McGill's School of Architecture, founded in 1896, is one of the oldest architecture schools in North America and the second to be established in Canada. Initially a
Beaux-Arts style school based in the
Arts and Crafts movement, it became a
Bauhaus-based institution under new directorship after
World War II. The school was the first in the country to offer a graduate planning program and a PhD in architecture.
Early history , 4th
Chancellor of McGill University, created a chair in architecture at McGill in 1896. In 1890, the
Province of Quebec Association of Architects adopted a constitution requiring compulsory examination for people in Quebec who wished to become professional architects. This created a need for more systematic architectural education, and the absence of such opportunities caused many aspiring Canadian architects to study in the United States, where ten architecture schools had already been established. In 1896,
Sir William C. Macdonald created a chair in architecture at McGill which was led by
Stewart Henbest Capper, a former student at the
École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Macdonald also provided funds for the purchase and maintenance of the school's initial equipment. At this time, the school had two architecture studios which occupied two rooms of the top floor of the original Macdonald Engineering Building. The school offered a four-year course to prepare students for professional accreditation, and as it remains today, the first year was preparatory, with all courses taken jointly by architecture and engineering students. The first graduating class was composed of only three students, and Professor Capper gave all lectures in architecture, while Henry F. Armstrong, the only other full-time professor, taught art classes and modelling. As director, he divided the four-year course into two streams, the BArch degree and the BSc degree in Architectural Engineering. By 1906, he was teaching six classes, so he hired three new staff to assist him, including his former colleague
Cecil Burgess. Nobbs believed students should be exposed to architecture in practice, and designed the McGill Union (today the
McCord Museum) across from McGill's
Roddick Gates. After the Macdonald Engineering Building burned down in 1907, Nobbs designed the new building in its place, and the School of Architecture moved to its ground floor. By 1912, the school had grown to eight students, and the next year,
Philip J. Turner joined the faculty. In 1913,
Ramsay Traquair became the new director. He is credited with designing the McGill flag, which he presented to the university in 1921 and has since flown above the
Arts Building. and presented to McGill in 1921, flown above the
Arts Building.
World War I At the onset of World War I, many faculty and students were called to war. Nobbs attained the military rank of
major, while twelve of his students did not return. Four among these students have tributes named in their honour at McGill, including Gordon H. Blackader, for whom the
Blackader-Lauterman Library is named, Hugh McLennan, namesake of the
Hugh McLennan Memorial Travelling Scholarship, Murdoch Laing, of the
Murdoch Laing Prize and John Louis Robertson, of the
Louis Robertson Book Prize. In addition to the aforementioned four, eight other McGill architects were added to the
Roll of Honour of World War I. Another seven graduates returned from the war as distinguished soldiers, with one receiving the
Distinguished Service Order, four the
Military Cross and two the French
Croix de Guerre. and the next year, Traquair organized the school's first "sketching school" in
Quebec City,
Arthur Lismer, a member of the
Group of Seven, taught this course at the school for over a decade even after his retirement in 1955. In 1939, Turner succeeded Traquair, who had completed a 26-year tenure as director. At this time, McGill Principal
Lewis Williams Douglas considered discontinuing the architecture program due to low enrollment; however he faced a great deal of backlash from Turner and several famous architects from Montreal, and eventually abandoned the idea. Under Turner's tenure, support for co-education was made, Wisnicki was the fourth woman member of the
Ontario Association of Architects and the second to join the
Architectural Institute of British Columbia.
Mid-century Following the retirement of Turner as director of the School of Architecture,
John Bland became director in 1941. In 1945, a new five-year program was adopted for the next two decades. After the
Second World War, the School of Architecture increased its staff and doubled its physical accommodation due to the surge in university enrollment. This required the school to briefly use McGill's
Dawson College, a
satellite campus in St. Jean, Quebec, to accommodate its students. By 1947, the school had become so cramped that a repurposed building on University Street was vacated to make room for the school's students. This new building expanded the school's physical size immensely, and enrollment grew to 133 full-time students by the 1949–1950 academic year. Lasserre's resignation, coupled with the new influx of students at the school resulted in the hiring of several new faculty members, which included
Robert Esdaile and
Harold Spence-Sales. During the early 1950s, three new teachers were added to the faculty, including Hazen Sise and Guy Desbarats who later founded
Arcop with Fred Lebensold,
Ray Affleck, and
Dimitri Dimakopoulos – all former students or teachers of the school. in 2007, home to the school from 1959 until 1987. In January 1958, the school was temporarily relocated to two townhouses on
McTavish Street when the University Street building was demolished for the construction of the McConnell Building. On November 30, 1959, the new building was inaugurated and the School of Architecture moved to its north-eastern wing, where it remained for decades. Enrollment was steady during the 1950s due to the limitations of physical space, but after the McConnell Building underwent a four-story expansion in the 1960s enrollment grew again. In 1966,
John C. Parkin and
Harry Mayerovitch joined the faculty as visiting professors. In the following years,
Ray Affleck, Fred Lebensold,
Andre Vecsei,
Warren Chalk and
Moshe Safdie also became visiting professors. In the late 1960s, the six-year architecture program became a four-year program with the introduction of
CEGEPs in Quebec. After an 11-year tenure as director, Covo stepped down and Professor
Michael Jemtrud became director of the school in 2007. The next year, Jemtrud founded the
Facility for Architectural Research in Media and Mediation (FARMM) at the School of Architecture with more than $1 million in funding from the
Canada Foundation for Innovation. FARMM produced many award-winning projects and serves as the research hub for the school. In 2011, Professor
Annmarie Adams became the first woman director of the School of Architecture. From 2015 to 2021, the director was Professor Martin Bressani. Since September 2021, the director has been Professor David Theodore.
Directors ==Buildings and resources==