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The ‘epic formation’ at Milk Hill, Wiltshire, in 2001, at the large-scale end of the crop circles that Michael Glickman analysed.
The ‘epic formation’ at Milk Hill, Wiltshire, in 2001, at the large-scale end of the crop circles that Michael Glickman analysed. Photograph: Steve Alexander
The ‘epic formation’ at Milk Hill, Wiltshire, in 2001, at the large-scale end of the crop circles that Michael Glickman analysed. Photograph: Steve Alexander

Michael Glickman obituary

This article is more than 3 years old
Architect who researched and wrote about the mathematical sophistication of crop circles

For the last three decades of his life, Michael Glickman, who has died aged 78, was fascinated by crop circles, the patterns that appear unobserved and apparently spontaneously in farmers’ fields.

His previous experience as an architect, industrial designer and inventor equipped him to appreciate their intricate craft, and to enjoy them as art. He systematically analysed them, drew them with great precision, and wrote about them, most notably in Crop Circles: The Bones of God (2009), with a blend of seriousness and dry wit.

He had an exceptional ability to discern harmonious proportions and numbers woven into the design of these beautiful geometric patterns, which usually appear overnight, and are always perfectly finished in their design. The vast majority have occurred in the south of England, particularly in Wiltshire, although appearances elsewhere in the UK and in other countries are not unknown.

Michael Glickman liked to suggest that, whoever the circlemakers may be, ‘they offer the formations as toys on the nursery floor – just to see what we’ll make of them’. Photograph: Rob Luckins

The English formations often appear adjacent to ancient sites, such as Stonehenge, Avebury and other stone circles, barrows and earthworks. Swirled into the crop, without cutting or otherwise damaging it, they can happen at any time between April and the August harvest, mostly in wheat and barley. They have varied in diameter between 10ft and 900ft, as with the epic formation at Milk Hill in Wiltshire in 2001.

Having become close friends in the north of England, Michael and I shared a student flat in London, a sense of humour and a spirit of inquiry: for him, how things look, work and embody meaning; for me, how people live their lives, and how that can be conveyed on stage and screen. Both paths can lead to controversy: in the case of the circles, are they man-made? Do they result from natural processes? If they are devised intentionally, is that in order to convey any meaning? The open-mindedness and mathematical thoroughness with which Michael researched these questions was deeply impressive.

Clearly some formations are indeed the work of humans, but scrutiny of others poses a torrent of questions. How do these creations, often of great complexity, come into being so rapidly? How are they achieved in what are often inaccessible places?

Many people, including me, have experienced tangible changes of energy on entering one. Your mobile may cease to function, and your watch, and your compass; yet the moment you step outside, they instantly return to normal.

The crop circle at Barbury Castle, Wiltshire, on 1 June 2008. Photograph: temporarytemples/Steve Alexander
A diagram created by Michael Glickman in response to the Barbury Castle crop circle, to show that the segmentation of the circle was related to Pi, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, 3.141592654...

In Crop Circles: The Bones of God, Michael rejected as dogmatic scientism all insistence on rational explanation in line with the consensus view of the world. He pointed to how crop circles seem to represent an affront to it, and liked to suggest that, whoever the circlemakers may be, they offer the formations as toys on the nursery floor – just to see what we’ll make of them.

Born in Manchester, to Charles, an electrical goods retailer, and Florence (nee Werner), Michael developed chronic bronchitis aged seven, which necessitated a family move to Lytham St Annes, where he attended King Edward VII school. Then came the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, a hotbed of 1960s radical thinking about design and the environment, where Michael was in his element as a student social organiser.

After graduating in 1965 and assisting several distinguished architects, in 1968 he established his own practice, designing Ronnie Scott’s jazz club in Soho and Island Records studio in Notting Hill. A growing interest in product and furniture design took Michael to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to work for Urban Systems (1971-72), followed by teaching at Boston Architecture College, Rhode Island School of Design and the University of Southern California, where he was assistant professor of architecture. He then spent a year with the furniture designers Charles and Ray Eames as their exhibition designer.

Returning to the UK, he joined the Milton Keynes Development Corporation as head of the city structure group (1974-77), designing street furniture, lighting, bridges and playgrounds. Next came concrete paving. Michael invented several highly successful interlocking systems. The most ingenious of these was the G-Block, which locked into place both horizontally and vertically.

Michael Glickman’s Crop Circle Classics poster

He was now writing regular columns in the architectural press and teaching at the Architectural Association, the Bartlett School of Architecture, and at the Royal College of Art. He returned to the US to teach 3D design in Los Angeles, but by this time he had experienced the epiphany that would change his life.

In 1990, intrigued by a photograph in the Guardian of a crop circle, he and his teenage son drove down to Wiltshire to have a look. Still based in LA, he combined frequent visits to Wiltshire with lecturing on crop circles in California and Arizona, writing about them copiously, and publishing his first book, Corn Circles, in 1996.

But by 1999 he had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. He returned to the UK to be near his sons, and to live in the Vale of Pewsey. Settling near Devizes, he produced annual crop circle calendars, an illuminating series of videos, and several more books, of which The Bones of God is widely regarded as the definitive work on the formations. He lectured in the UK and abroad, and was the regular keynote speaker at the annual Glastonbury Crop Circle Symposium.

His Wiltshire cottage became a focal point for “croppies” from around the world, his “teatimes” a must for visiting groups. Irrepressibly sociable, he maintained telephone communication with his wide range of friends, family and colleagues. A call from Michael might last only a minute while he told you a joke (always funny), or you might be treated to an hour of in-depth discussion. I visited him frequently, our reflections on life and art in general, and Hollywood movies in particular, stretching late into the night.

In 1971 he married Patricia McCauley; they divorced in 1991. He is survived by his partner, Holly (Carol) Wood, his sons, Louis, Ben and Max, from his marriage, his grandchildren, Cassius, Tulah, Odette, Maceo and Otis, and his sister, Frances.

Michael Neil Glickman, cereologist and architect, born 16 May 1941; died 1 May 2020

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