Oliver Wainwright (born July 1984[1]) is a British architecture and design critic. He has written for the British newspapers The Guardian and The Times and is the Features Editor for the industry magazine Building Design.[2][3] He trained and worked as an architect before becoming a journalist[4][5]

Oliver Wainwright
BornJuly 1984 (age 40)
England
Alma materUniversity of Cambridge, Royal College of Art
OccupationArchitecture critic
ParentMartin Wainwright

Oliver Wainwright attended Benton Park School in Leeds before going on to study architecture at the University of Cambridge, graduating with a double first, before the Royal College of Art.[6][7]

As well as being a writer and journalist, Wainwright has collaborated on design projects with the Architecture Foundation and the National Building Museum, and has lectured at several British architecture schools.[8] He is the son of former Guardian journalist Martin Wainwright.

Wainwright has praised the work of architect firm Stanton Williams and defended the company's design of the Sainsbury Laboratory after it won the 2012 RIBA Stirling Prize, despite its superficially prefabricated style.[9] He has criticised the design of the Liverpool Museum, highlighting problems of being over budget and in his opinion too close to the Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City, at the time a UNESCO World Heritage Site.[3] He described the restaurant in the Walkie Talkie tower at 20 Fenchurch Street as "like being in an airport terminal".[10][11]

References

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  1. ^ "Oliver WAINWRIGHT pe". Companies House. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
  2. ^ "Oliver Wainwright". Building Design. Retrieved 26 January 2015.
  3. ^ a b MacLeod, Suzanne (2013). Museum Architecture: A New Biography. Routledge. p. 30. ISBN 978-1-134-05362-9.
  4. ^ "Profile : Oliver Wainwright". The Guardian. Retrieved 26 January 2015.
  5. ^ "Oliver Wainwright". Saatchi Art. Retrieved 3 October 2019.
  6. ^ "Oliver Wainwright". Royal College of Art. Retrieved 3 October 2019.
  7. ^ Wainwright, Oliver (2014). "100 Buildings 100 Years 1960: Benton Park School, Leeds". C20: The Twentieth Century Society. Retrieved 5 December 2023.
  8. ^ "Inside Track: Oliver Wainwright". The Barbican. Retrieved 26 January 2015.
  9. ^ Aitchison, Mathew, ed. (2014). The Architecture of Industry: Changing Paradigms in Industrial Building and Planning. Ashgate Publishing. pp. 119–120. ISBN 978-1-472-43299-5.
  10. ^ "Sky Garden opens at the top of Rafael Viñoly's Walkie Talkie". De Zeen. 12 January 2015. Retrieved 26 January 2015.
  11. ^ Dangerfield, Andy (8 January 2015). "Walkie Talkie skyscraper's public garden opens amid criticism". BBC News. Retrieved 26 January 2015.
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