Letter: Designed for success

Sir: Peter Dormer's excellent article on Bateman bridge designs (Architecture, 23 March) is factually incorrect in one amusing respect.

Speaking of Sir Anthony Caro, he says: 'Caro . . . was not, like Bateman, an engineer manque.' This is untrue. In 1945, the then Tony Caro and I were on a Naval Air Engineers course at the Loughborough College of Technology. As I remember it, he failed the course, but I hasten to add that I'm sure he learnt a lot from the skeletal welding-rod designs we built in our spare moments.

The moral seems to be that if you are destined to be a famous sculptor, you must discover you are an engineer manque early enough.

Yours faithfully,

L. C. LAMING

Mechanical Engineering

Department

Imperial College

London, SW7