Architect, theorist, and educator George Baird died at his Toronto home on October 17, 2023, at the age of 84.
A member of the Order of Canada (OC), Baird was the former Dean (2004-2009) of the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto, and founded the Toronto-based architecture and urban design firm Baird Sampson Neuert Architects. Prior to becoming Dean at the Daniels Faculty, Baird was the G. Ware Travelstead Professor of Architecture at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University.
He was co-editor, with Charles Jencks, of Meaning in Architecture (1969), and, with Mark Lewis, of Queues, Rendezvous, Riots (1995). He was author of Alvar Aalto (1969), The Space of Appearance (1995), and Writings on Architecture and the City (2015). A book of essays about his work and influence, The Architect and the Public: On George Baird’s Contribution to Architecture, appeared in 2019.
Baird’s consulting firm, Baird Sampson Neuert, is the winner of numerous design awards, including two Governor General’s Awards. Baird was a Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada and received the Ontario Association of Architects’ Da Vinci Medal (2000).
To honour Baird’s life, we have gathered tributes from the architecture community in appreciation of his legacy.
Phyllis Lambert
Founder, Canadian Centre for Architecture
Of the outstanding international generation that changed architecture, initially through immersion in theory and history, George Baird holds a special place. With the radiance of his persona, George brought the discipline of mind he had honed to the critique of the city, a process of understanding which is now ever more important. I am grateful to George for his approach and analysis as I am for his continued support of my own study of the city, and for the warmth of his friendship.
Mirko Zardini
Architect, Author and Curator
It was the summer of 2019. Touring Toronto with George Baird as a personal guide—driving from the Sharon Temple, in Gwillimbury, to the University of Toronto Campus, in Scarborough, both in the outskirts, and into the city’s downtown—while talking about the problems of the city he loved and studied so deeply, and for which he did so much in every possible way, was a delightful, rare privilege. I will never forget it.
And it was very rare because, in fact, George belonged to that generation of architects born in the 1920s and 1930s—with the likes of Frampton, Gregotti, Ungers, Rossi, Eisenman, De Carlo, Colquhoun, Jencks, Grassi, and Moneo—that, by embodying multiple roles, profoundly shaped the architectural and urban discourse, from the postwar years until today. George Baird was, simultaneously and inseparably, an architect, an urban designer, a historian, a critic, a theorist and, probably above all, a teacher and mentor for many.
After working on Meaning in Architecture in 1969 with Charles Jencks, George kept looking at the city, architecture, and public space from exceptional perspectives. He was also responsible for bringing the works of Hannah Arendt, Jurgen Habermas, and Ivan Illich into architectural discourse.
George Baird dedicated his life to architecture, becoming a crucial protagonist in shaping the architectural, urban, and academic worlds in Canada, and elsewhere. The breadth of George’s legacy is yet to be fully understood. In the meantime, the best way to honor his life is by keeping his teachings and extraordinary commitment alive.
Kenneth Frampton
Emeritus Professor, Columbia University
George Baird’s death on October 17 leaves us in a state of shock and loss—not only in relation to the Daniels Faculty at the University of Toronto, of which he was for so many years its dedicated and exceptionally creative Dean, but also for Canadian and even for world architecture as a whole. This is due to his prolific output as a brilliant writer and engaged critic—not to mention his activities as an inspired teacher in both Canada and the United States. Baird also played a fundamental role in introducing landscape urbanism into the architecture school curriculum of U of T, aided, inspired, and partially led by Charles Waldheim, whom he met during his period as Visiting Professor at Harvard University. From the seminal semiotic anthology that he edited with Charles Jencks, Meaning in Architecture, George and I shared a mutual conviction as to the pertinence for architecture of Hannah Arendt’s magnum opus The Human Condition (1958). Although we were rival interpreters as to the significance of her political philosophy for architectural culture, throughout my time in academia l admired Georges’s perspicacity as a studio critic plus his innate capacity for articulate public speaking and debate! In general, George was a brilliant and prolific writer who wrote with exceptional sensitivity about the work of Alvar Aalto, as is evident from the concise but perceptive monograph he produced on the work of the Finnish master early in his career. Above all, George’s work acumen and life-long passion for architecture will be sorely missed—not only on the North American scene, but also on the global scene as a whole.
Bruce Kuwabara
Founding Partner, KPMB Architects
George Baird was a brilliant intellectual who combined teaching and practice, design and building, research and writing, and public lectures and criticism.
I’ve known George since I was 18, when I began my first year at the University of Toronto’s Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. George was my thesis advisor, and upon graduating in 1972, I worked for him for three years, along with my contemporaries John Van Nostrand, Joost Bakker, and Barry Sampson. It was an ongoing education. George was a very cool intellectual. He knew everybody. He organized the lecture series at Daniels, and everyone who lectured came to the office, including Rem Koolhaas and Oswald Mathias Ungers, all of them. You have to imagine what it’s like when you’re 23 or 24, and you’re connecting to the architects who were really significant at that time.
