Contributors

Series editor Robert Kahn is an architect in private practice. His work has been widely published. He has taught design, most recently at Yale University. In 1981 he was awarded the Prix de Rome by the American Academy in Rome. He lives with his wife Fiona in New York City and Shelter Island.

Friends of the following museums have generously shared their personal and professional insights in City Secrets London. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of the guides will help support their ongoing activities.

Sir John Soane's Museum was created by the architect Sir John Soane at No. 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields and has been a public museum since 1837. It survives as an integral whole, its interiors restored and its works of art displayed in the same authentic arrangements as they were in Soane's day. Many of its works of art, such as the Hogarths, Canalettos and Turners, are of great pre-eminence, as are its books and drawings by the leading architects of the 17th and 18th centuries. The Museum also holds changing exhibitions in its Soane Gallery. However, it still has the reputation of being a well-kept secret, with the majority of its visitors hearing about it by personal recommendation. It remains, as Henry James described it in 1889, 'one of the most curious things in London . . . illustrating the prudent virtue of keeping.'

The Whitechapel Art Gallery was founded in 1910 with the aim of bringing art to the people of East London. Now an internationally renowned independent gallery, the Whitechapel shows contemporary and modern art by both well-known and local artists.

The Museum of London is the world's largest urban history museum and tells the story of London's archaeology, history and contemporary culture from earliest times to the present. It maintains an active special exhibition programme as well as permanent galleries recording and documenting London's past.

City Secrets London

Tim Adams is a staff writer for the Observer where he was formerly Literary editor; prior to that he was Deputy Editor of Granta. He lives in Islington with his wife and daughter.
Brian Allen is Director of Studies at the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art in London and Adjunct Professor of History of Art at Yale University. He is also a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.
Michael Arditti is a novelist, playwright and literary critic. His novels include The Celibate and Easter, which received Waterstone's Mardi Gras award.
John M. Ashworth is the Chairman of the British Library Board. He has been the Director of the London School of Economics (1990-96) and the government's chief scientist (1976-81).
Diana Athill was, for almost fifty years, a director of the publishing house AndrE Deutsch Ltd., a career described in her recent memoir Stet. Her other publications include another memoir, Instead of a Letter, and a novel, Donit Look at Me Like That.
P. W. Atkins is Professor of Chemistry at Oxford University. He is the author of many widely used textbooks, and books on science for the general public.
Paul Baggaley was a bookseller in London for many years and is now a Director at the Harvill Press, for which he is presently producing a list of classic London novels.
Andrew Ballantyne is the author of Architecture, Landscape and Liberty and What is Architecture? He is Professor of Architecture at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
J. G. Ballard's many novels include Crash, Cocaine Nights and Empire of the Sun, which was based on his childhood in a Japanese internment camp and later made into a film by Steven Spielberg.
Michael Barker writes and lectures on art, architecture and decorative arts, and is co-author of The North of FranceoA Guide to the Art, Architecture and Atmosphere of Artois, Picardy and Flanders.
Nicola Barker, a novelist and short story writer, won the 2000 Impac Awardothe world's richest prize for a single work of fictionofor her third novel, Wide Open.
Paul Barker writes widely on social and cultural issues and was formerly editor of the opinion weekly, New Society. He is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Com munity Studies, London.
Alan Baxter is the engineering designer of many new landmark buildings and is involved in the conservation of historic structures in London.
Stephen Bayley was responsible for The Design Museum and created The Boilerhouse Project at the V&A. His books include Sex, Drink and Fast Cars. He resigned in protest from the Millennium Dome project.
James Bettley was Head of Collection Development at the National Art Library, Victoria & Albert Museum, 1997-2000. He was previously at the British Architectural Library of the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Design Museum.
Lexy Bloom, formerly at The New York Review of Books, now works for Granta and The Little Bookroom in London.
Roger Bowdler is the author of various articles and television documentaries on tombs.
Elliot Boyd, a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects, is an architect practicing in London.
