An eye for detail: architect John Pawson’s photographs

John Pawson is known the world over for his stunningly minimal designs. So what’s he doing publishing colour pictures?

Sitting at the long table in his King’s Cross studio’s less-than-ordered reference library, the celebrated Yorkshire-born architect John Pawson considers the word minimalist. It’s the one most often used to describe the spaces he designs. “I don’t mind it,” he says. “It starts a conversation, I suppose.”

Pawson’s work is instantly recognisable. His most recent public project was London’s Design Museum which reopened last year, but his hotels for Ian Schrager, the galleries and fashion stores he’s created around the world, all share a look of simplicity and purity. It is entirely devoid of distractions, such as painted colour, decoration of any sort, or even much furniture for that matter. Instead, his buildings are precise, linear, open, unexpectedly warm and definitely minimalist. So it’s curious then, that we’re talking about a new book, Spectrum, which features 320 images, shot mostly on his iPhone or a digital camera, which have been compiled, as the name suggests, to cover the entire colour spectrum.

It was his editor at creative arts publisher Phaidon who first suggested a book on colour, and Pawson was surprised. “My initial reaction was, ‘What?’ But then looking at my archive of around 500,000 images, we noticed there was a lot of colour, from changing light and nature to texture.”

Pawson’s vast photograph collection is an adjunct to his architectural work. “My sketching is very naive,” claims Pawson, “so I’ve always taken photographs. Before digital cameras, I’d go off to Snappy Snaps with endless rolls of film and come out with a pile of prints to distribute to people in the office as reference. Not literal, you understand, but perhaps conveying mood or light or something.”

Pawson briefly worked as a professional photographer before he trained as an architect in the 80s. “When I was in Japan in the 70s, a photographic agency asked me to cover sports events on my travels, and I was paid very nicely,” he recalls. “But the trouble was that I went to all these things and would miss the finish because I was busy photographing light on the road, or something. And they’d say: ‘These are very beautiful, but they’re not saleable.’ So that career didn’t go far.”

Describing himself as impatient, Pawson isn’t one for waiting for light to change or setting up tripods. Most of the images in the book are spontaneous moments: a shadow here, a glimpse of nature there. His eye goes for intimate, simple details, rather than grand gestures.

“I like the everyday,” he says. “I rarely photograph the spectacular view. It’s more difficult photographing Stonehenge. Capturing small moments makes me feel less anxious about missing things. I see so many things.”

While photography remains a daily joy, design is where Pawson’s heart lies. He has just created a new trophy with Swarovski for next month’s Fashion Awards. “Nadja [Swarovski] asked for several years if I’d design it, so this year I decided to finally say yes. We’ve created something really good, which is faceted on one side, smooth on the other and has a lens over the top to create a nice light with the coloured thread, which runs down the centre. It was fun to do something on this scale.”

Pawson is also working with Atelier Swarovski Home Collection to create a collection of home products to launch next April in Milan. Back in the UK, he’s working on a house for himself and his family (he has three grown children) in Oxfordshire. He’s also close to finishing two large hotels, one in Jaffa, as well as a new-build Editions Hotel in West Hollywood.

“I do sometimes think: ‘What’s next after architecture?’” he says. “One’s always trying to make the work better, but I don’t know, maybe something different. I have a very low boredom threshold.”

Spectrum by John Pawson is published by Phaidon at £45. To order a copy for £38.25, go to bookshop.theguardian.com

Becky Sunshine

The GuardianTramp

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