Modernist Buildings Have a Story to Tell

In 2007, the American Institute of Architects launched a public survey to identify "America's Favourite Architecture." With the Empire State Building, the White House and the Washington National Cathedral finishing in the Top 3, the list exposed a strong public connection with heritage buildings. Of the Top 50 favourite structures in the United States, only five were built after the Second World War.

These results raise the question: Do people prefer historic buildings for their character and style or, like a favourite pair of faded blue jeans, is time and familiarity an important factor in the public perception of architecture? Will the steel and glass modernist buildings that replaced these styles be just as well-loved when they are old enough to be considered historic? If so, should we work to protect them in the same way we do the brick buildings of the Exchange District?

The answers to these questions are of particular importance for Winnipeg, a city celebrated for its historic buildings, but less well known as home to one of the finest surviving collections of modernist architecture in Canada.

Emerging in the 1950s, modernism was an architectural movement that rejected the ornamentation of the past and celebrated the technological advancements of the 20th century. Heavy walls of stone were replaced with large curtains of glass flooding light into open interior spaces. The decorative motifs of the past gave way to a machine-inspired look of exposed structure and clean, austere lines.

Examples of this style, both large and small, can still be found in every Winnipeg neighbourhood. The Centennial Concert Hall and MTC Theatre, the Great West Life and Workers Compensation buildings, Shaarey Zedek Synagogue, Kildonan Park Pavilion and even the Bridge Drive-in (BDI) on Jubilee are all remnants of the modernist era.

The soon-to-be-replaced terminal building at the Richardson International Airport is one of Winnipeg's most significant representatives of this movement. Designed by GBR Architects in 1964, it stands as the only remaining example of a federal initiative to modernize Canada's national image by constructing a series of new airports across the country. Much like the railway did decades earlier, these new jet-age terminals were an effort to unify and inspire the country.

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