Bo Mahaddie was born in Driffield, East Yorkshire, in 1939 and until 2001 was known as Andrew. He advocated for the work of urban designers and was passionate about viewing planning, architecture and design in a holistic way. His artwork conveys complex ideas in a visual way, encompassing these disciplines and portraying their methods for the expert and the uninitiated alike.
Mahaddie graduated from the Architectural Association School of Architecture, London, in 1963. His thesis project had been a hotel on the cliffs of Bournemouth. He then studied Urban Design at Washington University, St Louis, and worked in Los Angeles and Washington, DC before returning to the UK. Early work included urban design work for Pasadena, Altadena and Baltimore.
In 1967 the largest and most ambitious of the UK's post-war new towns was designated – Milton Keynes. Almost 23,000 acres of north Buckinghamshire were earmarked to build a city to house 250,000 people by the year 2000. It contained four existing towns and multiple small villages, the rest was mostly farmland.
Milton Keynes Development Corporation was the organisation tasked with planning, designing and implementing the new city. Having worked on Peterborough new town, Mahaddie was headhunted to join a swathe of young architects and designers being recruited for the ambitious and forward-thinking new development.
Willen Lake Promontory and Bowl
1972
Andrew Mahaddie (1939–2014) 
Joining the Corporation in 1970, Mahaddie's body of work during his time there has a unique, deceptively simple, form that catches the eye. Whether bringing to life a prosaic contour map or conveying the use of a park in a concept drawing, the complex ideas feel accessible and understandable in his hands.
In the early days of his period at the Corporation, Mahaddie was based in the farmhouse of Stacey Hill Farm, near the Victorian railway town of Wolverton, where he produced his most well-known pieces. They depict a future Milton Keynes of leisurely residents enjoying recreational activities in the new city's parkland.
Ouse Walk at Cosgrove Aqueduct
c.1975
Andrew Mahaddie (1939–2014) 
Ouse Walk at Cosgrove Aqueduct includes people fishing on the bank, punters on the river and walkers along the historic aqueduct. Canal Walk shows a kayaker and his dog, a woman and children strolling along the towpath, and a couple on a bench enjoying the view.
In Willen Bowl, a group of children enjoy sledging down a snowy hill with a lake in the background.
The Development Corporation had to sell their vision of the new city to an existing population of around 40,000 people and a potential incoming population of over 200,000 new residents. It was an important task for the Corporation to convey their plans and required artistic skill, planning vision, and attention to detail. Mahaddie made vital contributions to this objective, alongside many other architectural artists such as Helmut Jacoby and John Seed, but this wasn't his only role.
City Centre Park, Central Belvedere
1975
Andrew Mahaddie (1939–2014) 
Mahaddie didn't just create scenes of idyllic 'city in the country' living, he also designed or brought to life statement plans for the new city, including a theme park in an old brick pit, an ambitious city centre leisure facility and a futuristic recreational area for the city's main park.
City Centre Park, Water Carpet, First Sketch (unfinished)
1974
Andrew Mahaddie (1939–2014) 
His designs for the city park included a round pond with an overlooking belvedere and animal-themed benches, a pathway leading off from this pond area taking the visitor to a cone to climb.
Leading from the cone would be a glass bridge, which could be walked over, under and through, with the glass allowing for scenic views to be maintained. The bridge would lead to a water carpet, which visitors could walk over whilst it produced 'Frankenstein fog'. Once over the water carpet there would be a children's castle play area, which would lead to an underground anechoic chamber.
Most of these ambitious and fantastical designs never came to fruition, but they exist in drawing form as a testament to the explorative and curious nature of the Development Corporation and the people who worked there. No idea was too 'out there' to test out in a plan and it was usually Mahaddie who had the imagination and skills to bring it to life in an understandable way.
Willen, South Lake and Promontory, Second Scheme
1974
Andrew Mahaddie (1939–2014) 
Most remarkable about his work at this time was the materials and method of his original artwork – dry transfer. The outline is drawn and then coloured sections are painstakingly cut out of Letraset dry transfer colour blocks to be rubbed onto the presentation boards that would be exhibited to colleagues, the management committee and Board of the Corporation. A common method for architects due to its inexpensiveness, but laborious nonetheless.
Woughton Boat Pool from City Footpath
1972
Andrew Mahaddie (1939–2014) 
Typical of most of his architectural and urban design art is the inclusion of people. Depending on the purpose of the piece, it was not usually just featureless theoretical figures, added as an afterthought to indicate where the people would go. His concept pieces have very characterful figures – you can imagine their lives as they go about their activities, whether it's kayaking, sledging, playing ball or walking the dog.
Mahaddie was not designing in a vacuum, he was epitomising the Corporation's early philosophy of designing for people. How would they use the city? Where would they walk, what would their views be as they did so? How would they play? What would they experience of their surroundings as they sat on a bench?
City Centre Park, Round Pond Area – Seating Bay (Frog Bay)
1975
Andrew Mahaddie (1939–2014) 
Mahaddie and his wife Clare (who also worked for Milton Keynes Development Corporation) stayed in Milton Keynes and raised their family, as did many others who had contributed to its creation. They moved away after reluctant retirement, and after Mahaddie passed away in 2014 Clare donated his body of work to the Milton Keynes City Discovery Centre where they set about cataloguing the collection, digitising the large format Milton Keynes material and sharing it with the wider world.
Catherine McIntyre, Archivist, Milton Keynes City Discovery Centre
Prints of some of Mahaddie's bold and playful art can be purchased on the Art UK shop
