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What I owe to Charles Abrams
40
Charles Abrams-Biographical
Noler
This section is drawn together by a personal tribute and by an affectionate account of what-might-have-been:
What I Owe to Charles Abrams JOHN F. C. TURNER I first met Abrams in 1964 when Donald Appleyard invited me to give a talk on squatter settlements in Peru at MIT, where Charlie was a visiting professor. Although I never asked him why he was so anxious to help me in my struggle to understand what I had seen and experienced in Peru, I now realise that it was not just the obvious coincidence of interest and concern. I am now sure that it was also because we shared an almost iconoclastic scepticism toward current ideologies and toward their remarkably similar manifestations in official housing projects and programmes. He had far more experience and an immense fund of observation which I could never emulate; all I can do is to go on trying to articulate the language of materially and humanly genuine development that he contributed so much to himself (as those know who have read the reports that he and Otto Koenigsberger prepared or who have read The Language of Cities which he wrote with Robert Kolodny). I feel sure Charlie would have continued giving his time to help and encourage me, even though this task leads me into more theoretical and politically explicit directions than ones that he would have taken himself. Although I will forever regret the shortness of the time I knew Charlie Abrams I am doubly fortunate: in having the same kind of wisdom, deep and broad knowledge to draw on from his long-time collaborator and our mutual friend, Otto Koenigsberger; and in having Robert Kolodny, who was a student of Charles Abrams when I first knew him, as a friend and most helpful correspondent. By accepting my essay, which summarises a stage in my own thinking, as a contribution to this celebration of Charles Abrams’ life and work, Otto renews his encouragement.
Abrams in 1984 ERIC CARLSON
It was a hot day in September 1984, during the First International Decade of Man’s Struggle for Survival (FINMANSS), and its Opening Festival, that I saw my old mentor Charles Abrams, in my mind’s eye, holding spellbound the mixed crowd in the St. Helena Cafe of Castreas Harbour. As usual, Charlie’s timing had been superb. Called in from his vacation on a nearby island to develop a housing programme for the Caribbean by the FIDMANSS Secretariat, he was using the occasion to mobilise new perceptions, testing his options,
Charles Abrams-Biographical
Noler
This section is drawn together by a personal tribute and by an affectionate account of what-might-have-been:
What I Owe to Charles Abrams JOHN F. C. TURNER I first met Abrams in 1964 when Donald Appleyard invited me to give a talk on squatter settlements in Peru at MIT, where Charlie was a visiting professor. Although I never asked him why he was so anxious to help me in my struggle to understand what I had seen and experienced in Peru, I now realise that it was not just the obvious coincidence of interest and concern. I am now sure that it was also because we shared an almost iconoclastic scepticism toward current ideologies and toward their remarkably similar manifestations in official housing projects and programmes. He had far more experience and an immense fund of observation which I could never emulate; all I can do is to go on trying to articulate the language of materially and humanly genuine development that he contributed so much to himself (as those know who have read the reports that he and Otto Koenigsberger prepared or who have read The Language of Cities which he wrote with Robert Kolodny). I feel sure Charlie would have continued giving his time to help and encourage me, even though this task leads me into more theoretical and politically explicit directions than ones that he would have taken himself. Although I will forever regret the shortness of the time I knew Charlie Abrams I am doubly fortunate: in having the same kind of wisdom, deep and broad knowledge to draw on from his long-time collaborator and our mutual friend, Otto Koenigsberger; and in having Robert Kolodny, who was a student of Charles Abrams when I first knew him, as a friend and most helpful correspondent. By accepting my essay, which summarises a stage in my own thinking, as a contribution to this celebration of Charles Abrams’ life and work, Otto renews his encouragement.
Abrams in 1984 ERIC CARLSON
It was a hot day in September 1984, during the First International Decade of Man’s Struggle for Survival (FINMANSS), and its Opening Festival, that I saw my old mentor Charles Abrams, in my mind’s eye, holding spellbound the mixed crowd in the St. Helena Cafe of Castreas Harbour. As usual, Charlie’s timing had been superb. Called in from his vacation on a nearby island to develop a housing programme for the Caribbean by the FIDMANSS Secretariat, he was using the occasion to mobilise new perceptions, testing his options,