George was 30 years old when he edited Meaning and Architecture with Charles Jencks. He put forward the idea that architecture developed around a system of significance, with a langue [language] and parole [dialect]. The langue was about the rules of the language, and the parole was the way individual architects would use and manipulate that language. I wondered how it seemed so simple: the reason George was a genius to me, is that often the genius is able to tell you what you already intuit.
George felt The Space of Appearance was his most important book, and he was very committed to the ideas of Hannah Arendt. There’s a lot of debate over what that phrase means: the simplest reduction would be the public realm. But for George, there were all sorts of philosophical aspects to existence and the ability of individuals to act out their political lives in space.
At George’s office, we went between doing projects and major pieces of public policy on the city. His knowledge and provocations expanded and enriched our understanding of architecture at the urban level, as propositions about the city, society, growth, and change. George viewed architecture as a gesture in a social, physical, and cultural context.
Possessing astonishing curiosity, George evolved his prolific and enduring practice as a scholar, writer, teacher, practitioner, and mentor with an exceptional kindness and generosity for generations of students and practitioners. George played at the level of what was happening in the context, whether it was a review, a symposium, or just lunch. It was very fluctuating. It didn’t always stay at one level.
One of the things that I most respect about George is that he was often the smartest person in the room. His knowledge base was so wide, and his curiosity covered everything: film, fashion, cars, food, cities, art, politics, provincial, municipal issues. He was all over it.
What I will cherish most is George’s generosity and kindness. I will miss his presence, especially at the amazing dinners that he and Elizabeth hosted where great food and wine, and lively conversations brought people of different generations together in friendship. You choose your friends, and friendship is maybe one of the most important parts of your life. It’s not networks—it’s friendships, real friendships. And that’s the lesson I got from George.
Jon Neuert
Partner, Baird Sampson Neuert Architects
Like many, I first fell under George’s influence as a student in his Architectural Theory course at University of Toronto’s then-School of Architecture. This occurred during his brief reign as Acting Chair of Architecture (1983-1985) and the tumultuous years following the demise of the ‘New Program.’ At this time, George had left behind his ground-breaking work in semiotics (Meaning in Architecture), and his Theory course intensively focused on interpreting the philosophical ideas of Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition into a critical understanding of the role of public space as a generative place for speech and action, plurality and history. His course work served as the foundation for his seminal book, The Space of Appearance, and to his work as a teacher, architect and urbanist.
George’s commitment to this idealized concept of public space—Arendt’s polis—existed alongside a belief and understanding that the creation of this space exists only when actualized through the performance of deeds. While different than George’s outlook, I believe this was a critical motivator drawing George outside the academic sphere and into the “real world” of architecture.
In his capacity as architect, George led many projects which advanced the seminal ideals of urbanism as inclusive places of speech and action. Notable examples include the Edmonton City Hall competition (1981), which was collaboratively developed by a cadre of young designers who would later become leaders in Canadian architecture and beyond. This project preserved and celebrated the original City Hall, flanking it with new extensions. The result was a framed civic space where new and historical layers co-existed, and where the council chambers were prominently featured as the central architectural actor. Although disqualified for disregarding the requirement to destroy the original building, this project’s body politic has lived on in other forms, including Mississauga’s City Hall (1982), for which George served as competition advisor, and KPMB’s Kitchener City Hall (1989), where Detlef Mertins (who was also a member of the original Baird design team for the Edmonton project) served as competition advisor.
Another pivotal project was the 1994 Seaton New Town competition. George provided a central leadership role on the winning entry, which was developed with many of these same collaborators and other urbanists. The project proposed a new and integrated model of a densely populated, walkable city designed to sustain public transit and respond to the ecological and bioclimatic features of the landscape. These principles have become standard planning guidelines, even if their full implementation remains elusive.
After graduating in 1990, I was invited by George and Barry Sampson to join their studio, working to implement the Cloud Gardens Park competition (1989) which the firm had been just awarded. This project explored the historical layering and reconstruction of the city through time, realizing an inclusive placemaking strategy which advanced both a phenomenological and narrative experience. It earned the firm its first Governor General’s Award in Architecture. The Monument to Construction Workers, conceived as a framing edge to the park, was designed by Margaret Priest and executed in collaboration with Toronto’s skilled trades and apprentices. Though George never explicitly labelled it as such, this creation both celebrates and embodies Arendt’s Homo Faber, rendering labor, work, and action visible.
The products of George’s innate curiosity and worldliness have left an indelible mark on generations of students, architects and scholars. I consider it my greatest gift to count myself amongst them. One of George’s greatest regrets concerning Cloud Gardens was the City’s recent decision to turn off its four-season waterfall during the winter. Providing a soothing acoustic mask for the park’s active urban context, the waterfall is designed to be heated using waste heat and condensate from the nearby Cloud Forest Conservatory’s steam heating system, enabling year-round operation. When George and I last spoke, he was actively seeking support to build an endowment to maintain the waterfall’s year-round operation. I sincerely hope his last quest serves as a call to action to its realization, and becomes a tangible civic reminder and tribute to George’s voice in the City.
