George Saumarez Smith: ‘My sketchbooks are full of measured drawings of buildings from all over the world’
The architect talks to Lotte Brundle about the death of his brother, designing the Country Life stand for RHS Chelsea Flower Show, and his Consuming Passions.
The best way to get to know George Saumarez Smith is to look at his work. ‘In a way, every time I design a house for somebody else, I'm sort of slightly designing it for myself. With any creative thing there's always a piece of you in it,’ the architect says.
When I look at George’s design for the Country Life stand at this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show, it is easy to see parts of him in there.
His love of tradition is reflected in the white and blue colourway, reminiscent of delftware; his predilection for the wacky in the eclectic collection of vintage gardening books that will line the stand’s shelves; his slight neuroses in the neat lines that run through the design as a whole.
George has been a director of ADAM Architecture since 2004 and has worked on everything from country houses to more urban designs.
His grandfather was the leading Classical architect Raymond Erith, who was chosen to rebuild 10 and 11, Downing Street after they had been bombed in the war.
George has passed his love of drawing on to his two sons (the eldest of which is studying architecture) who he shares with his ex-wife. His fiancée Jane Kennerley is similarly creative — he has roped her in to attend to the plants on the Country Life stand.
The couple live apart, but are planning to move in together soon, which may prove difficult as George’s house is hardly sparsely decorated.
George's design for this year's Country Life stand.
'Nobody's going to make a film about my life, because it would just be lots of really, really boring close ups of me doing unbelievably slow, painstaking drawings,' says George.
His Winchester home demands to be looked at. Black-beige wallpaper in a botanical print serves as the backdrop to a wide-ranging art collection. Silver and gold candlesticks holding slender orange and pink candles fight for space on the large living room table with an army of different papers and books. For reasons entirely unclear to me, he boils his kettle on the floor.
George’s mother was a tapestry designer. His bookseller father also had a big impact on him growing up (hence the many books set to line the shelves of the Country Life stand, and the even larger collection in George’s own home).
‘I wanted it to have a sort of antique feel about it. So the rule is the books have to be a minimum of 40 years old. So 1986 is the cut off,’ he says. I pick one up at random. It’s a beautiful gardening book, but somehow it has snuck through the cracks; the publication date is 1994. ‘We can’t have that,’ says George, aghast. I joke that I am sure no one will notice, but he is adamant, ejecting it from the pile with vigour.
George's dining room (the table is perfect for a ping pong tournament, he says).
In George's own words, he 'never works' in his study — but it photographs very well.
George had one older brother, Joe, who died last year ‘much too young’ from a rare form of cancer, aged 53. It has affected him greatly. ‘You just assume that your sibling will always be there,’ he says. At one point when we are discussing Joe he looks as though he might cry. He considers whether this is on or off the record before ultimately deciding ‘it might help to sort of add something interesting to the piece’.
His pain is clearly still incredibly fresh, and his brother's memory is everywhere, but George is throwing himself into Chelsea preparations headfirst. That’s always what his brother used to do with things he loved, George says.
Your aesthetic hero
Villa Foscari by Andrea Palladio, George's aesthetic hero, circa 1555.
In England, there's an architect called Andrea Palladio, who is particularly influential — Palladian architecture comes from Palladio. There's a near-contemporary of Palladio called Michele Sanmicheli, who came from Verona, and I think he's my architectural hero. Every building I've seen of his has got that stamp of confidence and quality about it, and he designed a very wide range of buildings. He's my real hero, and I would go quite a long way out of my way to go and see buildings of his.
A book you’ve found inspiring
A book called Venice, by Jan Morris. I think it’s the best travel book ever written. I have my grandfather's copy and the opening two pages of it actually move me to tears. The writing is just extraordinary.
An exhibition that has really impressed you
'Blitz: the club that shaped the 80s’ at the Design Museum.
I don't go to exhibitions as much as I would like, but Jane and I went to an exhibition last year at the Design Museum, and it was all about the Blitz Club. It was amazing.
The last podcast you listened to
I listened to a podcast that's called About Buildings + Cities. There are two hosts, Luke Jones and George Gingelland. They have a very sort of down-the-line, architecture school view on everything, and so I quite like listening to it, because often I will disagree with what they're saying, and I think that it's good to listen to that, because it kind of gives you a sense of balance.
