Cover photo by Christopher Erickson.
The Near-Empty Shelf
The appropriate shelf in the library tower at the University of Calgary was almost empty, so I convinced myself I had scrambled the Library of Congress ?NA? catalogue number. I?d been given a research paper assignment from Professor Michael McMordie in his pioneering 1977 ?Canadian Architecture? class, and wanted to browse the books, seeking inspiration. There were less than a dozen books at the appropriate spots for Canada?fewer than that library?s holdings on Dutch or Mexican architecture. I inquired with the reference librarian if their other Canadian volumes had been checked out. She replied, with a tinge of melancholy: ?This is all we have.?
As I was pivoting from my undergraduate background in the humanities and fine arts towards architecture, this lack of a local literature for my chosen discipline was unsettling. From my reading in global design history, I knew that books, like buildings, are complex creations. And architecture books?like the best buildings they describe and illustrate?are not worth indulging if they do not have a clear authorial voice. Before starting architecture school, I had only read three books about Canadian architecture, but they were, and remain, some of the finest books ever produced about the design ideas shaped by, and for our country.  Designed by Étienne Gaboury in 1968, the Paroisse du Précieux Sang remains a Prairie icon in St. Boniface, Manitoba. Courtesy GPP Architecture
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