BOOK REVIEW

Up North: Where Canada’s Architecture Meets the Land

by Lisa Rochon

“Canadian architecture matters.” So argues Lisa Rochon in her new book, supporting that idea with a provocative argument. Yes, says The Globe and Mail’s architecture critic, most of what’s being built in our country is deadening suburban sprawl. And yes, she acknowledges, too many of the cultural palaces springing up in our cities are “drive-by” buildings – flashy baubles without much staying power.

But in between, she says, lies an alternative. Ever since California modernism fired up the artists and architects of 1940s Vancouver, our country’s finest designers have built a tradition of designs that flow out of our landscape. Working with native wood and imitating the local forms – like the cedar-shake sheds that inspire Bryan MacKay-Lyons in Nova Scotia – architects are creating a body of buildings that show a “doubleness of vision,” with connections to international modernism and some essential elements of Canadian identity.

And here is where Rochon goes further than most of her colleagues in architectural criticism: she doesn’t hesitate to put the thinking of architects in a broader cultural context. From tiny urban houses to the almost mystical land art of Quebec’s Pierre Thibault (as well as Frank Gehry’s work), Rochon sees common threads of humility, love of nature, and pragmatic intelligence. All very Canadian, indeed.

On the other hand, this is hardly a modest book. Rochon admits that Up North is “not to be taken as a survey,” and indeed her nationalism occasionally makes for glib history. But it’s hard to resist her enthusiasm – she never wavers in her respect for the artists (and patrons) who create the architecture she loves. And after years working within the design establishment, she’s managed to come out and explain why we all, as Canadians, should care what happens there. This engagingly written, beautifully produced book deserves to be a fixture on the coffee tables of the nation.

Reviewed by Alex Bozikovic (from the December 2005 issue)

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