Co-published by Canadian Architect and Princeton Architectural Press, the book Canadian Modern Architecture, 1967 to the present, will be released on October 28, 2019. The book launches with a plenary discussion at the RAIC Festival of Architecture, with subsequent events in cities across Canada.
The book is co-edited by Elsa Lam, editor of Canadian Architect magazine, and Graham Livesey, professor at the University of Calgary. It is the first comprehensive review of Canadian architecture in many years, and includes fifteen original essays and five hundred photographs and drawings.
Beginning with the nation’s centennial and Expo 67 in Montreal, the fifty-year retrospective covers the defining of national institutions and movements, how Canadian architects interpreted major external trends, regional and Indigenous architectural tendencies, and the influence of architects in Canada’s three largest cities—Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.
The essay authors are among the leading architectural scholars and critics in the country. They include George Baird, Brian Carter, Ian Chodikoff, Odile Hénault, George Kapelos, Lisa Landrum, Steven Mannell, Sherry McKay, Marco Polo, Lola Sheppard, David Theodore, Larry Wayne Richards, Adele Weder and Mason White.
“This fascinating and much-needed compendium will certainly be welcome universally, and particularly in Canada, where it will raise the consciousness of a country that has respected, but not celebrated, the wide origins of its populations and its culturally as well as physically different regions,” writes Phyllis Lambert, Founding Director Emeritus of the Canadian Centre for Architecture.
“This anthology […] amounts to a major achievement of collective scholarship,” writes Kenneth Frampton in a foreword to the book. “By any standards, this is an encyclopedic tour de force documenting fifty years of Canadian architectural production across the expanse of what is still a sparsely populated continent.”
He adds, “The work featured in these pages is surely what it takes, over time, to arrive at a national culture of architecture worthy of the name.”
A series of panel discussions and lectures in cities across Canada is being organized in conjunction with the launch of the book. Current event dates include:
10/28_RAIC Festival of Architecture
Odile Hénault, Elsa Lam, Graham Livesey, Steven Mannell, Lola Sheppard
11/13_Daniels School of Architecture, Landscape, and Design
George Baird and Larry Wayne Richards
11/14_University of Waterloo School of Architecture
Elsa Lam, Martin Liefhebber, Carol Philips, Lola Sheppard
11/21_Halifax Central Library
Peter Busby, Susan Fitzgerald, Elsa Lam, Steven Mannell
11/25_University of Lethbridge
Graham Livesey
11/27_Vancouver Central Library
James KM Cheng, Sherry McKay, John Patkau, Adele Weder
01/15/20_University of Calgary School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape
Jessie Andjelic, Dustin Couzens, Matt Knapik, Graham Livesey
01/16/20_Laurentian School of Architecture
Shannon Bassett, Aliki Economides, Terry Galvin, Elsa Lam
02/03/20_University of Manitoba Faculty of Architecture
Graham Livesey
02/03/20_McNally Robinson, Winnipeg
Brent Bellamy, Ryan Gorrie, Lisa Landrum, Graham Livesey, Lindsay Osler
02/15/20_Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal
Jean-Pierre Chupin, Elsa Lam, David Theodore
02/20/20_Toronto Reference Library
03/05/20_Ryerson University Department of Architectural Science
George Kapelos, Elsa Lam, Marco Polo, Colin Ripley
03/19/20_Toronto Reference Library
03/05/20_Stanley A. Milner Library, Edmonton
Cynthia Dovell, Jan Kroman, Graham Livesey, Vedran Skopac
04/16/20_Toronto Reference Library
05/21/20_Toronto Reference Library
The book is available at booksellers across North America, as well as from online retailers McNally Robinson, Indigo and Amazon. For bulk sales of 10 copies or more, contact Raincoast Books.