Masters of Design: at home with Deyan Sudjic, director of the Design Museum, and editor Sarah Miller
So far, our Masters of Design series has taken us inside the home of Richard and Ruth Rogers, and for a look round the Architectural Association to meet its radical new director, Eva Franch i Gilabert. This time we’re at the north London home of Design Museum Director, Deyan Sudjic, and editor Sarah Miller; watch the film here.
Deyan originally trained as an architect, an experience that convinced him out of pursuing a hands-on design career, determining, in his own words, that it was his “patriotic duty never to build anything” on the grounds that he was “much too impatient and incompetent”. Instead, he opted for something more cerebral, first as Editor of Blueprint magazine, followed by stints as Editor of Domus, the legendary architecture and design magazine founded by Gio Ponti in 1928, architecture critic for The Observer, Director of the Venice Architecture Biennale and then as the dean of the faculty of art, design and architecture at Kingston University.
“I spend my life as a writer, as a journalist, as an editor, as a curator, thinking [about] and looking at what design really means,” says Deyan. Since 2006, that pursuit has been channelled into his role as Director of the Design Museum, which, under his stewardship, has gone from a former banana warehouse in Shad Thames to its current iteration a stone’s throw from London’s behemoth museums in Kensington at the former Commonwealth Institute, overhauled by John Pawson to offer three times more space and welcome three times more visitors.
Sarah’s design authority has been equally hard-earnt, with journalistic achievements to her name such as being the Founding Editor-in-Chief of Condé Nast Traveller UK, launching The Sunday Times’ Style magazine and occupying the roles of Associate Editor and Arts Editor of the Daily Telegraph, to name a few. It’s a career that has placed her at the heart of the worlds of modern luxury, art, architecture, design, travel and lifestyle for more than three decades.
After launching Condé Nast Traveller in China, Sarah set up her eponymous consultancy firm in 2014, approaching briefs for clients Bombay Sapphire, Clivedale and hotels such as The Datai Langkawi with a magazine-like treatment to brand-building. As well as offering creative and strategic services, Sarah Miller and Partners also provides editorial direction for publisher Phaidon, for which Sarah used her editorial skills and visual know-how on London Uprising: Fifty Fashion Designers, One City and the forthcoming Where Architects Sleep, due to be published in January 2020.
Naturally, we were itching to see how Deyan, whose professional life is dedicated to thinking about design, and Sarah, whose finger-on-the-pulse reputation has her occupy the tastemaking position of Luxury Brand Ambassador of The Wall Street Journal, live at home, a 19th-century townhouse in north London.
Hear their thoughts on design and taste, the integrity of London’s period housing stock and trying to keep things minimal by watching the film here. And don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel to get updates of new films.
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