonwealth Institute, renovated on that occasion by John Pawson. He supervised such groundbreaking exhibitions as the first retrospective on Zaha Hadid ever organized in the United Kingdom (Zaha Hadid. Architecture and Design, 2007) and Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition (2019), which is to date the most successful event ever held at the museum.

For his expertise, he was involved in various capacities in the processes of transformation of the contemporary city. For four years he directed the program for Glasgow UK City of Architecture and Design 1999, part of a larger project for the regeneration of the Scottish city, that was experiencing a difficult moment in his post-industrial transition. He was member of several juries, including the one that appointed Zaha Hadid as the designer of London Acquatics Centers, realized for London Olympics in 2012. He taught in several universities, including Kingston University and the Royal College of Art in Londra, and since 2020 he is Distinguished Professor at the School of Architecture of Lancaster University. In 2000 he received the Order of the British Empire, and since 2004 he is honorary member of the RIBA - Royal Institute of British Architects.

In the words of Lucy Bullivant, on Domus 823: