Gold Medal — 2010 Recipient | Royal Architectural Institute of Canada

 

Gold Medal — 2010 Recipient

George Baird, FRAIC
Award Category: 
Gold Medal

Former Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design and Professor of Architecture at the University of Toronto, and partner in the Toronto-based architecture and urban design firm Baird Sampson Neuert Architects.

Baird Sampson Neuert is the winner of numerous design awards, including Canadian Architect Magazine awards over many years, and Governor General’s Awards for Cloud Gardens Park in 1994 and Erindale Hall on the campus of the University of Toronto at Mississauga in 2006. He is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and a recipient of the Toronto Arts Foundation’s Architecture and Design Award (1992) and the da Vinci Medal of the Ontario Association of Architects (2000).

Prior to becoming Dean at the University of Toronto in 2004, George Baird was the G. Ware Travelstead Professor of Architecture at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University. He has published and lectured widely throughout most parts of the world.
 
He is co-editor (with Charles Jencks) of Meaning in Architecture (1969), and (with Mark Lewis) of Queues Rendezvous, Riots (1995). He is also the author of Alvar Aalto (1969) as well as The Space of Appearance (1995). Most recently, his researches in architectural theory have focused on the question of the political and social status of urban public space, and on debates revolving around the subject of “critical architecture”. In this regard, his much discussed essay: “Criticality and Its Discontents” was published in the Harvard Design Magazine in Fall, 2004, and his subsequent text: “The Criticality Debate: Some Further Thoughts” appeared in September 2006 in T/A Magazine, Shanghai.

Jury Comment(s): 

"His scholarship as the author of the critically acclaimed The Space of Appearance, in which he argued for a politically engaged architecture deeply aligned to the public sphere.  He has fostered countless cross-border intellectual alliances and, both as a Professor of Architecture at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design and as Dean of the University of Toronto's Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design privileged outstanding research and continued building endowment.  For decades he has provided significant mentorship for Canada's most acclaimed architects and thinkers.  As a theoretician, competition advisor and master planner, Baird's work has been critical to the deepening complexity of the Canadian city."

Click for full version: 
Mausoleum of the Angels, Beechwood Cemetery Baird Sampson Neuert

photo: Tom Arban

Erindale Hall Baird Sampson Neuert

photo: Tom Arban

Roy Ivor Hall Baird Sampson Neuert with Fliess Gates McGowan Easton Architects

photo: Michael Awad

Cloud Gardens Park Baird Sampson Neuert

photo: Michael Awad

Thomas L. Wells Public School Baird Sampson Neuert

photo: Tom Arban