My husband, Theo Matoff, who has died aged 92, was a lecturer in architecture who rose to become head of the schools of architecture at two polytechnics – in Plymouth and then Leicester.
Theo was born in Vancouver, Canada, to Miriam (nee Lando) and her husband, Conrad, and went to Magee high school in the city. His parents jointly owned a fur company, but when he was 19 they moved to Los Angeles to run a department store and he went with them.
Having become an American citizen, in 1954 he was conscripted into the US army for two years, and managed to get himself sent to Paris, where he attended the ateliers of André Lhote and Ossip Zadkine and drew in his spare time at Académie de la Grande Chaumière (an art school). It was in Paris that he also met Ute Happ, a German woman, whom he married in 1957.
When Theo was released from the army they moved to Florence in Italy, where he studied for four years at the university and obtained a doctorate in architecture. In 1960 he and Ute moved to California, where he worked for architectural firms in San Francisco, including Richard Neutra, Gruen Associates and Frank Lloyd Wright.
In 1963 he began teaching at the University of Manitoba in Canada, and also built two houses there for clients, while taking up invitations to become a visiting lecturer in Germany and Israel.
He came to England in 1970 to be a senior lecturer at Leeds Polytechnic School of Architecture, then head of the School of Architecture at Plymouth Polytechnic (now the University of Plymouth, 1976-81) and at Leicester Polytechnic (now De Montfort University) until his retirement in 1988.
His first marriage having ended in divorce, I met Theo in the mid-80s when I was conference and marketing manager at the Royal Institute of British Architects and found it impossible to avoid his large and provocative presence when he visited the Riba premises. A reference he used when applying for job openings read: “He is far from being a peaceful man, and his presence in any gathering cannot be ignored. He will not use one word if 10 can do equally well, but there can be no question about his deep concern for education and architecture.”
In Leicester Theo built a house in a conservation area, not without opposition from some conservative planning officers. The objections were overcome when the chairman declared that “in 50 years they’ll all be wanting houses like Matoff’s”.
We married in 1989 and in retirement moved to Bushey Heath in Hertfordshire, where Theo built a studio in which to paint. His works were shown in London, Tunbridge Wells, Plymouth, Glasgow, St Ives and Wiesbaden in Germany, and were bought for private collections around the world.
He is survived by me, his three daughters, Lisa, Matina and Noel, from his first marriage, grandsons Ben and Jakob, three great-grandchildren and his siblings, Daniela and Richard.