Gabriele Bramante is the Principal of Bramante Architects in London.
Alan Brownjohn is a poet. He has also published three novels, The Way You Tell Them, The Long Shadows and A Funny Old Year.
Edward Burd, an architect, was for thirty years a partner at Hunt Thompson Associates, where he worked primarily on conservation and social housing projects. He lectured at the Bartlett School of Architecture and was a riba External Examiner. He is now retired and divides his time between London and southwest France.
James Campbell's books include Talking at the Gates, A Life of James Baldwin and This Is the Beat Generation.
Peter Carson was formerly Editor-in-Chief at Penguin. Now retired, he works as a free-lance editor and translator from Russian.
Adam Chodzko is an artist, working primarily with video and photography.
Susannah Clapp is Theatre Critic of the Observer and the author of With Chatwin, a memoir of Bruce Chatwin.
Barry Clayton is an architect specialising in the conservation of historic buildings. His expertise in the works of Sir John Soane has led to his involvement in the restoration of the House and Entrance Gateway at Tyringham in Buckinghamshire, and the ongoing major reconstruction of Soane's last major country house, Pell Wall in Shropshire.
Michael Coveney is the Theatre Critic of the Daily Mail and author of several biographies, including those of Maggie Smith, Mike Leigh and Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Jonathan Cox is an editor, writer and photographer for Time Out City Guides.
William Dalrymple, an award-winning travel writer, is the author of In Xanadu, City of Djinns, From the Holy Mountain and The Age of Kali.
Gillian Darley's most recent book is a biography of Sir John Soane. She was co-author with Andrew Saint of The Chronicles of London, a historical anthology of London.
Robyn Davidson is a London-based writer. Her books include Tracks, winner of the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, and Desert Places, shortlisted for the same prize.
Giles de la Mare was director of Faber & Faber from 1969 to 1998, and is now the now the chairman of Giles de la Mare Publishers, founded in 1995.
Lesley Downeris books include Geisha: The Secret History of a Vanishing World and On the Narrow Road to the Deep North. She writes for The Wall Street Journal Europe.
Bruce Ducker is the author of six novels, including Bloodlines and Lead Us Not Into Penn Station.
James Dunnett, an architect and lecturer, translated Le Corbusier's The Decorative Art of Today in 1986.
Robert Dyeriba is an architect who has worked with Sir James Stirling and Fred Koetter.
Geoffrey Elborn, a biographer and critic, has written lives of Edith Sitwell and Francis Stuart. He is currently writing about Patricia Highsmith.
Duncan Fallowell is the author of two travel books, To Noto and One Hot Summer in St. Petersburg. His most recent novel is A History of Facelifting.
Lex Fenwick is the Managing Director of Europe, Bloomberg, LP.
Michele Field represents Australian arts organisations in Britain and is a London correspondent for Australian newspapers and magazines.
Ophelia Field is a biographer, Books Consultant to The Sunday Telegraph and a policy analyst in the field of refugees and human rights. She is currently writing a biography of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough (1660-1744).
Mary Flanagan, an American writer and critic living in London, is the author of three novels (Trust, Rose Reason and AdEele) and two collections of short stories (Bad Girls and The Blue Woman).
Leslie Forbes is a broadcaster and writer whose books include Fish, Blood & Bone, a mystery set in London and Tibet.
Dan Fox is assistant editor of frieze magazine, and a free-lance critic and filmaker.
Christopher Frayling is Rector of the Royal College of Art. A broadcaster and cultural historian, his books include Sergio Leone -Something to Do With Death, The Art Pack and The Face of Tutankhamun.
Philip French is the Observeris film critic, author of Westerns and co-editor of The Faber Book of Movie Verse.
Jay Anthony Gach is a composer of concert music and music for the media.
Dr. Claire Gapper is a specialist in early decorative plasterwork in England, having completed her ph.d thesis on the subject at the Courtauld Institute of Art in 1998.