The person that would play you in a film of your life
What I actually thought was, nobody's going to make a film about my life, because it would just be lots of really, really boring close ups of me doing unbelievably slow, painstaking drawings. It would make a terrible film. I don't know who would play me. I don't know enough actors to be able to answer.
The last thing of note that you bought for yourself
Sheila Robinson's lino print.
I collect lino cuts and cardboard prints by an artist called Sheila Robinson. I recently bought another. Her mastery of the printing technique is just incredible. This is from a spice market in Istanbul. She did a few prints in Istanbul. I think I'm probably the biggest private collector, I've got about 35 of her pieces.
The music that you work to
I think I've got quite eclectic musical tastes, as most people do in the days of Spotify. When I was at school, the art master used to play music over the speakers in the art studio, and so we had no choice over the music that was playing, and he was a big Leonard Cohen fan. It seemed very grown up when we were at school, these songs that were about grown-up subjects sung by a man with a very low, gravelly voice. I really then developed a love for him, and so if I need to really concentrate, it is definitely his music.
What you’d take with you to a desert island
I said earlier about how much I love lino cuts. I used to do them at school, and I now collect them, and one of the things I'm always thinking to myself is, it would be fun to do more lino cuts. And that never happens, because as an architect, there's always a lot happening, and so things that you think you've got time for, you don't. So, on a desert island, what I'd really like is lots of lino cutting tools, ink and an Albion press, which is like a big, massive cast iron press. I could make lino cuts of palm trees.
Your favourite painting
'The Virgin and Child with Saints Peter, Jerome, Francis, and an Unidentified Female Saint' by Lorenzo Lotto, circa 1505.
It's a difficult question to answer, because my favourite painting probably is going to be a different one today from if you'd asked me a week ago, but I have always loved this painting. I was at university in Edinburgh and it's in the National Gallery of Scotland, so I often used to go and look at it. It's The Virgin and Child with Saints Jerome, Peter, Francis and an Unidentified Female Saint by Lorenzo Lotto. It is such an amazing picture. There's something about the kind of architectural nature of it with the layer behind them, and the scene in front, which seems to be sort of part of it, but somehow separate too. I love the painting, because for me it's about Venetian painting, but it's also about memories of living in Edinburgh.
The thing that gets you up in the morning
I mean, honestly, I feel lucky to do a job that I love, so I don't really ever have any problems with motivation. I think that it's an incredible gift and privilege to end up doing a job where you never have to even think about getting out of bed.
The items you collect
Sheila Robinson prints, lino cuts in particular, lustre ware jugs, lot of books obviously — and recently, gardening books.
A hotel you could go back and back to
Years ago, I designed a house in New Delhi, and I used to be put up by the clients in the Imperial Hotel, and I really loved it. It's just the most well run, incredible hotel.
A possession you would never sell
My sketchbooks. In 1986 I had two friends called Francis and Jane (not my fiancée Jane) and we thought it would be fun to go on a trip around country houses in England. So we each went and bought a sketchbook, mine was made by Cinelli in Paris, but I bought it from a shop in Russell Street in London. I drew a plan with dimensions on it of all the buildings on our trip. My friend said I should name the sketchbook, because one day I might have loads of them. And so, because we'd just been to Kedleston Hall, and it's a particularly Roman building, I wrote the name of the first Roman emperor, Augustus, on the spine of the book. The sketchbooks are now full of measured drawings of buildings from all over the world.
The most memorable meal you’ve ever eaten
So unlike my brother — he was a real foodie, he would literally go to the other side of the city just to visit a cheese shop — I am not as into food as he was. And I mean, memorable meals for me tend to be the people around the table as much as the food. And we've had lots of family meals over the years around this table. It's nice because it's by candlelight. Slightly unexpectedly, given my furniture tastes, this dining room table is actually steel. The children and I used to play ping pong on it.
The best present you’ve ever received
There's a little family tradition that we make cards for each other at Christmas and for birthdays, and both of my children have inherited a love of drawing, and so one is at Camberwell School of Art at the moment, and the other is at the Glasgow School of Art, so getting handmade cards from them is my favourite thing.
The Country Life ‘Garden Lover’s Library’, designed by George Saumarez Smith of Adam Architecture, is at stand PW215 at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, May 18–23.
The first 200 subscribers at Chelsea will receive a bottle of The Grange Classic Sparkling NV, worth £39. Rated 94 points by Decanter magazine, this premium sparkling wine from Hampshire was described in Country Life as ‘the connoisseur’s choice’. Offer available with subscriptions for UK delivery only.
