The Interview: Richard Parr

THE INTERVIEW | MASTERS & MUSES | WORLD OF CABANA

Leading architect Richard Parr sits down with Camilla Frances to discuss career-defining moments – from designing the much-admired Newt in Somerset, to launching his own gallery BRINK – collecting eclectic objects, his dream (and nightmare) interiors, most memorable trips, guilty pleasures and ideal dinner party guests...

INTERVIEW BY CAMILLA FRANCES | MASTERS & MUSES | 27 OCTOBER 2025

Richard Parr, photographed in his studio. Image courtesy Barley Nimmo. 

The most memorable trip I’ve taken:

Every trip is memorable and I’d be hard pushed to choose. Last year I did a three city hop around India. Firstly, Chandigarh where I managed to see inside all the key buildings and realise a dream to see the work of Le Corbusier, Jeanneret and the wealth of Indian Architects who worked with them. I then spent six days in Delhi for what has become an annual pilgrimage to the India Art Fair and everything that happens around it, finally travelling to Jaipur for an opening party for the Jaipur Centre for Contemporary art and the Sculpture Park. A complete feast for every sense.

The best party I’ve ever been to:

Well, I have been to a lot! So, this is a very difficult question. Soon after graduating from the AA (Architectural Association School), I moved to Seville in southern Spain. It was a heady mix of Andalucian traditions, grand aristocracy with music and parties within what was then a crumbing baroque city. The architect that I was working for published a book Cien Edificios (100 buildings), all of which were decadent ruins.

Contrast this with the exciting time with the emergence of Spain into the 20th-century; La Movida in Madrid, international artists like Julian Schnabel came, worked, exhibited. I recall spending time with musicians like Malcolm Mclaren. Then Interview Magazine arrived one week from New York and held a party in a ruined Palacio inviting everyone who was part of this new era. It was a crazy, extreme moment to have witnessed.

A moment that defined or changed my career:

A call for an interview to meet the founders of what was later to become The Newt in Somerset. It wasn’t quite clear what the outcome would be. Our practice was already known for its mix of historic and contemporary design and we started chatting in the drawing room at Hadspen House. The prospect of collaborating and creating a hospitality project with a very loose brief was a dream come true.

Nearly a decade later, I am proud of what we have built as a part of this team, and the friendship that has ensued. The excitement of working there hasn’t faded and we are still creating designs for new experiences there.

BRINK by Richard Parr Associates. Image courtesy Elias Nourry. 

The greatest challenge I’ve overcome: 

I always knew I wanted to study Architecture but was directed away from it by misguided careers officers. I never studied Art or Physics so the two (supposed) cornerstones for Architecture were missing. I couldn’t really draw, so had to teach myself from scratch. Looking back, I am not sure on what basis I was even accepted onto the course. However in my Practice, I always employ energy and potential, so maybe that was how I started.

It was something I had to overcome because I was brimming with ideas. I have worked through pencil, charcoal, crayons, biros and ink and developed my own style. At the AA, I was tutored by Mark Fisher and I hadn’t realised (until seeing his drawings at the V&A Pink Floyd show) how much he had influenced me. In my first job I became the studio perspectivist and had these published and exhibited.

Now my sketching and creative side is what drives my Practice. It is something I can feel proud of as an expressive form for my ideas. I tend to create a feeling rather than explicit detailing but these sketches stand the test of time in a project, embodying the intention and winning client’s endorsement. I have progressed and moved away from realism (there are better digital mediums to use) to a more emotive way of sketching.

My proudest achievement: 

I stood on a windy hill in Oxfordshire, overlooking a Medieval ridge and furrow field meeting a client for the first time. What we subsequently created there for them was a highly complex piece of Architecture; it manifests how I see the next generation of English country houses. Born out of the landscape and a celebration of it, using English craftsmanship in a twenty-first century way. Both gaining the trust of that client and then delivering their dream was a moment that defines my career and for which I am not only proud but grateful to them for their commission.