Jeremy Garfield-Davies is a director and furniture expert at Mallett, the antique dealers. He advises on the research, restoration and acquisition of English furniture for some of the most important private collections worldwide.
Christopher Geelan and Sarah Gordon run the London-based Young Shakespeare Theatre Company.
Kenneth Seeman Giniger is a book publisher, editor and anthologist in New York City.
Janine di Giovanni was named Foreign Correspondent of the Year for 2000, as well as winning the Amnesty International Award and the National Magazine Award. She works for The Times covering wars in the Balkans, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East.
Chrissie Gittins is a poet. She is currently Writer-in-Residence for Maidstone Borough Council.
Victoria Glendinning is a prize- winning biographer and journalist. Her books include lives of Vita Sackville-West, Trollope, and Jonathan Swift, and the novel Electricity.
Antony Gormley, a sculptor, is the creator of the Angel of the North. He was awarded the Turner Prize in 1994.
Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, both journalists, write thrillers together, including Killing Me Softly and The Safe House.
Ron Gray is the author of books on Goethe, Kafka, Brecht, and Ibsen, and also on Cambridge gardens and Cambridge street names.
Romesh Gunesekera was born in Sri Lanka and now lives in London. His first novel, Reef, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and was awarded a Premio Mondello Prize in Italy. His most recent novel, The Sandglass, received the inaugural bbc Asia Award.
David Hare is an award-winning writer and director. His 22 plays include Plenty, The Judas Kiss, Amy's View and The Blue Room.
Ronald Haymanis books include biographies of Nietzsche, Kafka, Brecht, Sartre, Proust, Thomas Mann and Jung.
Janeen Haythornthwaite is an art historian who works for the Whitechapel Gallery and the Tate Modern. Rick Haythornthwaite is ceo of Bluecircle Industries.
Edwin Heathcote is an architect and writer in London. He is the author of a number of books including Theatre: London and is the editor of Church Building magazine.
Michael Hebbert, author of London, More by Fortune than Design, is a historian, geographer and town planner who lives in London and Manchester. He heads the School of Planning and Landscape at the University of Manchester.
Angela Hederman is editor and publisher at The Little Bookroom in New York.
Dave Hill is a journalist and author of books on pop music, politics, football and gender issues. He lives near the Narrow Way with his wife and five children.
Philip Hoare lives in Hoxton, London. His books include biographies of Stephen Tennant and NoIl Coward, Wilde's Last Stand and Spike Island. He was co-curator of Icons of Pop: 1958 -1999 at the National Portrait Gallery.
Phil Hogan writes a weekly column for the Observer. His first novel is called Hitting the Groove.
Peter J. Holliday is a historian of classical art and archaeology at California State University. He lived in London when he was a graduate student and is now a frequent visitor.
Katy Homans is a graphic designer living in New York.
Mark Honigsbaum is a journalist and the former chief reporter for the Observer; he is also a broadcaster and author of The Fever TrailoMalaria, The Mosquito and The Quest for Quinine.
Peter Horrocks, a barrister, is a freeman of the City of London. He is the Chairman of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London, runs the Covent Garden Minuet Company, an 18th century dance group, is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society and is a player of real tennis.
Peter Howard, an architect, is co-author of guides to the architecture of Oxford and Cambridge.
David Hughes is an award-wining crime writer, living in London.
Lucy Hughes-Hallet is the author of Cleopatra, winner of the Fawcett prize. She is currently writing a book on heroes and hero-worship.
Johanna Hurwitz is the award-winning author of more than fifty popular children's books. She lectures to students, teachers, parents and librarians from Mississippi to Mozambique.
Nicholas Hytner is a London-based theatre and film director.
Ian Jack has edited Granta since 1995. He was a reporter for the Sunday Times between 1970 and 1986, and co-founder of the Independent on Sunday in 1989. In Britain, his awards include those for reporter, journalist and editor of the year. He lives with his family in London.
Bernard Jacobson has had a gallery in London for more than 30 years, initially publishing prints and subsequently dealing in modern and contemporary British and American art.
