Phineas Harper is an innovative leader in developing sustainable cultural programmes that engage broad audiences with architecture and design. A regular contributor to The Guardian, their career spans criticism, curation, education, youth engagement, journalism and sculpture.

As Chief Executive of Open City until 2024, Phineas’ led far-reaching and impactful change across the organisation steering the charity through the challenges of the pandemic while transforming and growing its programmes. In their four year term as Director, they built, grew and launched award-winning new educational and cultural initiatives, oversaw major digital infrastructure upgrades and secured the charity’s largest ever public grant and corporate sponsorships. They successfully rebuilt Open City’s reserves to record levels while delivering above-inflation pay rises, and recruiting a more diverse staff team and board.

Phineas’ career is marked by a long-standing commitment to making architecture and heritage more engaging and accessible to younger and more diverse audiences. For example as Deputy Director of the Architecture Foundation they co-founded the New Architecture Writers programme in collaboration with the historian Tom Wilkinson which has transformed the landscape of architectural criticism in the UK.

In 2019 Phineas co-curated the Oslo Architecture Triennale on the theme of degrowth in collaboration with engineers Interrobang and geographer Cecilie Sachs Olsen. That year they also curated the 19th Architecture Prize of the Land Steiermark in Austria. Currently a columnist at Dezeen, alongside writing, their work spans kinetic sculpture, film and print making, and has be exhibited at the Royal Academy in London, the Architecture Biennale in Venice and the London School of Economics.

Previously Phineas served as deputy editor of the Architectural Review and served on the jury of the Civic Trust Awards and Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings Awards. They have also written widely on the intersection of architecture and politics including for the Guardian, the Literary Review, the Independent, Harvard Design Magazine, and DOMUS.

Their books include London Feeds Itself (publisher), The Alternative Guide to the London Boroughs (publisher), Public House: A Cultural and Social History of the London Pub (publisher), A People's History of Woodcraft Folk (editor), Gross Ideas: Tales of Tomorrow's Architecture (editor with Smith Mordak and Edwina Attlee), Gestures in Time (editor with Markus Bogensberger), and the Magma Architecture Sketchbook (author).

Phineas was a trustee of the children’s charity Woodcraft Folk and served on the committee of the Big Lottery Fund’s Young People’s Fund.