College of Architecture Professor Michelangelo Sabatino and Rhodri Windsor Liscombe will discuss their new book, Canada (Modern Architectures in History) on Thursday, January 26 from 5:45–7:30 p.m. at AIA Chicago (35 East Wacker Drive, #250, Chicago). Architecture in Canada has been fashioned by the nation’s immense size, as well as its concentrated and diverse geography and demography. This richly informative history reveals how the country has contributed in no small measure to the spread of architectural modernity in the Americas and beyond. During the twentieth century, a distinct Canadian design attitude coalesced: a liberal, hybrid, pragmatic mindset intent less upon the dogma of architectural language than on thinking about the formation of inclusive spaces and places.

Taking a fresh perspective on design production and its context, Canada maps the unfolding of architectural modernity across the country, from the completion of the transcontinental railway in 1886–87 to the tumultuous interwar decades, the period of Reconstruction post-1945, and the politically conflicted era of the late 1960s and ’70s. It also examines the broad pattern of Canadian political, industrial and socio-cultural evolution, urban–suburban expansion, and the technology of building.

Special guest Canadian Consul General in Chicago Steve Brereton will make brief remarks. The book will be available for purchase and signing at a special price of $25.

Speakers:

Sabatino is professor and director of the Ph.D. Program in Architecture at Illinois Institute of Technology. He is the author of Pride in Modesty: Modernist Architecture and the Vernacular Tradition in Italy (2011) and co-editor of Arthur Erickson: Layered Landscapes (2013). Rhodri Windsor Liscombe is Professor Emeritus at the University of British Columbia. His books include The New Spirit: Modern Architecture in Vancouver, 1938–1963 (1998) and Architecture and the Canadian Fabric (2011).