Green Blankstein Russell and Associates: An Architectural Legacy

摘要

They don't make them like they used to. For 72 years, Winnipeg's Green Blankstein Russell and Associates (GBR) were prolific in ways not possible anymore. This interdisciplinary practice rode the 20th century's long boom, becoming the largest architectural firm of the prairies. During my time at the University of Manitoba in the 1990s, GBR was an established architecture firm that students knew a little about, mostly as the architects of the Winnipeg Airport, City Hall and the Centennial Concert Hall. While reviewing this new book, I realized that GBR's work was everywhere. Their well-mannered and typically medium-sized work has become part of Winnipeg's infrastructure, in ways locals might miss. With a few other firms, GBR quarterbacked a defining era that shaped the city in the 1950s to 1970s, second only to its commercial district's Chicago-style construction frenzy that straddled the beginning of the 20th century. From 1932 until 2004, when the firm was bought by Stantec, GBR designed a dizzying number of buildings. Like a country veterinarian experienced with canaries and cows, GBR were hard to typecast and appear to have said "yes" to every new opportunity. They designed idealistic subdivisions, conservative banks, spare churches, modest houses and no-frills hospitals and offices. Through this large body of work, GBR attempted to give shape to a modernizing liberal democracy, to articulate what Canada and its government saw in the mirror.