Adele Weder
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Articles by Adele Weder
The Dodek House Is Both a Vancouver Landmark and a Family Heirloom
A family home is—or should be—a memory garden of friendship, family, art, and comfort. Ron Thom, who lived and worked in the golden age of West Coast modernism, harnessed this directive with every client. Even after Thom moved away to Toronto and international fame for his architecture of Massey College Trent University and the Shaw Festival Theatre, his favourite design brief remained the family home.
The Dodek House Is Both a Vancouver Landmark and a Family Heirloom
A family home is—or should be—a memory garden of friendship, family, art, and comfort. Ron Thom, who lived and worked in the golden age of West Coast modernism, harnessed this directive with every client. Even after Thom moved away to Toronto and international fame for his architecture of Massey College Trent University and the Shaw Festival Theatre, his favourite design brief remained the family home.
The təməseẃtxw Aquatic and Community Centre Reflects Local Values
Canada’s first Zero Carbon–certified aquatic center cuts back on its carbon emissions while building community engagement. Completed this past spring in the heart of New Westminster, British Columbia, the təməseẃtxw Aquatic and Community Centre serves as a vital hub, not only for the surrounding neighborhood of single-family houses but also for the entire city of 87,000. Its name—roughly pronounced tamma-sout—means “sea otter house” in the Indigenous henqeminem language.
Northern Light
PROJECT Old Crow Community Centre, Old Crow, Yukon ARCHITECT Kobayashi + Zedda Architects TEXT Adele Weder PHOTOS Andrew Latreille Arriving in Old Crow is like entering another country. Tucked into the northwest corner of Yukon, this tiny village of 280 citizens of the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation is accessible only by air, or—for intrepid seafarers—along the adjacent Porcupine River. A grocery store is the sole commercial outlet.
Museum of Anthropology renewal, Vancouver, BC
On June 13, 2024, Arthur Erickson’s beloved Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia reopened after 18 months of closure. During this time, its iconic Great Hall was entirely rebuilt from the ground up. The epic reconstruction was steered by Vancouver architect Nick Milkovich, whom Erickson first hired in 1968 and who worked on the original building. Here’s Milkovich’s account of the project, drawn from an interview with Adele Weder.
Turning the ‘Old Boys’ Painters Upside Down
You know their work, even if you’re not an art history buff. You’ve seen them on posters, calendars, your parents’ Christmas cards: the Old Boys of Canadian art. Cornelius Krieghoff’s snow-capped cabins. The Ontario wilderness as seen by Tom Thomson, Lawren Harris and the rest of the Group of Seven. William Kurelek’s adorable scenes of children at play. All male, all white, sure, but all brilliant.
To Save the Iconic Museum of Anthropology He Had to Destroy It
On June 13, Arthur Erickson’s beloved Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia will reopen after 18 months of closure. During this time, its iconic Great Hall was entirely rebuilt from the ground up. Announcements, Events & more from Tyee and select partners Empowering Tomorrow’s Digital Designers Today At Emily Carr University, the User Experience Design Certificate program equips students to tackle the dynamic demands of a fast-developing industry.
Heimtextil 2024 Forecasts the Future of the Textile Industry
Heimtextil 2024 Forecasts the Future of the Textile Industry Cutting-edge tech — from bioengineered fibres to 3D-knitted fabrics — went hand in hand with environmentalism at this year’s edition of the annual textile expo. Posted Apr 25, 2024 SHARE We rely on advertising revenue to support the creative content on our site. Please consider whitelisting our site in your settings, or pausing your adblocker while stopping by.
Book Review: All Things Move-Learning to Look at the Sistine Chapel
By Jeannie Marshall (Bibliosis, 2023) REVIEW Adele Weder For much of the past millennium, Christian iconography has dominated the Western world’s art and architecture, often fusing the two fields together in one building. The fresco-packed Sistine Chapel, embedded within the Pope’s official residence in Vatican City, is one of the most renowned of such structures.
Postcard from Germany’s Anti-Fascist Rallies
Over the weekend, the German people — or at least huge numbers of them — pushed back loudly, visibly and in great numbers against right-wing extremism. And as I happen to be in Germany right now on assignment for The Tyee, I took advantage to join in. If you need a dose of hope amid your doomscrolling, surf away from the New York Times and google the German news reports.
