Dr Steven Parissien

Departmental Lecturer in Architectural History

Biography

Dr Steven Parissien is a cultural historian and Departmental Lecturer in Architectural History. Born in London and raised in Chesham in Buckinghamshire, he obtained both his undergraduate and doctoral degrees from University College, Oxford.

Steven has worked as a senior manager and CEO in the heritage, arts and education sectors for over thirty years, including six years as Deputy Director at Yale University’s Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art in London, three years as Dean of Arts, Humanities and Architecture and Professor of Architectural History at the University of Plymouth and ten years as Director/Chief Executive at Compton Verney Art Gallery and Park in Warwickshire.

Research and Publications

Steven’s research interests include Georgian architecture, twentieth-century design and the architecture of railway stations. Amongst other projects, he is currently working on a memoir of the outer reaches of the Metropolitan Line and curating a major exhibition on the design of the 1970s. His publications to date include:

Regency Style (Phaidon, 1992)

Adam Style (Phaidon, 1992; Apollo magazine's Book of the Year for 1992 and the American Institute of Architects' Book of the Year Choice for 1993)

Palladian Style (Phaidon, 1994)

The Book of the Georgian House (Aurum Press and Rizzoli, 1995)

Pennsylvania Station, New York (Phaidon, 1996)

Station to Station (Phaidon, 1997)

'The Architecture of the Foundling Hospital' in Robin Simon, ed, The Foundling Hospital (Draig, 1997)

'The Coronation of George IV' in C and J Riding, eds, The Houses of Parliament (Merrell, 2000)

George IV: The Grand Entertainment (John Murray, 2001)

'Patriot or Tyrant? King George III Revisited' in History Today, May 2002

British Transport Architecture in the 20th Century (joint ed with Julian Holder; Yale University Press, 2004)

Assassinated (Quercus, 2008)

Interiors: The Home Since 1700 (Laurence King, 2008)

Stanley Spencer and the English Garden (ed; Paul Holberton, 2011)

‘The Architecture of Arsenal’ in Windows on that World (Yale University Press, 2012)

‘The Tudors Reinvented: The Regency and the Sixteenth Century’ in Tudorism: Historical Imagination and the Appropriation of the Sixteenth Century (Proceedings of the British Academy 170, 2012)

The Life of the Automobile (Atlantic, 2013/St Martin’s Press, 2014)

The English Railway Station (English Heritage, 2014)

The Comfort of the Past: Building in Oxford 1815-2015 (Paul Holberton, 2015)

Celebrating Britain: Canaletto, Hogarth and Patriotism (ed; Paul Holberton, 2015)

‘Capability Brown and Compton Verney’ in The Architectural Historian, December 2015

‘George IV: Man of Fashion’ in George IV: Art and Spectacle (Royal Collection Trust, 2019)