Death of Booker, August 2024, RIP
26th December 2024
Alan Steeves-Booker, former tutor on the landscape course and affectionately known as Booker, died in August 2024. He was responsible for graphics teaching from the late 1970s through to 1991 when he retired, and he will probably be remembered most by those many students who were inspired by his style and enthusiasm, the imaginative short exercises and longer projects he devised and by his insisting only on the best design outputs. In later years he developed the application of video to physical models, producing amazing footage of landscape experiences in walk-through simulations, shown to best effect in the ‘urban projects’ based on London cityscapes (see image below).
In his own words, he “showed the students how to forget the fine art context in which their course was set and to develop a method of seeking for ideas by what I called the ten second sketch. I was required to lecture on the role of religion in every day and sacred landscapes, a subject for which I was in no way qualified, but I used film, dance, music and memories of my midnight discourses with [local vicar] Henry Morgan in order to open the imagination of the students.”
Apart from the teaching commitment, Booker also had a major hand in curating the ‘end of year’ student exhibitions which showcased their work to staff, external examiners and prospective applicants to the course. This visibility was responsible I am sure for the very favourable reputation bestowed on the course by various landscape practices seeking new recruits.
After retiring from the landscape architecture course, he stayed at home in a Cotswold village and began painting, “using American Expressionism as a starting point, I wrote short stories and used them in some of my paintings. There was much satisfaction when my work was exhibited in [London,] in Stroud … and at the Sculpture Park in Somerford Keynes.” (see image below)
Landscape architecture at Cheltenham owes him much as a charismatic indefatigable member of the course team who developed a robust and relevant curriculum to achieve CNAA honours degree status, later to underpin course restructuring into the modular scheme now common in universities. Graphics teaching was then, as now, an essential component in forging the synergy between the academic foundations and primary design activity of the profession. This is what Booker did par excellence.
Bob Moore
Postscript: I visited his grave recently – he is buried alongside his wife Jill a graphic designer in the small churchyard 100 yards from the Cotswold cottage they lived in for over 50 years.
