Publication

  • Toronto's Inclusive Modernity: The Architecture of Jerome Markson
    Laura J. Miller
    Author
    George Baird
    Contributor
    Scott Norsworthy
    Photographer
    Figure 1 Publishing, 2020
  • GRANTEE
    University of Toronto-John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design
    GRANT YEAR
    2018

Jerome Markson, Smith Residence, exterior wall, 1955, Woodbridge, Ontario, Canada. Photo: Peter Varley. Courtesy of Jerome Markson personal papers.

The publication interweaves an account of Toronto's emergence as a cosmopolitan city with the first comprehensive critical assessment of Jerome Markson's diverse body of architectural work. Drawing on evidence from his long, inventive career, this book explores the ways his buildings were harbingers of cultural change, examining how they registered important shifts in sociopolitical attitudes, urban policies, and modes of architectural production shaped during the post-war decades. The significance of Markson's work is examined through three main themes: his nuanced responsiveness to Toronto's fast-evolving urban and suburban geographies; how diverse influences, including Alvar Aalto, Britain's Townscape movement, and his encounters with vernacular architecture were instrumental in his shift away from late modernism's formal legibility towards a more pluralistic, materially-oriented approach; and his prescient use of photography to situate architecture as an inclusive cultural medium and object of human desire.

Laura J. Miller is trained as an architect, and has had a diverse career as a designer, educator and scholar. She is the author of Toronto's Inclusive Modernity: The Architecture of Jerome Markson. For a decade, Miller was a member of the architecture faculty at Harvard; she was the American Fellow in Architectural Design at the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study (2003–04). Miller was a faculty member at SCI-Arc, and has held visiting appointments at RISD, UCLA, Rice University, Washington and Iowa State Universities. In 2010, Miller relocated to the University of Toronto's Daniels Faculty, where she created and directed the urban-themed, Toronto-based graduate 't.o.superstudio,' based upon her current research focus on Toronto's post-war development. She has curated and designed a number of exhibitions for the Daniels Faculty's galleries. Her speculative design proposals, commissioned for large urban sites including Hell's Kitchen (Manhattan) and Mission Bay (San Francisco), have been published and exhibited.

George Baird writes the foreword to Toronto's Inclusive Modernity: The Architecture of Jerome Markson. He is emeritus professor and former dean of the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto, and founding principal of Baird Sampson Neuert Architects, Toronto. His publications include (with Charles Jencks) Meaning in Architecture (Barrie & Jenkins, 1969), Alvar Aalto (Simon & Schuster, 1969), The Space of Appearance (MIT Press, 1995), Public Space; Cultural/Political Theory; Street Photography (Sun, 2011), and Writings on Architecture and the City (Artifice Books on Architecture, 2015).Baird received the Gold Medal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (2010), and the Topaz Medallion (AIA, ACSA (2012).

Scott Norsworthy photographs selected projects in their current-day contexts for Toronto's Inclusive Modernity: The Architecture of Jerome Markson. He is an architect and photographer based in Toronto, documenting award-winning projects for distinguished architecture and design firms across North America, such as Arup Engineering, Shim Sutcliffe Architects, MaryAnn Thompson Architects, and KPMB. Norsworthy's creative and professional work is published internationally, and has been included in numerous exhibitions, including Italy Under Construction, Italian Cultural Institute, Toronto (2017); Daniels 125 Exhibition (2015); CONTACT Darkroom 4.0, Toronto (winner Best Landscape), (2015); and Urban Fabric: Portraits of a City, Textile Museum of Canada (2014 –15).

The University of Toronto was founded as King's College in 1827. The University of Toronto is committed to being an internationally significant research university, with undergraduate, graduate and professional programs of excellent quality.