In Memoriam

In May 1996, when I travelled to London for the first official meeting following the admission of the then Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to OISTAT, I could not have imagined how much one seemingly chance encounter would shape everything we would be engaged in over the following three decades.

The meeting of the Architecture Commission, in which I participated, was considered an event of great importance and concluded with a formal dinner at the renowned Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). There, I was seated at a table opposite a woman I did not know at the time, but who clearly enjoyed an exceptional reputation. She was outspoken, eloquent and charismatic. She spoke about the master’s program she directed, which she had named “Scenography”–a word that had practically not existed in the English language until then. The few people sitting at the same table as her at the gala dinner were invited to visit her school. Her name was Pamela Howard.

The following day, we visited Saint Martin’s. There, I stepped into a world I had previously only dreamed of and realized that it was, in fact, both possible and real. The way people communicated, the profound dedication to their studies, creative freedom, enthusiasm and openness towards everyone and everything, talent combined with painstaking, all-day work, and the use of every conceivable technique and medium were fascinating. All of this rested upon the immense knowledge, authority and energy of a single human being determined to fundamentally transform the environment in which she lived and worked. What Pamela Howard achieved was clear and undisputed proof that it is possible to accomplish everything we deeply believe in, provided we are sufficiently determined, persistent and courageous. Much later, when we had already been collaborating for years, she told me that she had never accepted “no” for an answer. We adopted that attitude ourselves.

Naturally, we did everything we could to bring her to our school and into our community. She became our visiting professor, and her seminal book What Is Scenography? was published simultaneously in London and Belgrade in 2002. One of the greatest moments of professional satisfaction for us came at the 2006 meeting of the OISTAT Education Commission, when she was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award. On that occasion, we heard her say that, looking back on everything she had accomplished in her life, what made her proudest was precisely her collaboration with our school of scene design.

Like most remarkable individuals, she was demanding, at times uncompromising, even ruthless, both towards herself and others. Working with her was not easy, and that was precisely what made it so valuable.

Radivoje Dinulović