The Icelandic Canadian - 01.11.2007, Side 42

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THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 61 #2
Book Reviews
WINNIPEG MODERN
ARCHITECTURE
1945-1975
SERENA KESHAVJEE
HERBERT ENNS
Winnipeg Modern:
Architecture 1945 to 1975
Reviewed by Neil Einarson
The importance of Winnipeg’s turn-
of-the-century architecture has long been
recognized. The publication in 2006 of
Winnipeg Modern: Architecture 1945 to
1975 brings an exciting new perspective on
the significance and quality of the
Modernist architecture of the post war
period, arguably “one of the richest stocks
of Modernist Architecture in Canada.”1
The book is timely as the sheer volume
of modernist structures constructed over
the last 60 years, and not all of it good
architecture, can jade perception and the
current work helps to re-discover the con-
text, excitement and qualities of the earliest
works and their architects.
Winnipeg Modern explores the era as
an anthology in nine chapters from a num-
ber of perspectives including insightful
overviews, as well as chapters on individual
buildings (Centennial Hall at the
University of Winnipeg and the Winnipeg
Airport) and individual architects (Gustavo
da Rosa and Etienne Gaboury). With
many excellent drawings and photographs,
outstanding being the photographs of
Henry Kalen, the book was published to
coincide with an exhibition held at the
Winnipeg Art Gallery in 2006.
The need for considerable new growth
in Winnipeg came from pent up demand
from the stagnation of the 1930s and the
hiatus on new construction during World
War II. In the new post War era, new fam-
ilies wanted new homes and new neigh-
bourhoods, generating the need for new
housing, churches, businesses and shop-
ping centres. This demand, plus progres-
sive government policies and the centenni-
als of 1967 and 1970, lead to new schools,
university buildings, government offices,
airports and cultural centres. Combined
with this was the spirit of the age.
Modernist thought held that with a more
rational urban environment, that rational
planning and architecture could improve
the human condition. The new modernist
architects “sought to build function in
form, to enclose volume and space rather
than impress with mass, to rise and spread
with regularity and proportion rather than
symmetry and balance, and to achieve ele-
gance with simple undecorated materials”2
The high quality of Winnipeg’s
Modernist Architecture is also attributed
to the School of Architecture at the
University of Manitoba, and in particular
the work of John A. Russell who became
its head 1946. That year that enrolment
jumped 125% due to returning veterans