As It Is: Ontario Place on the Brink of Erasure
As It Is: Ontario Place on the Brink of Erasure A striking new book by photographer Steven Evans offers an elegy — and a rallying cry — for a Toronto landmark. Words Adele Weder Photos Steven Evans Posted Nov 6, 2023 SHARE We rely on advertising revenue to support the creative content on our site. Please consider whitelisting our site in your settings, or pausing your adblocker while stopping by.
Spreading the Wood: Three projects that are leading the way in Canadian mass timber innovation
Over the past decade, engineered mass timber has evolved from a new and innovative choice of structural material to becoming almost mainstream. Canadian architects have played a major role in the material’s acceptance in the North American building industry, with British Columbia architects at the vanguard of harnessing Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) around 10 years ago.
How Our West Coast Fired the Mind of a Brilliant Japanese Artist
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Too Much and Not Enough: Not for Sale! at the Venice Biennale
TEXT Adele Weder PHOTOS Maris Mezulis Any Canadian who agrees to exhibit at the Venice Biennale of Architecture deserves the Order of Canada for sheer pluck. Our mid-century pavilion—a small glass-and-brick nautilus shell punctured by trees—is notoriously difficult to work with. The selected architect-curators receive scant remuneration for weeks of labour, and almost always need to fundraise to cover exorbitant shipping, travel and installation costs.
Even the Ashtrays
As the creator of iconic landmarks, such as Massey College in Toronto and much of Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, and many remarkable houses, Ron Thom endures as one of Canada’s most distinctive architectural talents. He was a high-profile participant in the creative world during the 1960s and ’70s, that vibrant and optimistic period of ours.
How the North Shore Became a Creative Canvas for Vancouver Architect Ron Thom
From her new biography Ron Thom, Architect: The Life of a Creative Modernist, author Adele Weder paints an unabashed portrait of one of Canada’s most inventive architects and the social fabric that influenced his design. Prior to 1938, the sloped landscape north of Vancouver had seemed a world away from the city, moated by the waters of Burrard Inlet. Its ragged shoreline meandered over 20 miles, jutting out near its westernmost edge into a promontory.
Ron Thom, Architect: The Life Of A Creative Modernist
Earn 190 plum® points Buy Online Ship to an address Free shipping on orders over $35 Pick up in store To see if pickup is available, To check store inventory, Prices and offers may vary in store A definitive biography of an iconic Canadian architect-and a social portrait of the midcentury design world he lived in. Ron Thom came of age in the mid-20th century, just as the modern movement and an impending building boom were about to reshape the country.
Ron Thom, Architect
A definitive biography of an iconic Canadian architect—and a social portrait of the midcentury design world he lived in. Ron Thom came of age in the mid-20th century, just as the modern movement and an impending building boom were about to reshape the country. Talented in music and art as well as design, he rejected sleek austerity in favor of modern architecture that is warm, intimate, and beautiful.
The Kids are All Right: Gastown Child Care Centre, Vancouver, British Columbia
PROJECT Gastown Child Care Centre, Vancouver, British Columbia ARCHITECT Acton Ostry Architects TEXT Adele Weder PHOTOS Michael Elkan Photography Let’s start with the accolades. Everything seems to work seamlessly in Vancouver’s Gastown Child Care Centre. The Passive House project deftly occupies a previously underused stretch of roof atop an inner-city parkade.
How Architect Florian Maurer Expanded His Okanagan Valley Modern Home Without Compromising His Vision
About 20 years ago, when Florian Maurer designed a site-specific house for himself and his wife, Erica, in verdant Naramata in the Okanagan Valley, he considered it perfectly complete. To use the term of his native language, it was a gesamkunstwerk, a total work of art. He created a series of interconnected pods of glass and corrugated metal, centred around an outdoor courtyard and built to the famously high standards of his native Germany.
The Dream House Vancouver Architect Paul Merrick Built
Step inside the 1972 Merrick House and enter a curvilinear labyrinth on 17 different levels, an enchanted jungle crafted in wood and glass and fieldstone. “I didn’t have any money, but I had time and a zillion ideas,” explains its architect, Paul Merrick.
Book Review: 305 Lost Buildings of Canada
By Alex Bozikovic and Raymond Biesinger. Goose Lane Editions, 2022. REVIEW Adele Weder Contemporary cities have evolved from a plethora of buildings that, in most cases, no longer exist. A survey of this phantom architecture might seem like an odd exploration for the here and now. But a newly published compilation of once-beloved and now-demolished landmarks reminds us of the usefulness of paying homage to our vanished past.