An object I would never part with: 

I have a tiny painting attributed to George Moreland; it was a 21st birthday present to my mother. It’s an exquisite 18th-century romantic painting of pigs in a stye, in its original frame. For me, it encompasses something connecting me to my late parents, something very English and also a connection with my own hobby as a Cotswold Farmer. I used to have rare-breed Gloucester Old Spot pigs until I became Vegetarian. They are wonderfully bright, responsive animals. I collect contemporary art and my home is largely furnished with 20th-century furniture but some historic pieces are very special and create an eclectic home. This painting is a treasure.

The best gift I’ve ever received:

I was given an Oak Arts & Crafts table over 20 years ago. It came from a school, complete with graffiti underneath it, via many other places until it fitted into my kitchen. At three and a half metres long, it is big! However, this has been the centre of my family life with so many memorable dinners, long lunches, painting, prep, working… This table, which seats 14, has seen it all!

My guiltiest pleasure or extravagance:

I am not sure that this is an extravagance, or that I should feel guilty (which I seldom do anymore), but: my decision to open a gallery space in London’s Notting Hill. To have a platform for supporting artists, makers, designers and thinkers and extending the practice culturally is definitely an indulgence. Excess, and I guess extravagance, is something I feel one grows into, and then out of! If you don’t push into this realm then how is ambition reached? I have always considered that Architecture extends beyond the physicality of building, and all aspects of living are addressed with it. To that end it’s a responsibility, but I also believe that other disciplines, approaches and problem solving can be learnt from and feed into what I do. So, it’s a logical step to invest in collaborating and curating shows in a space to excite and incite my team, my clients and anyone who comes to visit the shows. We opened on 25 September.

Farmyard at The Newt, designed by Richard Parr. Image courtesy Rich Stapleton.

My next weekend away destination:

I am visiting Sao Paulo for the Biennale and, as a complete indulgent treat, I am going to Brasilia on an overnight visit. I have always wanted to visit this city, with its fully planned and modernist design. As my own practice evolves and expands we are increasingly looking at larger sites and briefs. I am becoming more interested in collections of buildings and holistic concepts and looking at architects’ contributions and vision for complete and experiential design. Our hospitality work is like creating a mini town, so living and breathing a ‘one design’ weekend seems an opportunity not to be missed.

I would describe by childhood as:

Very safe and protected. Home was everything it should have been but not full of luxuries. This was the late 1960s into the early 1980s. A time politically of great change. Coming home from school to strikes and power cuts in the 1970s, to an economic and cultural opening up as I started university. Mine was a very traditional upbringing with very solid and Christian values, church on Sunday and a strong work ethic. What was important was routine, support, family life; all meals were eaten around a table together and there was always an extra chair for a friend and home made food. My parents had no connection to the creative world or any artistic knowledge, which may have been a good thing. It was a time when I learnt the love of gardening, the country, appreciation of everything home made and benefitting from my parent’s tireless efforts to take me to see buildings, including forays across Europe, for which I will be forever grateful.

My favorite flea market or antiques fair:

I live near Tetbury in Gloucestershire and my ideal Saturday is heading there for a meander and to pick up the Saturday newspapers. The array of antique shops and dealers there is extraordinary, and the source of a lot of what I buy. I treat this as a cultural hour or so. Only yesterday I learnt about 18th century lead work, the work of a 1950s French sculptor and picked up a book The Modern House, published in 1934. I have bought everything from a 1940s Eames table to an Eric Gimson chair there.

I feel most confident when wearing:

The answer to this is really the right thing for the right moment. Natural fabrics, relaxed and tailored but effortless design. My absolute go-to is Massimo Alba on Via Brera in Milano. Good shoes are also a must and I feel a different person wearing leather shoes.

My go-to recipe:

Gastronomy is to cooking what architecture is to living. It’s a fundamental necessity, which is often compromised out of convenience or lack of care and thought. Not by me though. My kitchen garden is a big pastime and my go-to recipes are risottos with whatever I can lay my hands on, always seasonal; this weekend a risotto with yellow zucchini, flowers, young artichoke hearts with calendula and honeysuckle flowers, followed by home grown apricots. In spring, I forage plants and shoots on the farm; we have woodlands steeped in wild garlic so the risotto is electric green! Autumn is about pumpkins, hazel nuts and root vegetables. This is a dish that can reflect a seasonal moment and mood.

