On The Outside Looking In
by Alan Lipman
Architecture Africa Publications R175
Readers will be familiar with Alan Lipman after more than a decade of his writing on architecture for The Sunday Independent.
This, however, is the story of a life spent in collision 'with apartheid and other authorities'... indeed Lipman shows a fine impartiality in this respect, with passion the common thread.
Childhood in Johannesburg; aircrew training for World War II (too late to take part); the Israeli Air Force and then as what he admits would today be called a terrorist; architectural studies back in SA; membership (soon dissident) of the SA Communist Party; political exile in Britain and the usual worthy causes - CND, etc - all so far, so boring, were it not for the awareness the writer shows of his own nature as 'a dissenter, an intellectual and social loner'. Stimulating. - James Mitchell