Interview: Nina-Marie Lister
Lister and her CoLab colleagues at work on ReConnecting Landscapes: Green Infrastructure for People and Wildlife in 2018. Photo by Marta Brocki INTERVIEWER Adele Weder Nina-Marie Lister has made a career of embedding nature within the design of our daily lives. As founder of the studio Plandform and leader of the Ecological Design Lab at the soon-to-be-renamed Ryerson University, she has developed a nature-centric, interdisciplinary approach to landscape interventions.
High End: Four design-forward cannabis shops
In the days of yore—that is, the late 20th century—the interior décor of your illicit neighbourhood pot shop adhered to a consistent theme: dark, discreet, distressed. The interior ambiance reflected the legal and social opprobrium of the day: the grunge aesthetic reflected the countercultural target market.
Book Reviews: Icebergs, Zombies, and the Ultra Thin and Sick City
Icebergs, Zombies, and the Ultra Thin: Architecture and Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century By Matthew Soules. Princeton Architectural Press, 2021 Sick City: Disease, Race, Inequality and Urban Land By Patrick M. Condon, 2021 Condominium towers, including Zaha Hadid Architects’ One Thousand Museum (second from left), 2020, in downtown Miami.
In Memoriam: Peter Smith, 1936-2021
Peter Smith during his time at Lett/Smith Architects. Courtesy of the Smith family (photographer unknown) The architectural profession has, we all know, a cast of characters behind the marquee star—those who contribute substantially to the core design itself, without fanfare, and who may be considered the true co-authors of major projects. Peter Smith, who died at age 85 in early July, was one such architect.
The Many Layers of Cornelia Oberlander’s Landscapes
The Many Layers of Cornelia Oberlander’s Landscapes Colleagues and kin reflect on the life and legacy of a Canadian design legend. Visionary. Icon. Genius. Legend. Those within and outside of the architecture and design community shared those one-word descriptors fast and furiously after learning that we lost Cornelia Hahn Oberlander (1921-2021) to COVID-19 last month. Politicians and civic mandarins tweeted fulsome tributes.
OPINION: Remembering West Coast architecture legend Geoffrey Massey
The long life and epic career of Geoff Massey would need a 10-volume book or a Netflix series to unpack. He helped create many buildings and communities in Vancouver, Burnaby, Whistler, and Hernando Island. But most remarkable is what Geoff and his colleagues have done for the North Shore: after making homes for themselves and others here, they helped ferment a contemporary culture for the wider society around them.
The late Geoff Massey: a cultural icon at home on the North Shore
The long life and epic career of Geoff Massey would need a 10-volume book or a Netflix series to unpack. He helped create many buildings and communities in Vancouver, Burnaby, Whistler, and Hernando Island. But most remarkable is what Geoff and his colleagues have done for the North Shore: after making homes for themselves and others here, they helped ferment a contemporary culture for the wider society around them.
Extra Ordinary: What We’ll Miss Most about Peter Cardew - Azure Magazine
Extra Ordinary: What We’ll Miss Most about Peter Cardew Architects remember the late RAIC Gold Medallist as a beacon of candour and rigour. When Peter Cardew died at 81 in Vancouver, the design community shared a common reaction: not unexpected but shocking just the same. Partly because he worked and played so intensely right until the end, but also because we collectively realized what a rare voice he had. Hardly ever the loudest voice in the room, but almost always the clearest.
Selwyn Pullan, West Coast Tastemaker
Tyee Books The architectural photographer captured modernism's naked wood and glass, which helped make our place. A new book turns the lens on him. By Adele Weder 18 Oct 2012 | TheTyee.ca Adele Weder is a Vancouver-based architectural writer and curator, and co-author of Selwyn Pullan: Photographing West Coast Midcentury Modernism, published this month. Read her previous stories for The Tyee here, or follow her on Twitter @AdeleWeder. 1/10 Left: Selywn Pullan in 1949, photographed by Bill Cate.