Dame Jennifer Jenkins is President of the Ancient Monuments and formerly Chair of the National Trust, the Consumers Association and the Historic Buildings Council for England.
Ian Kelly is an actor and writer. His publications include Shakespeare Cinema.
Francis King was drama critic of the Sunday Telegraph. His books include Act of Darkness, The Domestic Animal and Dead Letters. He was the winner of the Somerset Maugham Prize, the Katherine Mansfield Prize and Yorkshire Post Novel of the Year Award.
Susan Kleinberg, an artist, has exhibited at the Venice Biennale, the American Center in Paris and the Castelli Gallery.
Phillip Knightley is an author and a journalist. His latest book is Australia: A Biography of a Nation. He has lived in Notting Hill for 35 years.
Zachary Leader is a Professor of English Literature at the University of Surrey Roehampton and the author and editor of books on Romantic poetry and 20th century British fiction. His most recent publication is The Letters of Kingsley Amis. Though an American, he has lived in London for more than thirty years.
Penelope Lively is a novelist and short story writer. She was born and grew up in Egypt and now lives in London.
Robert Livesey, an architect, is director of the Knowlton School of Architecture at Ohio State University.
George Loudon is Chairman of Helix Associates Ltd. and a Director of cmg plc.
Felicity Lunn is an independent curator and lecturer; she was formerly Curator at the Whitechapel Art Gallery.
Fiona MacCarthy is a cultural historian and author of biographies of Eric Gill and William Morris. She is writing the life (and after-life) of Byron.
Shena Mackay is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a distinguished visiting Professor at Middlesex University. Her books include The World's Smallest Unicorn, Dunedin and the Booker-shortlisted The Orchard on Fire.
Angus MacQueenis documentary work includes The Death of Yugoslavia, which won a British Acadamy Award, and Dancing for Dollars, which received an Emmy.
Imogen Magnus has worked as a theatre designer and costume designer in films and television. She now writes on historic gardens and teaches.
Patrick Marber is a writer and director. His plays include Dealer's Choice and Closer.
Charles Marsden-Smedley is a museum and exhibition designer.
Brian Masters writes about crime and art. His 23 books include Killing for Company, which won the Gold Dagger Prize for non-fiction in 1985. He is also an authority on gorillas and dukes.
Carol McDaid is an editor and journalist on the Observer.
Andrew Mead is a staff writer for The Architectsi Journal, contributing there and elsewhere on architecture, art and landscape.
Jonathan Meades is a filmmaker and critic, writing on architecture and food. His books include Filthy English, Peter Knows what Dick Likes, and Pompey, a novel. A new novel, Fowler Family Blood, is published in 2001. He won the Essay Prize at the Paris International Arts film Festival in 1994 and the Glenfiddich Trophy in 1998.
Roger Michell is a film and theatre director of, among others, Persua sion and Notting Hill.
David Miles is the Chief Archaeologist of English Heritage and lives on Millbank overlooking the Thames.
David Mlinaric, a partner at Mlinaric, Henry and Zervudachi, is an interior designer and decorator. He has worked on various museums and heritage sights in London and abroad, including The National Gallery, The Royal Opera House and several British embassies, as well as on many private houses and flats around the world.
Lucinda Montefiore is a writer and radio producer.
Deborah Moggach is a writer of screenplays and novels that include Close Relations and Tulip Fever.
Wendy Moonan is the antiques columnist for The New York Times, architecture editor of House & Garden, and president of the Sir John Soane's Museum Foundation.
Rowan Moore is architecture critic of the Evening Standard. He was editor of the architecture magazine Blueprint and founding partner of Zombory-Moldovan Moore Architects. Publications include Vertigo, The Strange New World of the Contemporary City and Building Tate Modern.
Fidelis Morgan, writer and actor, is the author of Unnatural Fire, a whodunit set in 1699 London. She is a specialist in 17th- and 18th- century English theatre history.
