Rodney Thomas was a modest man, but he did not think modestly. His experience was wide and he drew inspiration from painting and from the natural world. His last great project was for a sky city, the ideas for which he developed from the 1950s onwards. His plan was to build upwards organically on the spiral, basing his designs on the way lupin blossoms are arranged around the flower's stem. The idea was to take the earth up with you into the sky, in the shape of gardens and piazzas, and to dwell in perpetual sunlight. It was a dream, but a good dream, and sustained him through years of little architectural work, a lot of teaching, and consistent drawing and painting.

He continued to paint even when his sight was almost gone, devising new ways of drawing by touch and of differentiating colours. He lived a full life, and if many of his projects were unrealised, he was undaunted, retaining till the end, in the title words of his autobiography, 'A Sense of Wonder'. He died in 1996.

David Poole encountered Rodney Thomas when they were both teaching at Wimbledon School of Art. He says: 'It was a privilege to have been included among his friends'.

[Parts of the above text have been extracted from Andrew Lambirth’s obituary in The Independent, May 1996].