About The Author

Richard Murphy was educated at Newcastle University and then at Edinburgh University where he later taught. His researches into the work of the Venetian Architect, Carlo Scarpa, at the Castelvecchio, Verona began in 1986 and culminated in exhibitions in Edinburgh, London and Verona, a book "Carlo Scarpa and Castelvecchio" published in 1990 by Butterworth Heinemann and in Italian by Arsenale in 1991 and countless lectures on six continents. He has also written a book on Scarpa’s "Palazzo Querini Stampalia" in Venice in the Phaidon Architecture in Detail series and published in 1993, also published in Japanese by Dohosha. He presented a film for Channel 4 on Scarpa directed by Murray Grigor which was first broadcast in 1996. In addition he co-wrote with Grigor "An Architect’s Appreciation of Charles Rennie Mackintosh" published by Belew.

Richard Murphy is an Academician of the Royal Scottish Academy, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Fellow of the Royal Incorporation of Architects of Scotland, Fellow of Edinburgh Napier University and chartered member of the Royal Institute of British Architects and in 2016 he was elected to the RIBA Council. He lives in the centre of the Edinburgh New Town in a house he designed for himself. It won the RIBA/Channel 4 TV “United Kingdom House of the Year” competition in 2016. As well as a number of references to the work of Scarpa within it, it also includes a roof terrace, the design of which is a homage to Scarpa’s garden in the Querini Stampalia Foundation in Venice made in 1963-4.

In 1991 he founded the practice of Richard Murphy Architects in Edinburgh. Since then the practice has won twenty-one RIBA awards, and has been short-listed for the Lubetkin Prize and twice for the Stirling Prize. Two books have been published on his work: "Ten Years of Practice" in 2001 by the Fruitmarket Gallery and "Architecture of its time and place" in 2012 by Artifice. His work has been exhibited in one man exhibitions in Copenhagen, Aarhus, Rhode Island, London and in Edinburgh and in 2007 he exhibited in the British Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale. In 2006 he was voted “Scottish Architect of the Year” by readers of the Scottish architecture magazine "Prospect" and in the Queen’s Honours List 2007, he was awarded an OBE. He is a frequent contributor to architectural journals where his work has also been reviewed on many occasions.