On Saturday May 30, 2015, the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto celebrated its 125-year-history with an exhibition reflecting on the Faculty’s past, and panel discussions featuring alumni and faculty members, and an evening cocktail reception at the Royal Ontario Museum where alumni could mingle and reminisce.
“Reimagining the Faculty” featured former deans Larry Wayne Richards and George Baird as well as the Faculty’s current Dean, Richard Sommer. The discussion was moderated by alumnus Bruce Kuwabara (BArch 1972). It was one of four dialogues on the work of our faculty and alumni, and the new modes of practice that they, together with our students, hope to model and instigate.
Larry Wayne Richards
Dean: 1997-2004
Larry Wayne Richards is Professor Emeritus and was dean of the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design from 1997 to 2004. A graduate of Yale, he worked with Walter Gropius and The Architects Collaborative before immigrating to Canada in 1975. Following teaching at Nova Scotia Technical College and Dalhousie (1975-80) and the University of Toronto (1980-81), he was appointed Director of the Waterloo School of Architecture. Richards returned to U of T as dean in 1997. He is the author/editor of numerous books including Toronto Places, CCA: Building and Gardens, and University of Toronto: a campus guide. In 2008 he co-founded WORKshop, a design center in Yorkville. Richards resides in New York and Toronto, where he is engaged in architecture, interior, and urban design projects.
George Baird, BArch 1962
Dean: 2004-2009
George Baird is Professor Emeritus of Architecture, and the former dean of the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. He is the founding principal of the Toronto-based architecture and urban design firm Baird Sampson Neuert Architects. Baird has been the recipient of the Toronto Arts Foundation’s Architecture and Design Award (1992), the da Vinci Medal of the Ontario Association of Architects (2000), the Gold Medal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (2010), an Honorary Degree from the University of Waterloo (2011), and the Topaz Medallion of the American Institute of Architects and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (2012).
Richard Sommer
Dean: 2009-Present
Richard Sommer is an architect, professor, and dean of the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. His professional and academic experience is diverse and includes serving as a faculty member and Director of the Urban Design Program at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design for a decade before joining the Daniels Faculty. Sommer’s research, writings and projects have appeared in publications such as Perspecta, Metropolis, JAE, Harvard Design Magazine, and in the books Fast Forward Urbanism, Shaping the City, and The Democratic Monument in America: A Twentieth Century Topography. His work has been supported by the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts, The Tozzier Fund, The Wheelwright Fellowship, University of Ulster’s O’Hare Chair in Design and Development, and The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.
Moderator: Bruce Kuwabara, BArch 1972
Bruce Kuwabara is a leading Canadian architect. He is the recipient of the RAIC Gold Medal (2006) and in 2012 was invested as an Officer of the Order of Canada for shaping ‘our built landscape in lasting ways.’ He has earned public and critical recognition for projects of national significance such as Canada’s National Ballet School, the Gardiner Museum, and the Bell Lightbox for the Toronto International Film Festival, as well as the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, and Manitoba Hydro Place in Winnipeg. Throughout his career, his work has integrated architectural excellence and innovation, city building and sustainable design, raising the standards of Canadian architecture and urbanism.
For more information about the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto, visit us at http://www.daniels.utoronto.ca
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