This Friday I was informed that a member of my research group at Imperial and a friend, Professor Patrick Purcell passed away. I last saw him this past December while visiting London and, despite our efforts, we did not manage to meet, but for a few minutes in some corridor at the university. Our meeting was to be postponed for early this year, when I’d be back in London. Alas, it was not meant to be.
Patrick was one of those people that you rarely find in academia today. A true gentleman, an academic from a different era, that did not equate intellectual creation with grants, money, piles of publications. A researcher without the rigid training and sterile approach favoured by large umbrella project grants and the commercialisation of research. He was an artist trapped in an engineering faculty and a very helpful friend to many of us graduate students. He had academic experience in both Europe and the U.S. (he was a member of the Architecture Machine Group at MIT and later a founding member of the Media Lab, then its incarnation in Europe, and two other research laboratories) and as such possessed a very spherical view of what academia is throughout the (western) world. We had long and varied discussions over the years about academic values and principles, intellectual creation, art, technology, society and philosophy. Despite his old age (he once jokingly told me that he had retired about seven times) he kept on coming into university regularly, working long hours editing books and journals. Academia was — very evidently — his life. This year he was planning to finally (really) retire.
When I met Patrick, about four years ago, I remember informing him about the death of Roger Needham, for whom I had written in my blog. I had met Roger Needham some months earlier at a seminar at Cambridge and Patrick had told me how they had met each other as members of a number of steering groups and committees. Patrick then commented: “It is so saddening that when you get old you get to see all your friends and acquaintances of your generation pass away; suddenly you feel so alone.”
Four years later I find myself writing a similar post about Patrick and feeling so alone, indeed. Goodbye Professor. You’ll be missed.
Update: Sunny Bains has prepared a blog where people can share their memories and stories about Patrick, here.
Update 2: The Obituary at the Times
