Politicking for Postwar Modernism: The Architectural Research Group of Ottawa and Montreal

Author:

Valen Dustin

Abstract

The diffusion of modernist principles in Canadian building and planning occurred through many channels, but among these the Architectural Research Group of Ottawa and Montreal played a crucial role. Formed in 1938 to conduct research into postwar reconstruction, the group produced articles, radio addresses, and exhibitions in an effort to nurture modernist sentiment across the country. For these young architects, the federal government’s commitment to replanning and rebuilding postwar Canadian cities presented them with an opportunity to intervene in the future of Canadian practice. They decried the “backwardness” of conservative practitioners while promoting the ideas of a European avant-garde and orchestrating numerous transatlantic exchanges. This article discusses the group’s role in politicking for architectural and urban modernism, as well as the contributions of some of its key members. It shows that Canadian professionals were not simply passive receptors of international modernism but played an active part in shaping these ideas during the immediate postwar period, and that Canada’s federal government played a unique role in accelerating this process by allowing modernist architects and planners to operate within and through a number of government-sponsored agencies.

Publisher

University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress)

Subject

Urban Studies,History

Reference168 articles.

1. Leon Whiteson, Modern Canadian Architecture (Edmonton: Hurtig Publishers, 1983); Rhodri Windsor Liscombe, “Modes of Modernizing: The Acquisition of Modernist Design in Canada,” Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada Bulletin 19, no. 3 (1994), 60–74; Harold Kalman, A History of Canadian Architecture (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1994), 2:779–97; Marie-Josée Therrien and France Vanlaethem, “Modern Architecture in Canada 1940–1967,” Back from Utopia: The Challenge of the Modern Movement, ed. Hubert-Jan Henket and Hilde Heynen, 126–37 (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2002); Bureau of Architecture and Urbanism, Toronto Modern Architecture, 1945–1965, 2nd ed. (Toronto: Coach House Books, 2002); Serena Keshavjee, ed. Winnipeg Modern: Architecture, 1945–1975 (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2006); George T. Kapelos, Competing Modernisms: Toronto’s New City Hall (Halifax: Dalhousie Architectural Press, 2015), 14–16.

2. John Sewell, The Shape of the City: Toronto Struggles with Modern Planning (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993); Robert M. Stamp, Suburban Modern: Postwar Dreams in Calgary (Calgary: TouchWood Editions, 2004); André Lortie, ed. The 60s: Montréal Thinks Big (Montreal: Canadian Centre for Architecture, 2004); Stephen Bocking, “Constructing Urban Expertise: Professional and Political Authority in Toronto, 1940–1970,” Journal of Urban History 33, no. 1 (2006), 51–76; Gerald Hodge and David Gordon, Planning Canadian Communities, 5th ed. (Toronto: Nelson Thomson Learning, 2008); Richard White, Planning Toronto: The Planners, the Plans, Their Legacies, 1940–80 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2016).

3. Two notable exceptions are Rhodri Liscombe’s and Christopher Armstrong’s examination of modern architecture and planning in Vancouver and Toronto, respectively, which include thorough discussions about the influences and debates circulating among students and professionals, and in architectural periodicals during the 1930s and 1940s. Rhodri W. Liscombe, The New Spirit: Modern Architecture in Vancouver, 1938–1963 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997); Christopher Armstrong, Making Toronto Modern: Architecture and Design, 1895–1975 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014); see also Rhodri W. Liscombe and Michelangelo Sabatino, Canada: Modern Architectures in History (London: Reaktion Books, 2016).

4. José Luis Sert, Can Our Cities Survive? An ABC of Urban Problems, Their Analysis, Their Solutions (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1942); Le Corbusier, La Charte d’Athènes (Paris: La Librairie Plon, 1943); John R. Gold, “Creating the Charter of Athens: CIAM and the Functional City, 1933–43,” Town Planning Review 69, no. 3 (1998): 225–47.

5. John R. Gold, The Experience of Modernism: Modern Architects and the Future City, 1928-1953 (London: E&FN Spon, 1997)

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