Matthew comes to Cambridge from Queen Mary University of London where he taught the architecture and history of the capital for 6 years. Prior to that, he held positions at The University of New Mexico, and at Oxford. He is a historian of British architecture in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and his research is focussed on the intellectual underpinnings of architecture in the period, along with its relationship with antiquity, particularly that of the Eastern Mediterranean. Matthew' first book, Architects and Intellectual Culture in Post-Restoration England was published in 2017 by Oxford University Press, and he is currently completing his second single-author book, The Greek Revival. A Prehistory, which will explore British and French engagement with ancient Greek architecture prior to the 1750s.
On coming to Cambridge, Matthew writes that he "will be bringing to the department a passion for teaching buildings and cities, ideally in situ, and I cannot wait to get started and meet the students on my new third-year option paper: The British City in its Global Context. In all, I am thrilled to be at Cambridge and to be part of an extraordinary legacy of architectural-historical teaching and research in the department. To follow in the footsteps of Nikolaus Pevsner, David Watkin, Deborah Howard, Caroline van Eck, Frank Salmon, and many others, is the greatest honour of my professional career."