{"id":50711,"date":"2018-10-10T17:17:57","date_gmt":"2018-10-10T21:17:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=50711"},"modified":"2025-10-01T15:47:59","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T19:47:59","slug":"celebrating-50-azrieli-school-of-architecture","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/celebrating-50-azrieli-school-of-architecture\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating 50 Years at the Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Celebrating 50 Years at the Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

Carleton University\u2019s Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism<\/a> hosted its 50th<\/sup> anniversary event on Oct. 4 and 5, 2018, reunited dozens of alumni from all over the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FORWARD\u25ba50<\/a> celebrated the Architecture program with several presentations, workshops, exhibits, alumni-led tours of the school, and the launch of the 18th<\/sup> annual student-produced journal Building 22<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A panel titled The Spirit of Things Past, The Shape of Things to Come<\/em> gathered alumni in the Architecture Building\u2019s \u201cPit\u201d to chat about past experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was incredible, it was scary, it was brutal,\u201d said Chris Leggett, BArch\/74, \u201cbut mostly fun and sometimes exhilarating when somebody eventually saw what you were trying to do and rewarded you, told you what a good thing you had done.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In sequence of their graduation dates, five alumni panelists addressed the future trajectory of architectural education while reminiscing about their time at Carleton. Audience members, a mixture of family, faculty and current students, added their own impressions of the school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure we as architects are doing enough to let people know all the things and values we bring to communities,\u201d said Legget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Architects and educators have to grapple with serious issues and he called on his peers to become more involved in civics and more visible in their communities. Architects need to be part of the policy-makers and to have seats at the decision-making table, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Carleton\u2019s<\/figure>\n\n\n

Effecting Social Change<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Yves Gosselin, a 1973 graduate and once a Carleton adjunct professor, described inaugural director Douglas Shadbolt\u2019s plan to effect social change when the program began in 1968.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDoug could be brutally honest and we were his first class,\u201d said Gosselin. \u201cHe said: \u2018You know, five per cent of you are going to be good designers; the rest of you are part of the support cast.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea was that these supporting roles were as important to the profession in Canada as the superstars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDoug Shadbolt wanted to educate people to be architects and then to place them in government, industry, schools,\u201d said Gosselin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Glen Milne, a co-founder of the School of Architecture and associate professor for more than 25 years, opened the panel with a history of the school\u2019s genesis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 1960s, Milne surveyed many Ontario university presidents and staff about the need for bachelor and master\u2019s programs in Architecture. Along with colleagues from the Ontario Association of Architects (OAA)<\/a>, Milne sought to develop architectural education in city-based institutions. He made the case to then Engineering dean John Ruptash for launching a school at Carleton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They couldn\u2019t have appointed a better director than Shadbolt, said Milne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis building wouldn\u2019t be here, this program wouldn\u2019t be here, without Doug,\u201d he said. \u201cDoug knew how to fight the battle up there, in the Senate. He got this building from 37th<\/sup> on the priority list to number one in about 15 months.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

[wide-image \/]<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Carleton\u2019s<\/figure>\n\n\n

Defending Architectural Institutions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Terri Fuglem, a teacher, designer, and historian who received her BArch in 1984, called on architects to defend their institutions as world politics turn populist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is time for architects and educators to promote serious, humble reflection on the work we need to do in immediate years,\u201d she said. \u201cWe need to reconsider how architecture shapes our everyday rituals and routines, and the impacts of small habits in aggregate on society and the environment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sybil McKenna, an architect educator at McGill University who received her BArch from Carleton in 1988, has seen high tech and the advent of architectural media change the profession.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy classmates and I were really fortunate to attend a school that focused on creative thinking and problem-solving,\u201d said McKenna. \u201cOur projects were subject to easy ruin with late night ink and X-Acto knife disasters. However these were the means we had for exploring the problems.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She warned that the industry\u2019s shift away from hand drawings into slick digital renderings could replace the thought and hard work that goes into design. Working with materials and drawing by hand helps young architects develop their notion of making, said 2016 MArch graduate Savannah Alhaj.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re still using technology, computational design and renderings but I think getting your hands dirty and understanding what you\u2019re drawing helps,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Carleton\u2019s<\/figure>\n\n\n

Rethinking What Architects Hope to Accomplish<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The theme throughout the panel called on present professionals to rethink what they hoped to accomplish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat are we doing as architects?\u201d asked Mohammed al Riffai. \u201cWhat will our work look like 500 years from now?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A BArch graduate from 2002, al Riffai said architects need to swing between being generalists \u2014 relating, empathizing and bringing everyone on board to create a common vision \u2014 and being passionate specialists who fight for the things that matter to them most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really about finding a stability between the two,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Carleton University\u2019s Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism hosted its 50th anniversary event on Oct. 4 and 5, 2018, reunited dozens of alumni from all over the world. FORWARD\u25ba50 celebrated the Architecture program with several presentations, workshops, exhibits, alumni-led tours of the school, and the launch of the 18th annual student-produced journal Building 22. A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":50716,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[28],"cu_story_tag":[1918],"class_list":["post-50711","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_story_type-community-partnerships","cu_story_tag-faculty-of-engineering-and-design"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":"blueprint"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/50711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/50711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97434,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/50711\/revisions\/97434"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=50711"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=50711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}