Carole Morin has been writer-in-residence at Wormwood Scrubs prison and Literary Fellow at the University of East Anglia. Her books include Lampshades, Dead Glamorous and Penniless in Park Lane.
Patrick Morreau is a retired consulting engineer.
Nicholas Mosley, novelist and biographer, won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award in 1990 for Hopeful Monsters.
Andrew Motion is the Poet Laureate and Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.
Peter Murray, Director of Wordsearch Ltd., was founding publisher of Blueprint, Tate and EyeoThe International Review of Graphic Design. He was the curator of iNew ArchitectureoThe Work of Foster Rogers Stirlingi and iLiving Bridges,i exhibitions at the Royal Academy.
Jeremy Musson, an architectural historian, is Architectural Editor of Country Life and author of The English Manor House. He was born in London in 1965 and as a child lived on the Abbey Road made famous by the Beatles.
Richard Noble lives in London. He writes about political philosophy from the 18th century to the present and the contemporary visual arts.
Al Orensanz is the author of five books on sociology and semiology in urban communities.
Nadine Orenstein is an Associate Curator in charge of the German and Netherlandish Old Master prints in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Cornelia Parker, artist, is known for a number of large installations including Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View where she suspended the fragments of a garden shed, blown up for her by the British Army, which was exhibited at the Tate Modern. Shortlisted for the 1997 Turner Prize, she has had major solo exhibitions in London, Paris, New York, Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia.
Ruth Pavey has lived and worked in London for 25 years, teaching art and English to inner-city children. She writes for national publications on contemporary fiction, crafts and horticulture.
Clayre Percy works for The Landmark Trust on environmental research and libraries and is Trustee of the Lutyens Trust. She is editor of Edwin Lutyens's letters to his wife.
Piers Plowright, who retired from bbc Radio in 1997 after 30 years as a producer, is a winner of several Prix Italia for Radio Documentary and of several Sony awards. He is fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a free-lance-radio producer and a part-time lecturer in radio.
Peter Porter, an Australian-born poet, won the Whitbread Prize in 1987. He has lived in Paddington in London since 1960.
Peter Powell is a London historian and he leads Angel Walks in Islington. A professional actor and singer, he has lived in Islington for 30 years. Other Angel Walks include those on Charles Dickens, Joe Orton, and walks in Highgate and Hampstead.
Anne Purchas is an architectural historian and a free-lance lecturer and writer on architectural and garden history for various journals.
Theodore K. Rabb is a Professor of History at Princeton University. The author or editor of more than a dozen books, he is a contributor to The New York Times, the TLS, and other publications.
Michael Ratcliffe was the Literary Editor of The Times and Theatre Critic of the Observer. He now writes about travel for The New York Times.
Margaret Richardson has been the curator of Sir John Soane's Museum since 1995. She is the president of the Twentieth Century Society and is a specialist in architectural drawings. Her books include Architects of the Arts and Crafts Movement and Sketches by Lutyens.
Alan Ross (1922-2001) was Editor of the London Magazine and author of memoirs, poems, travel books and biographies.
Glen Roven, four-time Emmy winner, lives in London and New York City. His first Broadway musical opens in the fall of 2001.
Frank Salmon is a Lecturer in the History of Art at the University of Manchester and author of Building on Ruins: The Rediscovery of Rome and English Architecture.
Miranda Sawyer is a journalist and broadcaster. She is the author of Park and Ride, a personal history of suburbia.
Ann Saunders worked on the restoration of Lambeth Palace Library after the war. Her books include Regent's Park and Art and Architecture of London and St. Paul's Cathedral. She is editor of London Topographical Society and Costume Society.
Jon Savage is a historian of popular culture. He is the author of England's Dreaming: Sex Pistols and Punk Rock.
Marjorie M. Scardino is Chief Executive of Pearson plc, owners of The Financial Times Group, The Penguin Group and rtl Television.
Lynda Schor is the author of Appetites and True Love & Real Romance, two books of short fiction. She teaches fiction writing at the New School University.
Miranda Seymour is a biographer, novelist and critic. She also writes a weekly column on herbs and their uses for the Independent.
