David Mackay 1933 - 2014

Photo © Mercè Taberner from La Vanguardia

The British-born architect David Mackay, who died on Novembe 12th at the age of 80, was a partner since 1962 in the Barcelona practice MBM, with Oriol Bohigas and Josep Martorell, who survive him. According to all accounts, he was very much  team player in the firm, contributing an English pragmatism and, especially in his early years, a fresh whiff of modernity for an isolated Francoist Spain.

Beth Galí wrote a warm, personal note on Mackay in the Barcelona edition of El País, "Un català de retruc" (November 12, 2014). The title comes from Mackay's own memoir, and means, I think, something like "A Catalan by Default" or "On the Rebound".  In Spanish.

Peter Buchanan writes on Mackay in the December issue of The Architectural Review, although little of Mackay himself emerges from the accomplishments of Bohigas and MBM in architecture and urban planning.

Llàzter Moix, the architecture critic for the Barcelona newspaper La Vanguardia, writes perhaps the fullest obituary, "La segunda M de MBM", November 13, 2014. In Spanish.

My closest contact with Mackay has been through his book Modern Architecture in Barcelona, 1854-1939, published in English by Rizzoli in 1989.

I also recall a few glimpses in the memoirs of Oriol Bohigas, in two volumes, Desde los años inciertos and Entusiasmos compartidos y batallas sin cuartel  (Spanish edition, Anagrama, Barcelona 1989 and 1996