As director of architecture and planning for the City of Westminster (1974-78), my father, Joe Hirsh, who has died aged 96, oversaw the redevelopment of Covent Garden when the fruit and vegetable market moved out, the piazza at Westminster Cathedral, and the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Westminster walks indicated by the little silver studs still in the pavements today.
Joe was born in Whitechapel, east London, one of the four children of Anna (nee Shoub) and Luis Hirsh. His father was a cabinetmaker in Shoreditch. His grandparents were Russian Jews who had emigrated to London to escape the pogroms of the early 20th century. Joe gained a junior county scholarship to the Central Foundation school and then went on to study architecture at the Northern Polytechnic (now London Metropolitan University).
He was awarded the Royal Institute of British Architects travel scholarship to Rome in Easter 1939. There, observing a rally of workers greeting Benito Mussolini, he was surprised to see the German propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels standing alongside. When he went home he said to his mother: “There’s going to be war.” She replied: “You’re always such a pessimist, Joey.”
Joe passed the RIBA exams during the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940, and then joined the 18th Divisional Signals landing in Singapore four days before the allies surrendered to the Japanese Imperial Army. He was a prisoner of war for the next three and half years, during which time he lost his hearing, having suffered damaging ear infections before the war. He had to wear a wooden board around his neck that read “deaf” in Japanese, so that he would not be executed for failing to obey shouted orders.
His scale plan and elevation drawings of the PoW camp, drawn in his signalling message book, hidden from the guards in the sand under his sleeping mat, are now at the Imperial War Museum. He was made to design look-out towers for the Japanese guards, on the understanding that if the towers fell down he would be beheaded. Later, he said that after being a PoW, nothing was ever that bad again.
Returning to Britain in 1945, Joe worked for the town planning division of the London county council at County Hall. In 1965 he set up the new planning department for the City of Westminster. He was appointed CBE in 1978.
In 1998 he supported the state visit of Emperor Akihito of Japan, when many other ex-PoWs protested. He argued that it was important to forgive the past and work together for a better future.
Joe took a positive approach to disability, and never let his deafness stop him enjoying his career or home life. In his 70s, he became blind from macular degeneration, a real blow for someone who relied on his vision for his drawing and painting, but he used technology to help him continue to lead a normal life.
He is survived by his wife, Myrtle (nee Mann), whom he married in 1946, their children, Michael, Wendy and me, and by six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