Shez 360, an artist, has exhibited widely in London and at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, The Tate Modern, and abroad with the British Council.
Alexandra Shulman is the editor of Vogue in London.
Susan Silberberg-Pierce is a classical art historian and photographer of ancient sites.
Clive Sinclair, born in London, is the author of four novels, including Blood Libels and Cosmetic Effects. He is a winner of the Somerset Maugham Award and the pen MacMillan Silver Pen.
Mark Sladen is a curator at the Barbican Centre in London. He also writes for magazines including frieze and Tate.
John Slyce writes on contemporary art and culture from his home in east London.
Charles Saumarez Smith is Director of the National Portrait Gallery and lives in Stepney.
Neil Spencer is a journalist and scriptwriter. He is the co-writer of a trilogy of short films on London: Paris Brixton, Sari and Trainers and Soul Patrol.
Ralph Steadman is a cartoonist, illustrator, printmaker and writer. He has illustrated such classics as Alice in Wonderland and created prints on writers from William Shakespeare to William Burroughs. In addition, he has written books on Sigmund Freud and Leonardo da Vinci, and collaborated with Hunter S. Thompson on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Lucretia Stewart is the author of Tiger Bam: Travels in Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia (1992); The Weather Prophet: A Caribbean Journey (1995); and Making Love: A Romance (1999). She is the editor of Erogenous Zones: An Anthology of Sex Abroad (2000).
Lady Stirling (aka Mary Shand) is a furniture and interior designer. She is the widow of Sir James Stirling, the architect, and they have one son and two daughters.
Susan Swan, a novelist, has had her fiction published in ten countries. Her last novel, The Wives of Bath, was a Guardian fiction finalist. The film Lost and Delirious, based on this novel, has been chosen for the premiere selection at Sundance 2001.
A. A. Tait, a professor of art history at the University of Glasgow, is the author of two books on Robert Adam, the architect, and on landscape architecture. A trustee of several museums and institutions, he lives in Scotland and London and has been married to a New Yorker for the last forty years. They have two children.
Emma Tennant was born in London and grew up in the borders of Scotland. Her new novel Sylvia and Ted will be published by Henry Holt in the U.S.A. (2001). She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Simon Thurley was curator of the Historic Royal Palaces for eight years before taking up a post as Director of the Museum of London. He is an authority on 16th- and 17th-century English architecture.
Eva Tuckeris novels include Contact and Drowning. She writes for radio and various magazines and newspapers, and she translated Joseph Roth's The Radetzky March for Allen Lane, The Penguin Press.
Mario Vargas Llosa, the Peruvian writer and politician, is author of The Time of the Hero, The Green House, Conversation in the Cathedral, and The War of the End of the World, among other novels. He is also the author of noteworthy criticism. In 1990 he ran unsuccessfully for the Peruvian presidency.
Erica Wagner was born in New York and lives in London where she is Literary Editor of The Times. Her books are Gravity: Stories and Ariel's Gift: Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath and the Story of Birthday Letters.
Marina Warner is a writer of fiction and history. Her most recent study of mythology is No Go the Bogeyman: Scaring, Lulling and Making Mock. Her newest novel is The Leto Bundle .
Tim Willis works for various British newspapers and magazines. He is also iInteresting Britaini correspondent for travelintelligence.net.
John Wilton-Ely, an art historian, is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and the Royal Society of Arts. He is the author of Piranesi as Architect and Designer.
Cecilia Wong, formerly of Cecilia Wong Designs, Los Angeles, is an interior designer and art historian. She lives in London.
Roger Woodley is a Lecturer at University College London in architecture and author of the London Blue Guide.
Gaby Wood is a journalist and critic. Her books include Living Dolls: A History of the Quest for Mechanical Life.
Karen Wright is the editor of Modern Painters and co-editor of the Penguin Book of Art Writing.
Nick Wyke is a journalist at The Times and has recently devised a walking tour of Pimlico in London.