6 C O N T E X T 1 1 3 : M A R C H 2 0 1 0 Remembering Gordon Michell Pioneer of community-led conservation Gordon Michell will be remembered best for his work in the field of urban regeneration, for which he was appointed OBE in 1985, but during his long and distinguished professional career he played an important role in a number of influential projects. After war service in Normandy, Germany and the Middle East, Michell returned to the Architectural Association and graduated in 1948. Scholarships enabled him to travel in Italy, Spain, Europe and the USA studying townscape, historic buildings and the architecture of road transport. He and his wife Eleanor set up their architectural practice, Michell and Partners, in 1954. His work included innovative bank design, housing (notably in Cirencester), and urban landscaping. Michell was also drawn to the wider environment. In 1962 he was asked to join Colin Buchanan’s study group resulting in the production of the ground-breaking Traffic in Towns. It was also as a partner of Colin Buchanan that he was responsible for the Bath Conservation Study, one of the suites of city conservation studies which helped establish urban conservation as a mainstream planning discipline. Michell became consultant architect to the Civic Trust in 1973, playing a leading part in the trust’s role as UK Secretariat for European Architectural HeritageYear in 1975. He was architectural advisor to the newly established Architectural Heritage Fund, to the David Knightly Charitable Trust and to the Historic Buildings Council for the administration of grants within non-outstanding conservation areas. In those roles he became the friend, supporter and advisor of numerous amenity societies and building preservation trusts up and down the country. While with the Civic Trust he set up and led the award-winning Wirksworth Project. He identified the small Derbyshire market town of Wirksworth as being a suitable subject for an experimental project funded by the Sainsbury family’s Monument Trust. Simon Sainsbury wanted to see if community-led conservation could be an engine for urban regeneration. In 1977 this was an entirely new concept, adopted by Michell from then on. It was his great humanity as well as his professional skills which led to the success of theWirksworth Project, described by Prince Charles as ‘brilliantly innovative’. The project won the1982 Europa Nostra Medal for architectural conservation and the 1984 Royal Town Planning Institute Award for Planning Achievement. It is easy to fall into the trap of hagiography when writing of someone immediately after their death, but Michell did indeed have some spiritual qualities. All who knew and worked with him came under his spell. He was a most gentle man. Nevertheless, he was a perfectionist with a core of steel. He was totally dedicated to any task in hand. Anyone working with him could be pretty sure that if the telephone rang at 11.30 at night it would be Michell at the other end, oblivious to time. Michell had a very good eye, which he used with impressive results in the medium of photography. His work, Remembering Mickey King Our appreciation of Mickey King (Context 110, July 2009) was not credited. It was written by John Fidler. Gordon Michell’s photograph of part of Cirencester’sWest Marketplace, taken from the top of the church tower which was in the school of Eric de Maré, whom he had known, dealt with buildings in the urban and rural landscape. He devoted increasing amounts of time and energy to black-and-white photography as an art form. A major exhibition of his photographic work was held at the Architectural Association in 1995. In 1983 the chairman of the Royal Fine Arts Commission, Norman St John Stevas (later Lord Fawsley), commissioned Michell to write a book to encourage better design of town centres. Design in the High Street was illustrated with Michell’s own photographs. In 1993 he collaborated with Barry Joyce and MikeWilliams in the production of a picture book Derbyshire: detail and character. For every one of the 150 of Michell’s black and white photographs published there were another nine unused, a consequence of his perfectionist approach, revisiting each location several times until conditions were right. Although not a performer, classical music was an integral part of Michell’s life and his home was full of music. In the later years of his life he suffered from increasingly difficult illnesses. He survived these not just with stoicism but as part of a life that was still interesting, fun and very much worth living. He is survived by his wife and partner Eleanor, his daughter, two sons and grandchildren. Barry Joyce
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