Up North: Where Canada's Architecture Meets the Land

James A. Love is a professor architecture and associate dean (Research
and Outreach) in the Faculty of Environmental Design and an adjunct
professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Calgary. His
latest publication is Recommended Practice of

Lisa Rochon frequently contributes columns on architecture to The Globe
and Mail. In this book, she addresses Canadian architecture at a variety
of levels, from a polemic against suburbia to essays dedicated to
individual works of architecture and from a variety of perspectives,
from materials to urbanism. The opening essay seeks to characterize
Canadian architecture. Landscape emerges as a touchstone of
Canadianness, and a later essay is entirely devoted to the connection
between a few buildings and their setting. Landscape is also considered
through the work of a single practitioner, Cornelia Oberlander, who has
worked with many of Canada’s most esteemed architects. A chapter is
devoted to the history of West Coast architecture, in which the author
sees the roots of contemporary Canadian architecture. Discussion of
big-city architecture is limited to a single piece. It is discouraging
to think that, as expressed in this volume and others, architectural
critics offer so few ideas for the realms where most Canadians spend
most of their lives.