Rick Mather’s buildings, gathered in one new book

This one belongs less to a single place than to a way of building: careful, modern and unusually good at making old institutions feel newly usable. Wallpaper* looks at a new monograph on Rick Mather, the American-born architect who made London his base and went on to shape a run of significant British cultural projects. Written by Kester Rattenbury, *Rick Mather: The Complete Works* follows his path from Lyons Israel Ellis and Southwark’s architecture department to his own practice, founded in 1973.

The article sketches a body of work that was restrained rather than showy. Mather designed bookshops, homes and refurbishments early on, then became known for combining modernist language with historic buildings. The pieces most readers are likely to know are the glass courtyards at the Wallace Collection and the National Maritime Museum, and the new quadrangle at Dulwich Picture Gallery, all completed around 1999 and 2000. Wallpaper* also points to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, Towner Gallery in Eastbourne and the cult Covent Garden restaurant Now and Zen, remembered for its glass-bowl ‘dragon’ waterfall.

Rattenbury’s book is described as richly illustrated, with room for Mather’s love of draughtsmanship and for the atmosphere of British architecture culture in the 1980s and 1990s. It sounds best for readers who like to visit museums and buildings with a sharper sense of how they came to look and work this way.

Our summary of a story from Wallpaper*, published 2 October 2026. Read the original

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