Archives - CANADA RESEARCH CHAIR IN ARCHITECTURE, COMPETITIONS and MEDIATIONS of EXCELLENCE

IN THE ARCHIVES OF JACQUES FOLCH-RIBAS, QUEBEC ARCHITECT WINNER OF NUMEROUS LITERARY PRIZES

Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ), not the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), holds the archives of Quebec architect Jacques Folch-Ribas. And with good reason: Folch-Ribas was not only a collaborator of Le Corbusier, but also a protégé of Albert Camus and a prolific writer. Born in Barcelona in 1928, he spent part of … Read more

WRITING, A PRACTICE OF ARCHITECTURE? COMPARATIVE APPROACHES OF TWO ARCHITECTS WITH A PEN

Why write fiction when you are an architect? If the role of professionals in architecture is not, a priori, to write stories, some of them have a privileged relationship with literature. This is the case of Sergio Morales, a Quebec architect (co-founder of Chevalier Morales Architectes, a studio based in Montreal) and Pierre Blondel, a ... Read more

ROCOCO, BY FRANÇOIS CHASLIN: AN AWARD-WINNING BOOK ON ARCHITECTURE, WIDELY ACCLAIMED FOR ITS FORM AND CONTENT

Gold Medal in the Book Design category at the European Design Award in Warsaw in 2019, winner of the student selection of the Best Dutch Book Design 2018, and more recently awarded the Architecture Book Prize by the Academy of Architecture in October 2019 (see our post), François Chaslin’s latest book is still being rewarded, … Read more

PARADOXES OF HERITAGE AWARD

Evolution of award titles related to heritage issues in Quebec (2009-2019) What should we think of awards of excellence for heritage transformations, particularly in the Quebec context? According to the recurrence of this type of distinction in the contemporary landscape of architectural awards, heritage would be one of the canonical categories of architectural excellence. Despite ... Read more

WHEN THE PHOTO OF THE AWARDED BUILDING CONFIRMS THE PICTURE OF THE COMPETITION MODEL

The competition for the Toronto City Hall was won in 1958 by Viljo Revell (On the left the model produced for the competition, on the right photography taken by the author in 2015) The Fort York Visitor Centre as a competition project won in 2009 by Patkau Architects and Kearns Mancini Architects (Top, a digital ... Read more

UNDERSTANDING “MEDIATIONS OF EXCELLENCE”

"Sisyphus" by Tiziano Vecellio 1548-1549 Madrid. Museo del Prado. In a series of scientific posts inaugurating the Canada Research Chair in Architecture, Competitions and Mediations of Excellence (CRC-ACME) program, we will briefly present — whether in a thousand words or a simple image and its legend — the main terms of our research activities for ... Read more