Christopher Thompson

Dr Christopher Thompson is a design historian and was educated at the University of Auckland, Auckland University of Technology (AUT) and the University of Brighton (England) where he gained a PhD with a thesis on the invention of industrial design councils in Great Britain and New Zealand.

As a cataloguer and, later, curator of international decorative arts and design, he was between 1980 and 1991 involved in the development of Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum, where he curated its principal inaugural decorative arts exhibition, Style.

He has subsequently worked in the Library of the Natural History Museum, London, and the Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales (now the Museums of History NSW). He also managed the London office of the Danish architectural practice Arkitektfirmæt C F Møllers Tegnestue and lived in Denmark for three years.

He has taught and lectured at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), AUT and the University of Brighton, the WEA Sydney, and at the University of Sydney, St-Lukas Hogeschool voor Wetenschap en Kunst (Ghent) and Unitec.

Dr Thompson has written about and translated decorative arts, design and architectural subjects for academic journals and popular magazines. Between 2004 and 2005 he edited the popular Sydney-based magazine World of Antiques and Art. His translations include Françoise Fromonot’s Jørn Utzon the Sydney Opera House (Milan: Electa, 1998) and the same author and his collaboration Sydney: history of a landscape (Paris: Vilo 2000). His recent work has included an assessment of significance and catalogue of the stained and painted glass at St Andrew’s Anglican church, Epsom (2022).