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OBITUARIES AA Member Eric Charles Browning (AADipl 1950) passed away earlier this year at the age of 86. Architect Charles Cullum died on 04 March aged 86. Born in North Lincolnshire and a 1953 graduate of the AA, he emigrated to Canada and became a prominent figure in Newfoundland. He founded his own firms, first The Architect’s Guild, then Cullum and Cullum Ltd and served as president of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada and the Newfoundland Association of Architects. Architect George Finch died of a heart attack 13 February aged 82. Finch, who graduated from the AA in 1955, designed for an egalitarian post-war London and his buildings were constantly underlined by a social approach to urbanism. Working at first with London County Council, Finch went on to work extensively with Lambeth Borough Architects Department under Ted Hollamby, creating Lambeth Towers in Kennington and the iconic Brixton Recreation Centre, a well-loved feature of the area, which was recently saved from demolition. His Weston Adventure Playground Southampton, designed in collaboration with his life partner and architect Kate Macintosh, won a RIBA award in 2005. www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2013/ feb/27/george-finch Former AA Intermediate Unit 6 student Leonardo (Leo) Garcia Alarcon Estrada passed away on 28 March aged 30. Leo was a keen photographer and contributed numerous images to the AA Photo Library, which were exhibited at the AA and featured in various AA media. We belatedly report the death of American architect and AA Life Member Gerhard Kallmann, who died last year. Born in Berlin in 1915, Kallmann came to London with his family in 1937 where he enrolled at the AA and graduated with an AA Diploma in 1941. Moving to the United States in 1948 he went on to teach at Chicago Institute of Design and was appointed Associate Professor of Architecture at Columbia University. He formed Kallmann, McKinnell & Knowles in 1962, after winning an international competition to design a new City Hall for Boston, with Columbia graduate student Michael McKinnell. Their brutalist building became the firm’s most iconic commission that unfortunately, like so many buildings of that era, was dismissed by the public it was created to serve. Other prominent projects included the Organisation for the Prohibition of
Chemical Weapons HQ in The Hague, the US embassy in Bangkok and campuses for the University of California and Ohio State University. Leading Israeli Architect Ram Karmi died on 11 April 2013 aged 82. Karmi, who won the Israel Prize for Architecture in 2002, was both celebrated and controversial for his brutalist design for buildings such as the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv’s new Central Bus Station, the renewed Ben Gurion Airport and the Holyland Project. Born in Jerusalem in 1931, Karmi studied at the Technion in Haifa, Israel, before attending the AA in 1951 where he graduated in 1954. He returned to the Technion to teach from 1964–94 and was later appointed Full Professor of the Ariel University Center of Samaria. He lectured at MIT, Columbia University and the University of Houston. Richard Martin (Rick) Mather died in April after a short illness. Graduate of the AA urban design course (1966), Rick taught a first year unit with fellow American Dale Benedict 1974–77. He set up Rick Mather Architects in 1973, specialising on design and master planning for cultural and academic institutions. In 1980 he was commissioned to design a phased restructuring of various AA spaces, including the existing bar, kitchen, exhibition gallery and toilets, and the former photo library, drawing materials shop, triangle bookshop and crèche. Amongst many celebrated projects, the refurbishment of Dulwich Picture Gallery, an extension to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich and a masterplan for the South Bank Centre, all from 1999, helped place his practice in the international architectural scene. The firm’s work on the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford was nominated for the Stirling Prize in 2010. Mather served as AA Councillor from 1992–96 and remained an active AA Member. www.ft.com/cms/s/0/817665a0-acda11e2-b27f-00144feabdc0. html#axzz2RwOnspYS Kevin Pratt (AA E&E MA 2004) passed away on 19 February 2013 aged 43. Kevin was assistant professor at Cornell University, where he was conducting transdisciplinary research in architecture and computer science to design and simulate the ecological behaviour of buildings. His MA dissertation at the AA focused on Hooke Park, at a time when the Dorset Campus had only recently been acquired by the School, thus making a positive early contribution to the thread of conversations and developments that have followed at
Hooke Park since. His energetic and positive outlook on life allowed him to develop strong collaborations such as the one with former AA Tutors Marco Poletto and Claudia Pasquero with whom he co-ran a design studio in Cornell’s Diploma school in 2012. He shared his passion for architecture with his wife Dana Cupkova and had three wonderful kids: Talullah, Alexander and Gwendolyn, his youngest, now two years old. Simos Yannas (AA SED Programme Director) writes: ‘Kevin was an exceptionally talented individual whose drive, vision, initiative and leadership qualities were unique and irreplaceable. His death at such a young age, and at such a promising moment in his career, is an immeasurable loss for our field of sustainable design in architecture.’ www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2013/02/ architecture-professor-kevin-prattdies-43 The family of Samuel (Mookey) Rathouse (AAPlanDipl 1970), who died unexpectedly last September following a stroke, have sent a wonderful recount of the life of the urban designer, architect and founder of Moross Rathouse Partnership. The article tracks Mookey’s career, starting with his arrival from South Africa in the swinging London of 1966, with wife Rosalind, to study Urban Design under Leslie Ginsburg at the AA. It describes Mookey’s awakening to urban design ideas of the time, about which he would argue with a cohesive group of fellow AA students into the early hours of the morning, in their Bloomsbury Square studio. The work of the practice, all centred in London’s West End, goes from early work on Carnaby Street in the 1960’s (to which the practice would return in the 1990’s) to strategic planning for the recently completed St Martin’s Courtyard in Covent Garden. You can read the full article on: www.aaschool.ac.uk/public/newsnotices/obituaries.php AA Life Member George Unwin died on 17 January in Papworth Hospital, Cambridgeshire, at the age of 91. After serving in the Navy the Second World War, he completed his architectural studies at AA, where he graduated in 1950. He worked in Coventry for WS Hattrell, was made a partner in the firm in 1961, and set up their Manchester office where he worked until his retirement. He leaves a legacy of many fine, well-made public buildings.