The best advice I’ve ever been given:

Work out all the things that someone else can do better than me, then find and allow the right people to fulfil those roles. It’s been the best recipe for building my design business. This prompted me to offer a job to my now business partner. Finance, planning, accounts, business strategy, tidiness, managing systems, organisation and management. I think we must be one of the most stable and streamlined design practices and out of it I gained a best friend. Good advice indeed!

The person I call for good advice:

I am an ideas person – not short of energy but very resistant to doing things in an orderly, practical way – but my father, who sadly is no longer, was all of those things. He was sound fair, reasonable and thoughtful with a generosity and thoroughness; his words and advice are easily recalled.

The person I call for a good time:

The wonderful thing about my life is that it is filled with extremes. I can call on a multitude of friends for anything from travel adventures, music festivals, art voyages, shopping, cooking or just sharing a bottle of wine and a good debate. I love travelling, so I guess I call on my three children individually for the best times. My son for music and food, my eldest daughter for design, fashion and mellow company, and my youngest for art and the unexpected. Collectively when we meet, we have the very best time.

My dream dinner party companion:

David Bowie. He is an icon and both a musical and cultural force who I metaphorically grew up with. With a question like this, and with such an influential figure, one needs to think what age I would want to meet him. I’d say in his 50s, by which time both his musical career and creative mind and wisdom had fully evolved. He is one of the music industry's 'Renaissance men’; I don’t think conversation would run dry.

Farmyard at The Newt. Image courtesy Rich Stapleton.

My all-time favorite fabric: 

As a designer, I am sparing on the use of fabric, so the choice is very narrow! I do like vintage pieces. One of my favourite British Artists is John Piper. I own some of his sketches, lithographs and even mosaic furniture. Many years ago I bought a set of curtains, screen printed fabric of the Chiesa Della Salute in Venice.

The subject is the iconic Venetian Church, with its scrolled buttresses around the dome and sitting at the end of the Grand Canal, built in celebration of the end of the Plaque. Piper painted it in watery greens and multiplied it over a fabric design. I mounted these over canvas stretches I hung one in each of my studios.

An artwork or exhibition that took my breath away:

During the last Biennale in Venice the insertion of Anselm Kiefer’s vast works into the Palazzo Ducale was extraordinary at every level. I collect art, and landscape is a personal fascination, as is history, and a sense of place is part of my thinking in every project. Seeing these vast works drawing on Venetian history, charred and destroyed landscapes, made astoundingly powerful from found objects and gold; the seascape taking you outside to the Bacino, then looking up to Veronese; what an experience!

My signature scent:

The Last Day Of Summer Eau de Parfum by Gucci. I enjoy something subtle and I do wonder why so many people disregard the importance of smell. This has woody and earthy undertones with a touch of patchoulis. The name is rather romantic as well!

Ideal design in three words:

Elegant, resolved, honest.

Distasteful design in three words:

Careless, contrived, trendy.

A new artist or designer whose work excites me: I am going to pick a young British artist. Luke Hamel Cooke, a sculptor and ceramicist (at the moment). He is the first person to show in my new gallery, BRINK. His work is crafted, organically beguiling but totally fictional and abstract. I know that he will go a long way in his practice, how and where who knows? Being here with him in his twenties, supporting him to cast his first work in Bronze and co-curating the space with him is a real privilege.

Just One More Thing...

One Master: Gio Ponti

One Muse: Carlo Scarpa

One City: Seville

One Artwork: The Landscape of the Vernal Equinox, Paul Nash

One Museum: The Prado

One Shop: Massimo Alba, Via Brera in Milano.

One Song: London Calling: The Clash

One Color: Burnt Sienna

One Book: Remembrance of Things Past: Proust

One Flower: Honeysuckle

One Word to describe my Style: Elegant

One Word to describe Cabana: Rich