Farm Hall, Godmanchester.
MARCIAL ECHENIQUE, BORN 1943
PLANNER, RESEARCHER & ARCHITECT
Marcial Echenique was born into a prominent land owning family in Chile. In this autobiography he describes his Chilean schooldays and his training as an architect, which he started at the age of 17 at the Catholic University in Santiago. After four years of the five year course he moved (with his wife Maria Louisa) to Spain where he completed his degree and undertook a PhD at the University of Barcelona. His PhD studied the squatter settlements around Barcelona, where immigrants from southern Spain had constructed whole townships out of scrap materials from rubbish tips; it also proposed ways in which these could evolve into self-built modern housing. At the age of 23, Echenique moved to Cambridge, UK, to join the practice of Colin St.John Wilson where he worked on the design of the (never built) Liverpool Civic Centre. He then joined Wilson on the staff of the Cambridge University School of Architecture. He remained there as a teacher and researcher - rising to be Professor, head of the department, and a Fellow of Churchill College. Alongside his distinguished academic career (which culminated in the award of a high doctorate, the ScD) he built a highly successful international consultancy in land use and transport planning. Echenique also describes, at a more personal level, the remarkable homes he created or refurbished in both England and Chile; these include Farm Hall, Godmanchester, shown above.