Patrick Stanigar impacted lives of many

THE EDITOR, Madam:

I read Patricia Green’s article on Patrick Stanigar in The Sunday Gleaner when I learnt that he had passed. I wholeheartedly agree that Patrick was a “giant among architects”. I met him first at McMorris Sibley Robinson (MSR), where I headed a small engineering unit they had at the time. He was a bright and engaging architect. I recall when Patrick and Evan Williams departed MSR and launched Design Collaborative.

I believe they both studied at the Pratt Institute in New York. Architect Harry Massop, who also went to Pratt, was also at MSR at the time, together with architects Verma Panton, Stan Kennedy, Hugh Robotham, the MSR principals, and others. I, too, departed MSR and spent a year (1974) with Douglas Pearce Engineers, working on the construction of Berth 11, the first port in Jamaica for containerised cargo for transshipment.

In 1975, I joined the National Development Agency as a project manager and the Cultural Training Centre (CTC) construction project was my major initial assignment. I met up with Patrick on the CTC project and got to know him better. He was an interesting character, with unique speech, gait and mannerism, and he was an architect 100 per cent. I recall that he went into an inner-city community and searched for, found, and engaged one of the few surviving craftsmen who could make the patterned cement tiles he used at the CTC. He was a man of many achievements who made a positive impact on many, including me.

EARL RICHARDS