James Murray, the first editor of Canadian Architect.
In 1967, Canadian Architect?s founding editor James Murray was joined by architects Macy DuBois and Eberhard Zeidler to deliberate for two days on the best of Canadian design. The three men pored over a field of 232 submissions, and in choosing a handful of projects deemed to ?reflect the most advanced thinking? in the profession, launched the inaugural Canadian Architect Yearbook Awards.
Among that first year?s winners were Moshe Safdie, John B. Parkin and Raymond Moriyama, whose works in no small way still shape what and how we think about architecture in Canada. Also lauded was Clifford & Lawrie?s proposed scheme for the Spadina Expressway at the Eglinton Interchange in Toronto, a project that aspired to accommodate the freeway by ?harmoniously? integrating an underground pedestrian passageway below it, and proving to the jury that ?we no longer have to fear the car.? (Jane Jacobs et al felt otherwise, though, and the partially constructed Expressway was cancelled in 1971.) The offering in 1973 of an Award of Excellence for Sankey Associates?s urban-design scheme for Montreal?s Quartier Notre-Dame affirmed the still-dominant belief in separating urban areas into discrete sections for living, working, visiting, driving, walking, tourism, government and industry?all bordered off from each other with an artisanally hand-drawn turquoise line. One of the early Canadian Architect Award winners; the 1973 design proposal ...