David Gordon FCIP AICP is Professor in the School of Urban and Regional Planning of the Department of Geography and Planning at Queen’s University. He received a doctorate in urban design from the Harvard GSD. David was SURP Director for over a decade and has also taught at McGill, Ryerson, Toronto, Riga, Western Australia, Harvard and Pennsylvania, where he was a Fulbright Scholar. Prior to becoming a full-time professor, David was a principal in a prominent architecture & design firm and manager in a Toronto waterfront agency. He is Research Chair of the Council for Canadian Urbanism and a CIP Fellow, sharing their National Awards four times. Recent books include Town and Crown and Planning Canadian Communities (with Pam Shaw). David's research examines planning histories and compares Canadian, Australian and American suburbs.
Sessions in which David L.A. Gordon participates
Friday 27 May, 2022
Oromocto, NB was known as “Canada’s Model Town” in 1959. This New Town was a collaborative design between Central Mortgage and Housing’s Architecture & Planning Division and the Department of National Defense’ s consultant, McGill Professor Harold Spence-Sales. Oromocto offered utility as a New Town and well-designed neighbourhoods servicing the needs of Canadian Forces Base Gagetown’s soldiers and their families. Oromocto was a CMHC showcase for inexpensive Modern homes and good neigh...
Sessions in which David L.A. Gordon attends
Wednesday 25 May, 2022
We propose a rich and colorful inaugural evening, in a mythical place: Dawson Hall, behind St James United Church (1887-1889, Alexander Francis Dunlop, arch.), known as the "Montreal Methodist Cathedral" - with 2000 seats, it was the largest Methodist church in Canada when it was built. Designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1996, it escaped demolition in 1980 when it was classified as a historic monument, and then escaped extinction thanks to an ambitious restoration project, in...
Thursday 26 May, 2022
In recognition of the fact that Canadian practitioners, scholars, and students of architecture think, work, and act globally, this session invites submissions that are geographically unconstrained. The session welcomes case studies or analyses that illuminate how the transnational flow of ideas, people, and capital has changed the global built environment, including the multi-directional nature of exchanges between the so- called developing and...
Friday 27 May, 2022
The Sudbury2050 Urban Design Ideas Competition was launched on 25 February of 2020 and winners were announced in December 2020. As an international competition on rethinking Canadian cities the size of Sudbury (160,000), entrants responded to the initial design brief: This competition challenges entrants to create a new vision for the urban core of the City of Greater Sudbury. A 2050 vision that is far-reaching and one that will serve the city well in a rapidly changing global en...
Many of our Canadian cities and towns currently find themselves in need of revival and renewal. Disinvestment in the public realm, decentralization – exacerbated during the COVID 19 Pandemic – vacancies and abandonment - including brownfields and grayfields – are some of the many challenges which they currently face. Both dwindling tax bases, and depleted revenue streams, make more formal and top-down urban strategies less tenable. Prevailing Modernist paradigms such as urban ...
To speak of participatory conservation typically brings to mind cases where citizens mobilise to protect threatened forms of material heritage in ‘downtown’ contexts or ‘natural’ spaces at the rural-urban fringe, which in turn is a locus for efforts toward ecological recovery. Less commonly do we think of participation, conservation, and ecological recovery in the everyday (post)suburban landscapes found across Canada. In this paper we explore how densification, diversification, and co...
Architectural history and heritage have historically been defined by superlatives. Vernacular traditions and local histories, on the other hand, have often been pushed to the margins or overlooked. These everyday spaces and places are often relegated to the quotidian, and perceived as unworthy of recognition. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, has changed our daily lives, and in many cases, our values. Now, we have been forced to see the everyday in a new light. What might this n...
Oromocto, NB was known as “Canada’s Model Town” in 1959. This New Town was a collaborative design between Central Mortgage and Housing’s Architecture & Planning Division and the Department of National Defense’ s consultant, McGill Professor Harold Spence-Sales. Oromocto offered utility as a New Town and well-designed neighbourhoods servicing the needs of Canadian Forces Base Gagetown’s soldiers and their families. Oromocto was a CMHC showcase for inexpensive Modern homes and good neigh...
Basketball was invented in 1891 by James Naismith, a Canadian, at the International YMCA College in Massachusetts. As a student, Lyman Archibald (a native of Nova Scotia) played on this first basketball team. Soonafter, Archibald moved to St. Stephen, New Brunswick to oversee the town’s YMCA. He introduced the new sport, and the first game in Canada was played here on October 17, 1893. Undoubtedly, the participants who lodged a leather ball into peach baskets that day would have neve...
Walking tour of the working-class housing and churches of Saint-Pierre-Apôtre and Sainte-Brigide-de-Kildare (now the Sainte-Brigide Cultural and Community Centre) in the south-central district of Montreal.The tour will be guided by Luc Noppen.A departure (by foot) will be organized from the conference site; the tour itself will begin at 5:00 pm at the Beaudry metro station (a metro station of Berri-UQAM, site of the conference).
Saturday 28 May, 2022
Since the 19th century, citizens grouped within different types of associations, from the learned society to the friends of heritage, have been interested in local history and, by extension, in the traces of these on the territory. This citizen contribution is expressed in many ways. First of all, while such historical society groupings have a venerable past, their proliferation and their commitment to defend the archives, to s...
Founded in 1972 by a citizens' group of academics and preservation activists, the Frontenac Heritage Foundation turns 50 years of age. It continuously advocates for conservation of the built-environment, awards certificates for noteworthy preservation efforts throughout the Frontenac County area, publishes a newsletter, and carries on various other educational activities. Initially, on the model of such bodies as Historic Annapolis in the USA, the FHF purchased at-risk properties and with ...
During the late 1960s, the city of Toronto was facing a critical question with the potential to radically transform its urban fabric: will the future be for cars or for people? The construction of the Spadina Expressway promised to ease traffic congestion for those living outside of the city centre but galvanized citizens groups within to resist what was seen as a destructive renewal project that would lead to the indiscriminate destruction of neighbourhoods and dislocation of communities....
Nearly forty historical societies and heritage associations are active on the island of Montreal. Some are very old, but most are more recent. Some are very well known, most work in the shadows. Nevertheless, all these associations play an essential role in the community. They not only involve hundreds of volunteers but also reach thousands of citizens. Their action is multifaceted.We are currently conducting a research project in co...
Ramps and curb cuts often first come to mind when one thinks about how the built environment is designed for people with disabilities. Accessible designs, however, need to account for individuals that may not be restricted in terms of mobility but live with other impairments such as blindness or neurological and cognitive conditions. Ideally, an architectural design will allow all users to feel as though they are included and not judged. This s...
Bus tour of the Soulanges Canal and its facilities (1899-1959), currently undergoing a major enhancement project. The first stop will be at the west entrance of the canal, the Coteau-Landing (Les Coteaux) entrance lock; from there, we will go to lock no. 4 and to the old Cedars hydroelectric power station (called "Petit Pouvoir"), classified as a historic monument since 1984 by the Quebec government, then to Pointe-des-Cascades where the spectacular locks no. 1, 2 and 3 are located. The vi...
We offer a unique experience for the closing dinner of this conference in Montreal, in the former U.S. pavilion of Expo'67 - the most popular of the exhibition, with 5.3 million visitors: the "geodesic dome" designed by architect Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) with the collaboration of Shoji Sadao. The self-supporting steel honeycomb structure, covered with a polymer skin, was burned down in 1976 and redeveloped in the 1990s, according to the plans of architect Éric Gauthier, into an envir...