The Vancouver Architect Who Made Nature His Muse
Arts and Culture Traveling exhibition celebrates Ron Thom, who found higher beauty in the handmade. By Adele Weder 6 Sep 2013 | TheTyee.ca Adele Weder is a Vancouver-based architectural writer. She is curator of the traveling exhibition "Ron Thom and the Allied Arts." Read her previous stories here, or follow her on Twitter @AdeleWeder. 1/6 The 1958 Dodek House in Vancouver (left; photo by Selwyn Pullan) presages the courtyard he would design for Toronto's Massey College in 1960-63.
'Thrown': Respect for the Ordinary Pot
Tyee Books BC once had a thriving pottery scene, emblematic of '60s counterculture. What happened? Adele Weder 11 Aug 2011 | TheTyee.ca Adele Weder is a Vancouver-based architectural writer and curator, and co-author of the Guidebook to Contemporary Architecture in Vancouver. Her next book project, on the selling of West Coast modernism, will be published in 2011. Read her previous articles for The Tyee here. 1/8 John Reeve at Tam Irving's studio, Fisherman's Cove, West Vancouver, B.C. Late 1970s.
Margolese Prize Winner Bing Thom on the Art of Placemaking
Events, contests and other initiatives by The Tyee and select partners. As date to nominate for $50,000 UBC prize approaches, a chat with last year's recipient. By Adele Weder 2 Sep 2014 | TheTyee.ca Adele Weder, a recipient of the RAIC/Architecture Canada President's Award for Architectural Journalism, writes on architecture and urban heritage for a number of books and journals.
Nation Builders | The Walrus
Left: courtesy of Simon Scott; right: courtesy of Trent University Signature Style Robert C. Brown Hall (left) at Simon Fraser University, by Arthur Erickson; and Champlain College (right) at Trent University, by Ron Thom. These buildings exemplify the architectural optimism of postwar Canada. Not long after he was elected prime minister in 1968, Pierre Trudeau invited two dozen of the country’s top artists to dinner. The occasion was no photo op; he wanted to hear their views on national identity.
An Architectural Master
Vancouver is a city where the surrounding landscape remains much more appealing than its built environment. Although the local mandarins boast at length about its urbanism and liveability, the area remains an architectural underperformer, packed with generic high-rises and spectacularly ugly monster houses. It is not for lack of precedent; this was the spawning ground of Ron Thom and Arthur Erickson. Nor is it a matter of design talent or money: both are plentiful on the West Coast.
Q&A: Michael Green - Azure Magazine
From his early work at Cesar Pelli & Associates to the co-founding in 2003 of McFarlane Green Biggar Archi-tecture + Design in North Vancouver, Michael Green has cultivated an illustrious career. Before launching his own office (MGA) earlier this year, he and engineer J. Eric Karsh of Equilibrium Consulting completed a massive report on the feasibility of constructing tall buildings out of wood.
Faulty Tower | The Walrus
In Winnipeg, an area known as the Forks seems custom-made to serve as a national metaphor. Situated midway between the Atlantic and the Pacific, at the junction of two mighty rivers—the Red and Assiniboine—the Forks was a meeting place for various Aboriginal groups, and then fur traders, and then railway shippers and immigrants. In the twentieth century, it evolved into a ragtag field of watering holes and trinket shops; and as the millennium drew to a close, it was reconceived as a tourist zone.
What Cities Can Learn from Copenhagen - Azure Magazine
What Cities Can Learn from Copenhagen After a week's tour of Denmark, Azure contributing editor Adele Weder returns with five design values that major urban centres around the world can learn from the country's capital - beyond bike lanes. Canadian city planners have claimed to understand what they need to know from Copenhagen: mainly, density and bike lanes. (Well, they haven’t even got that quite right. “We laugh when we see Vancouver’s bicycle lanes,” one Copenhagen architect told me.
Muckleshoot Smokehouse
When the U.S. government subjugated Native American territories in the 19th century, the loss of communality was one of the most destructive consequences. With the tribes’ traditional ways of living, working, and celebrating together severely curtailed or outlawed, communal architecture, exemplified by the longhouse, became untenable.
Book Review: The Kitchen
By John Ota (Penguin Random House Canada, 2020) The kitchen—always the most functional room of the house—has become the most socially pertinent room in recent times, and never more so than now. Author John Ota researched and wrote this book before the pandemic—and to be sure, his cross-border kitchen-hopping to the kitchens of Frank Lloyd Wright, Julia Child, Georgia O’Keefe and others is currently untenable.
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