BUCHANAN, Colin 1907-2001

PERSONAL: Born August 22, 1907, in Simla, India; died December 6, 2001, in Oxfordshire, England; son of William Ernest (a civil engineer) and Laura Kate Buchanan; married Elsie Alice Mitchell, 1933 (died 1984); children: Susan, Malcolm, David. Education: Attended Imperial College. Hobbies and other interests: Photography, carpentry, caravan touring.

CAREER: Sudan Government Public Works Department, surveyor, 1930-32; F. Longstreth Thompson, performed regional planning studies, 1932-35; British Ministry of Transportation, 1935-39, urban planning adviser, 1961-63; British Ministry of Town and Country Planning, staff member, 1946-61; Imperial College, London, England, professor of transportation, 1963-72; Bristol University, Bristol, England, professor of urban studies and director of School for Advanced Urban Studies, 1973-75. Member, Commission on third London Airport, 1968-70. Military service: Royal Engineers, lieutenant colonel.

MEMBER: CPRE (president, 1980-85), Friends of the Vale of Aylesbury (president, 1985-94), Council for the Protection of rural England (president, 1980-85).

AWARDS, HONORS: Gold medal, Town Planning Institute, 1968; named Man of the Year, International Road Federation, 1971; Fritz Schumacher Prize, 1971; knighted, 1972; Institute of Highways and Transportation Award, 1992; British Automobile Association National Motoring Award, 1994.

WRITINGS:

Mixed Blessing: The Motor in Britain, L. Hill (London, England), 1958

Traffic in Towns, Penguin (London, England), 1963.

Buchanan and After: A Summary of the Buchanan Report, British Road Federation (London, England), 1964.

Whitehall: A Plan for the National and Government Centre, Her Majesty's Stationery Office (London, England), 1965.

The State of Britain, Faber (London, England), 1972.

No Way to the Airport, Longman (Harlow, England), 1981.

Contributor to People and Cities, Fontana (London, England), 1969. Also author of numerous transportation and land-use studies.

SIDELIGHTS: In a tribute written for the British publication Planning, Ewart Parkinson described Colin Buchanan as "one of the outstanding and influential public figures of the 20th century: courageous and gracious; a scientist and an artist; a scholar and a soldier; a man who wrote and spoke with elegance, clarity, wit and authority." Parkinson also mentioned the fact that Buchanan's book Traffic in Towns won him "international recognition and doctorates from universities around the world." The book caused quite a stir, not just in the field of city planning, but in the general readership population, as did another Buchanan book, Mixed Blessing: The Motor in Britain, which was translated into several languages and sold millions of copies. Although the topic of his books might appear esoteric, it was Buchanan's wisdom, his clear-sighted vision of future needs, and his wide-ranging knowledge of, and experience with, city landscapes that have make his books so compelling, not only for those involved in planning urban environments but also for the millions of people who live within those environments.

Buchanan was born into a family of civil engineers whose work helped to shape cities. His great-grandfather practiced civil engineering in Edinburgh, Scotland. His grandfather traveled and worked as an engineer all over the world; his uncle Sir George Buchanan was knighted for building a harbor in the city of Rangoon, India, and his father, also an engineer, built several major structures, including a water supply system in Simla, India, which is where Buchanan was born.

For the first three years of his life, Buchanan remained in India; then his mother brought him and his sister back to England, where he remained for the remaining years of his youth. However, after completing his education at Imperial College, Buchanan worked in various international locations, including Sudan; but it was inside the United Kingdom that he left his most distinctive mark as an engineer and city planner.

After working for several years, Buchanan wrote his first book, but it was never published. He worked on it during the 1930s while working at the Office of the Ministry of Transport. He was responsible for road improvements in Great Britain at that time and often traveled about, taking photographs of traffic problems and automobile accidents, chronicling where and why the majority of accidents occurred. He never found a publisher for this work, although his interest in the affects of traffic and automobile safety influenced much of his later work.

During World War II Buchanan was sent to Egypt and then to Sudan, where he oversaw the building of a bridge across the Great White Nile. The bridge handled a different type of traffic: providing a military supply route across Sudan to India and Burma. While serving his country in the war, Buchanan rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel.

After returning to London Buchanan focused more specifically on the cityscape and began making a name for himself. The first case to put him in the public's eye occurred in what has been called the Momico Project for Piccadilly Circus. A major development had been planned for London's Piccadilly Circus area. A huge building boasting a large wall of advertisements was scheduled to be built. Buchanan took the builders to court and won, thus preserving what Parkinson referred to in Planning as "the quality of the human environment. His report helped to shift the balance towards the environment," and Buchanan eventually caught the interest of international environmental groups, who wanted to use him as a model for all city planners, a role Buchanan refused to play.

Buchanan often found himself involved in controversial cases of interest to the media, thus keeping his name in the news. In another heavily reported case, that of the proposed construction of a third airport in London, Buchanan was the only commissioner who favored building the airport in Maplin Sands. As Parkinson reported, "If only Government had implemented Buchanan's recommendations for London and Maplin Sands as the site of the Third London Airport the capital city of Britain and Heathrow would not be in the troubles they are in now." Parkinson concluded that Buchanan "could see the future consequences of current action; he had a strategic view of the future where lesser men could only thing tactically. His vision and his integrity towards that vision is a lesson for every planner."

Buchanan's foremost belief, according to an obituary in the London Times, was that the center of town is "a place where human beings gather for business or pleasure"; but it is also an environment in a "perpetual war with the needs of traffic." It is essential, Buchanan believed, that city planners "devise road systems that would separate the two."

After arguing against the proposed site for the third London airport, Buchanan gave three lectures that summarized and assessed a quarter century of the British town and country planning system. The lectures were collected in his 1972 publication The State of Britain. A reviewer for the Economist referred to this work as a "cautious declaration of faith and hope," but with a criticism of a "misuse of the tools" that city planners have available to them. A reviewer for the New Statesman expounded on this point, stating that Buchanan "further enhances his reputation" with the publication of his lectures, which revealed him to be "a man of compassion deeply concerned with the way we build."

Buchanan retired in 1984, the same year his wife died. For the next seventeen years he devoted himself to his hobbies of photography and touring Britain and Europe in a motorhome he designed himself. He did not give up driving until he reached his ninetieth year; and then did so only reluctantly. He died quietly at his home in Oxfordshire on December 6, 2001.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Economist, November 25, 1972, review of The State of Britain, p. 83.

New Statesman, December 15, 1972, review of The State of Britain, pp. 910-911.

Spectator, December 23, 1972, Simon Jenkins, "Simon Jenkins on the Hopes and Fears of Colin Buchanan," pp. 1007-1008.

Times Literary Supplement, February 23, 1973, review of The State of Britain, p. 204.

OBITUARIES:

PERIODICALS

Planning, January 4, 2002, Ewart Parkinson, "Colin Buchanan—A Tribute to a Pioneering Town Planner," p. 23; January 11, 2002, Anthony Fyson, "A Hero of the Golden Age," p. 10; February 8, 2002, John Muller, "Colin Buchanan's Contribution to Planning in South Africa: Memories of a Gentleman Who Remained True to His Beliefs in the Midst of Apartheid," p. 22

Times (London, England), December 10, 2001, "Professor Sir Colin Buchanan," p. 15.*