Patkau Architects: Selected Projects 1983-1993

James A. Love is an associate professor of environmental design at the
University of Calgary.

Canadian architects Patricia and John Patkau have been internationally
recognized for creating what amounts to a new idiom in Canadian
architecture. Their buildings embody fresh ideas about sites, spaces,
materials, and forms in ways that appeal to architects and nonarchitects
alike. Their projects are thoroughly presented in this book through
numerous photographs of models and completed projects, as well as
copious drawings. The illustrations go beyond the usual whole-building
views to convey the more intimate details of buildings, which the Patkau
firm stresses as a fundamental constituent of its designs. The drawings
are exceptionally clear in communicating the architects’ ideas.
Considerable portions of the text are devoted to their rationale for the
decisions made in projects ranging from individual dwellings to such
public structures as a school and a library. The Patkaus elucidate the
connections between ideas about the forms and spaces in their buildings
and the approaches taken to constructing them.

For the most part, this book eschews jargon, so it can be enjoyed by
both the lay reader and the aficionado of architectural design. Patkau
Architects is the first of a series that aims to present
“architectural work as clearly and directly as possible, in a way that
is unobscured by unnecessary rhetoric or biased presentation.”