Architect John Pawson On Chelsea Arts Festival & The Minimal Home

Next week, Chelsea Arts Festival will take to London’s streets, bringing a whirlwind of culture and joy across talks, performances, markets and more. On Friday 18 September, this includes a talk with celebrated architect John Pawson CBE and Deyan Sudjic OBE, who penned the soon-to-be-released volume, John Pawson: The Minimal Home (out 16 September). 

We sat down with John ahead of the event to delve into the new book, and get a glimpse of what we can expect from his talk with Deyan at Chelsea Arts Festival.

Q&A: John Pawson On The Minimal Home

Tell us about John Pawson: The Minimal Home.

The idea with this new book was to look specifically at the homes I have designed and the thinking that has shaped them, from the earliest apartment interiors in the 1980s, right through to the present – over four decades of work.

What prompted you to focus specifically on domestic space?

I am profoundly interested in how people use and inhabit places. In all my work, residential or not, I am trying to make spaces where people feel at home. This book was a chance to explore and reflect on this in a very focused way.

You’ve drawn inspiration from places like Donald Judd’s home at Marfa, the Cistercian Abbey of Le Thoronet, and Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House. How do these historical and cultural precedents inform your own approach to designing contemporary homes?

Inspiration is never literal. It’s about the emotional or visual experience of being in a particular building. From a young age, I have been fascinated by the difference between the sort of spaces that make you feel something and those that don’t.

The book spans your work from the 1980s to the present day. Looking back at your earliest domestic projects, what has remained constant in your approach, and what has evolved?

Experience has deepened but not changed my thinking. The me of today and the me that started out in practice in the early 1980s would define simplicity in the same core terms – as the quality an object or space has when it is no longer possible to improve it by subtraction.

John Pawson: The Minimal Home by John Pawson and Deyan Sudjic is published by Phaidon on 16 September.

How has your time in Japan continued to shape your thinking about domestic comfort and simplicity?

I think there is a natural affinity between aspects of Japanese culture and the sort of minimalism that makes sense to me – from an appreciation of the value of contact with nature and the essence of things to an emphasis on simple forms and materials and an understanding of the importance of light and shadow. 

What do you believe is truly essential in a home, and what do most people accumulate that obscures that essence?

For me the essential quality of a home is that it has everything that you need and nothing that you don’t. I’ve always responded to quiet spaces, where the eye is free to travel uninterrupted. Unnecessary accumulation of any kind is the enemy of the freely travelling eye. 

How does Deyan Sudjic’s perspective bring a different dimension to the book?

Deyan and I have been friends for many years. During this time we have travelled and talked extensively together; we have also shared the experience of being architect and client. The Minimal Home very much draws on this rare degree of mutual understanding and history. 

At the Chelsea Arts Festival conversation, what would you most like audiences to understand about your approach to designing homes?

I find profound comfort and pleasure in environments where it’s all about the light, the proportions, the surfaces and the atmosphere. If these are right, nothing more is required.

What do you hope they can take away from your talk and implement in their own homes?

I hope people take away the thought that, in the end, it’s all about understanding what makes you feel comfortable and that there is no right or wrong, no more or less valid answer to this. It is a case of what makes sense to the individual.

John Pawson CBE, in conversation with Deyan Sudjic OBE

Join us on Friday 18th September at the Saatchi Gallery with a special in conversation event with celebrated architect John Pawson CBE, interviewed by Deyan Sudjic OBE.

• Where? Saatchi Gallery (Duke of York’s HQ, King’s Rd, London SW3 4RY)
• When? 12.30pm, Friday 18 September 2026
• Tickets: £15.90 or £39.95 including a copy of The Minimalist Home.

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