George Kapelos
Professor, Toronto Metropolitan University
George Baird and I met in 1976 in Quebec City at a meeting of the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada. I was immediately drawn to his intellect and appreciation of Canadian architecture, past and present. As the planner at the Ontario Heritage Foundation, I engaged his firm to examine urban issues and heritage conservation, particularly the vitality of Ontario’s rural communities. We quickly became friends and along with his wife, Elizabeth, we have enjoyed a lifelong friendship, travelling together to Greece and other parts of Europe as well as many Canadian provinces, working together on research projects, seeking his advice on my own life plans, and spending holiday meals together. George was my mentor, colleague, and good friend.
George was a complex person and a brilliant intellect. His 1976 study of Ontario’s Main Streets, undertaken with Barry Sampson, celebrated the significance of small-town urbanism, underscoring the hidden beauty found in little-known towns and villages. Our 1983 architecture exhibition, OKanada, at the Berlin Akademie der Künste, showcased Canada’s robust contribution to global modernity. At home, together with his food-savvy and gracious wife Elizabeth, he welcomed all—family, friends, students, colleagues, and newcomers to Toronto—to share an evening of conversation, critical debate, political analysis, gossip, and jocular storytelling around a table where good food complemented the lively spirit of the moment. Death has silenced his voice, but through his teachings, writings, and architectural works, his legacy endures. A good life, well and vigorously lived. May his memory be a blessing.
Brigitte Shim
Co-founder, Shim-Sutcliffe Architects
For five decades, George Baird has been at the centre of activity for architectural culture in Canada, and its spokesperson internationally in countless publications, exhibits and symposia. Baird’s power as a mentor is also a monument to his career: he inspired generations of students and architects now practising and teaching throughout North America.
I became aware of George through his writing long before I ever met him in person. In 1978, George Baird and Barton Myers joined forces to co-edit issue 108 of Design Quarterly, which they titled Vacant Lottery and curated to ask tough questions about the future of the North American metropolis. In those pages, George generously shared the research and design work of his University of Toronto architecture students, who were examining the North Jarvis neighbourhood of Toronto under his direction. As an educator, George was engaged in the exploration of innovative ideas straddling the scales of architecture and urbanism. These innovative design experiments projected an optimistic future for the metropolis.
It was a revelation for me to see student research and student design work published and engaged in a conversation about the future of urbanism. George Baird demonstrated that the research and design investigations that take place in architecture schools are not just isolated academic exercises—but that each design studio has the capacity to be the generator of intellectual capital and creative equity shaping the future of global cities.
In the early 1980s, George brought critical voices from around the world to participate in the lecture series at the Daniels Faculty. As a student, I remember squeezing into a packed lecture hall to listen to debates and discussions about architecture curated by George. He became famous for his complex compound sentences—which seemed to run on endlessly—when introducing the who’s who of architecture. Distinguished international speakers have been known to ask George for a copy of his introductory notes, while others have asked him to contribute to their own monographs because his remarks were so insightful, revealing, and poignant.
After I graduated from architecture school, my first job was in the office of Baird/Sampson Architects. My time as an intern architect was split between working on projects in the design studio and working as a research assistant for George’s book The Space of Appearance. In the office, both George and Barry Sampson taught me that the first act of city building was to conserve buildings, rather than demolish them. I learned to value small-scale architecture and its contribution to an incremental approach to urbanism. George made me aware of the work of Alvar Aalto, Hannes Meyer, Wells Coate and others, shaping my understanding of—and respect for—the “other” Modern Movement.
In the Baird/Sampson studio, we often worked on small house renovations requiring surgical additions and insertions. The designs, however modest, emerged out of intense conversations about the inter-relationship between modernism and the vernacular. As a teaching assistant for George’s History and Theory of Architecture course, I saw him lead a series of seminars on the philosophical evolution of certain modern ideas, and witnessed the lively intergenerational debates that ensured. George introduced me to the interwoven relationship between politics and architecture through the writings of Hannah Arendt, Jurgen Habermas, and Ivan Illich. At the same time as they were practicing architects, both George and Barry were engaged educators setting a new pedagogical agenda at the Daniels School, and much of the animated discussion about course content took place in the Baird/Sampson offices on Britain Street.
Toronto is the city that George chose to live in and work on for decades. George Baird’s gift to Toronto is that he has made us startlingly aware of the rich urban form in our own city. His intimate and passionate understanding of Toronto’s urban fabric, and his dissemination of that knowledge through his teaching and writing, has had a profound effect on the shape and urban form of Toronto today. Generations of students have absorbed George’s inherent understanding of the social, the collective and the communal dimensions of architecture, landscape architecture and urban design—and are using the lessons he taught them to rethink and redefine the future of architecture and urbanism.