Coming this Fall: Canadian Modern Architecture, 1967 to the Present

The book is co-edited by Dr. Graham Livesey, professor at the University of Calgary, and Elsa Lam, editor of Canadian Architect magazine. 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:

• October 28, 2019 – RAIC Festival of Architecture, Toronto
• November 6, 2019 – Daniels School of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at University of Toronto
• November 14, 2019 – School of Architecture, University of Waterloo
• November 21, 2019 – Halifax Central Library
• November 25, 2019 – University of Lethbridge
• November 27, 2019 – Vancouver Central Library
• January 15, 2020 – City Building Design Lab, University of Calgary
• February 3, 2020 – Faculty of Architecture, University of Manitoba
• February 3, 2020 – McNally Robinson Books, Winnipeg
• March 5, 2020 – Department of Architectural Science, Ryerson University

The book will be available at booksellers on October 28, 2019. It is available for pre-order at local booksellers, or online. For bulk sales of 10 copies or more, contact distributor Raincoast Books.

Originally published in the Canadian Architect on September 5, 2019.