Colin Boyne 1921-2006.

Colin Boyne has died aged 85. From the '50s to the '70s, he was the immensely successful editor of The Architects' Journal and steered it to a position of great influence and authority in the profession. His death seems to bring to an end an architectural ethos that formed Britain for much of the second half of the twentieth century.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Born into a military family, he joined the Indian Army in 1940, but was badly wounded and invalided out after prolonged convalescence in Africa. Returning to England in 1944, he became a student at the Architectural Association. He played a vigorous part in school activities, but had to leave in 1947 before graduating because his injuries (which were never fully sorted out) would not allow him to stand all day at his drawing board.

A junior job at the AJ permitted him to pursue architecture while sitting down. By 1953 he was editor, a post he retained until 1971, when he became chairman of editors of both the AJ and this magazine. His approach to architecture was largely formed in the post-war reconstruction period: the time of rationing and utility clothing, of high hopes but few resources with which to realise them, of almost military organisation with only occasional treats like the Festival of Britain. Colin naturally became a scientific rationalist. Expertise in technology and management, which had allowed us to win the war, was to be the basis of building the peace.

He persuaded the Architectural Press, the owners of the magazines, to invest in his vision of the future and appointed several research fellows who explored systems for providing the profession with reliable and continuously updated data. Their deliberations led to the AJ information library, in which latest building-technology was distilled and presented in partworks for use next to the drawing board. This brilliant strategy, with the addition of a thorough building study and an informed news section, was an instant success: no office could do without one or more subscriptions to the AJ. It became an essential dynamic textbook for the profession, and helped form two, if not three, generations of British architects.

Colin believed that architecture must serve humanity. He had little time for styles or stars. Naturally, he was a very strong supporter of the public sector and all it implied in terms of system building, tower blocks and large-scale planning. When these became progressively unpopular, and then Thatcherism virtually destroyed public sector architecture, Colin found himself increasingly marginalised, the more so because methods of provision of information were changing and the Architectural Press was being destroyed by enmity between the two families that owned it. He retired in 1984, luckily before the firm was taken over by Robert Maxwell and his clownish minions. But he continued to watch the profession critically from the calm of Wells (chosen because it is the smallest cathedral city in the country), and saw many of his ideals reborn in slightly different form--for instance system building is transmuted into prefabrication, and the newly understood necessity of increasing urban density makes tall buildings essential.

For all his Modernist enthusiasms, he delighted in old buildings and became quite an expert on the varieties of English vernacular building. He loved the countryside and for many years lived in a wooden house designed by Maguire & Murray and built by Colin and his wife Rosemary themselves in the middle of a large wood near Tonbridge. Having been opposed to the ecological movement in the '70s, he was converted, and one of his last requests was that he should be cremated in a coffin of woven willow. Another was that there should be no memorial service--typical of a writer who very rarely signed his articles (and discouraged others from doing so), believing that the magazine should have authority, not the man.

As a boss, he was mercurial, perhaps because of continuing pain from his wounds. When he didn't agree with you, he could be very forthright (the junior staff practically scrambled over each other to leave the room when he went red in the face during a discussion). Yet he could be sensitive, thoughtful and vitally supportive. He believed very firmly that it is easier to turn an architect into a journalist than vice-versa, and that the magazines should be editorially led and written mainly by architects. He hated sloppiness and always aimed for the highest standards. I was immensely lucky to have been trained by him and to have experienced his integrity, editorial craftsmanship and critical rigour--even his rages, because wit and charm made up for them. Without him, the AJ would not be what it is (and might not even exist). Nor probably would the Review.