41˚ to 66˚: Regional Responses to Sustainable Architecture in Canada

Computer Science Building, York University, Toronto, Completion: 2001

This exhibition responds to a growing Canadian interest in both our own architecture and in a wider culture of sustainability.

A growing number of Canadian architects are designing buildings that refer to the language of modernism while taking local geography, climate, culture and material and design history into consideration. As Japanese architect Shigeru Ban put it, “permanence is not a matter of the materials you use, permanence is whether people love your building.” The exhibition is full of buildings that will last for the simple reason that Canadians love them. Furthermore, it is truly national in its scope, with recent examples of sustainable architecture in Canada from coast to coast.

Curated by John McMinn and Marco Polo and organized and circulated by Cambridge Galleries Design at Riverside, Ontario. Special funding was provided by the Assistance to Practitioners, Critics and Curators of Architecture and the Promotion of Architecture Programs of the Canada Council for the Arts, and a New Faculty SRC Grant from Ryerson University.

Image Credit: 
Computer Science Building, York University, Toronto, Ontario
Client: York University
Architect: Architects Alliance in a joint venture with Busby + Associates Architects
Photography: Steven Evans
Completion: 2001