The Future of the Canadian House in ...1954
With circumspection and little nostalgia, the CCC presents the laureate projects for the 1954 competition entitled: "International Calvert House Competition for the Canadian Home of Tomorrow." 1600 registrants and an astounding 661 submission from 17 countries made this a major event in Canadian architecture circles in the 1950s. Where are we now in terms of these interesting predictions of house and home?
Being free of nostalgia, while having an eye towards circumspection, the CCC presents the laureate projects for 1954's "International Calvert House Competition for the Canadian Home of Tomorrow." As a major event in Canadian architecture circles in the 1950s, this competition saw 1600 registrants and obtained 661 proposals from 17 countries. Over fifty years later we ask: How have we faired with respect to the vision of house and home that was projected in this post-war era?
Canada in the 1950s was privy to a number of important competitions for public buildings : The National Gallery in Ottawa (1953), The Civic Auditorium in Vancouver (1956), and Toronto City Hall (1958). These prominent buildings were a symbol of civic power and are still influential in their respective urban environments. The same cannot be said of the projects proposed in the Calvert House competition, whose domestic influence has been limited and as such, have not been a factor in shaping the history of Canadian architecture. What to think of this missed opportunity for architects to shape 'domestic desires' back in the 50s, when the form and style of our homes is still such a hot topic for debate in this new millennium? At the time, the Calvert homes were published in a catalogue available for sale, in a concerted effort to make them accessible at large. Consequently, it is of interest to reconstitute the journey of a certain number of these homes in an effort to better comprehend the outcome of this unusual and large-scale meeting of architecture and the domestic environment.
After World War Two, housing in Canada was a top priority. The projects selected in the 1954 Calvert House competition mark the entry of certain modernist architectural values into the domestic realm. With its manifestation of technical and aesthetic innovations, the Calvert House entries were a far cry from the CMHC housing competition of 1946. A quick look at the CCC documentation of both of these competitions reveals a dramatic change from one to the next. The traditional homes with decorated façades presented in 1946, make way, in 1954, for typically modernist attributes such as flat roofs, continuity of space, ribbon windows, pergolas, abstract compositions, and asymmetry. Should this emulation of the international mind-set be attributed to the favourable reputation of Calvert House's jury members? (Professors John Bland and Pierre Morency as professional advisors and Italian architect Gio Ponti as jury president.) It is interesting to note that Leap researchers have determined through comparative research methods, that most times, a good competition is highly dependant on the calibre of its jury.
Sponsored by the McGill University School of Architecture and Calvert's Distillers Ltd, the Calvert House competition was without a doubt one of the most important events on the Canadian architecture scene in the 1950s. Open to students and professionals in Canada and abroad, the competition sought the future form of the Canadian house for families at the start of the Baby Boom. Offering a total of $12000 in prize money, the competition garnered 1600 registrants. In the end, 661 proposals from 17 different countries were rendered.
Professional advisors for the competition were John Bland, director of McGill University's School of Architecture from 1941 to 1972, and Pierre Morency, head of the architecture section at the École des Beaux-arts de Montréal. The jury was composed of Italian architect and designer Gio Ponti, editor of Domus magazine; Professor Eric Arthur of the University of Toronto School of Architecture; Architect and Urbanist Hemphrey Carver of the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation. The generous $12000 purse was divided into a $5000 international prize, a $2500 European prize, a $2500 Canadian prize, and ten honourable mentions of $200 each.
According to Calvert Distillers' president Samuel Bronfman, "The International Calvert House Competition... was conceived as a positive contribution to the development of Canadian life, and as an aid to our young Canadians whose way of life is strongly influenced by their home environment. Hearth and home play a tremendous part in shaping our society..." (1). The requirements of the competition program were for a centrally heated, single-family home for five people (3 of which were children under the age of 15). Provisions were made for the family car, yet no requirements were put forth with regards to budget or materials. The only specifications were that it "should be in good taste, simple in design and pleasant in color without being impractical to maintain or too costly to build." (2)
Jury member Eric Arthur commented that "the competition was valuable for two reasons. It introduced a standard of draftsmanship from Europe immeasurably higher than anything we know in this country or the United States. It also gave us an opportunity to 'see ourselves as others see us'. One can appreciate the difficulty of visualizing the Canadian house of tomorrow as its author sits on the edge of a Norwegian fiord or on the shores of a Scottish loch. The difficulty is only slightly relieved by sitting on the shores of Lake Ontario or on a peak at Banff. As a result, it was a competition in which the jury and competitors were delightfully free from the frustrating regulations of municipal by-laws, or even of consideration of materials that are customarily found in the suburban sections of Canadian metropolitan centres." (4)
Within its report, the jury recognized in the three laureate projects, "primarily a high degree of simplicity and style, a very human interpretation of the life of a family in both moral and spiritual terms which is given by the intimacy of the first, while in the other two it is given by a brave confidence with life outside, more lively in one and more calm in the other." (3)
By highlighting simplicity at the level of both the proposed plans and aesthetics, the jury admired the flexibility within the plans that on occasion permitted a variety of interior configurations. The jury also noted that in a majority of the projects, interior washrooms and kitchens opened onto dining rooms, but not towards the exterior. Furthermore, there was a lack of attention paid to garbage disposal and removal, and to the arrival of goods. Despite this, there was an important focus on space dedicated to the children and their games. Looking at the projects with contemporary eyes, we can simply say that they demonstrate the arrival of a set of new family habits and values which, since the Second World War, have brought important changes to Canadian housing.
Following the competition, a publication entitled "Winning Designs" (1955), showed the plans and perspectives of the thirteen top projects, thus offering the everyday citizen the option to select and purchase one of the proposals.
Unfortunately, we have been unable to find information on any of the projects beyond the winners. In all likelihood, their drawings are lost and we will never know what their proposals entailed. According to newspaper clippings of the era, we know that one of the entries was for a house in the form of an igloo. We can surmise that there were a number of quirky proposals and even a few that may have been too innovative for the jury to consider, keeping in mind the requirements of constructability put forth by the competition organizers. Most importantly, it would beneficial to discover which of the winning projects were built across the country and with what frequency. Their incidence would give us a better picture of this competition's influence on the landscape of the Canadian domestic environment. Needless to say, we have only scratched the surface of this competition.
(CCC text)
Notes:
(1) Winning designs: International Calvert House Competition for the Canadian home of tomorrow. Montréal, Calver Distillers, 1955. 16p, ill.
(2) Architectural Record, vol. 115, January 1954.
(3) Architectural Record, vol. 116, August 1954.
(4) Journal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. August, 1954.
| Jury president |
Gio Ponti, Architecte
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| Jury | Eric Arthur, Architecte |
| | Humphrey Carver, Urbaniste |
| | Gio Ponti, Architecte |
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December 15, 1953: Conditions issued
March 14, 1954: Deadline for notification of intention to compete
April 1, 1954: Deadline for submission of designs
May 20, 1954: Jury
August, 1954 Competition results
(From competition brief)
Concours Calvert House pour la maison canadienne de demain, Architecture contemporaine dans le monde. Architecture d'aujourd'hui, 1955
International Calvert House Competition, Journal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, 1954
Calver Distillers, Winning designs: International Calvert House Competition for the Canadian home of tomorrow, 1955
Calvert Distilleries, Plans primes: Concours Calvert House pour la maison canadienne de demain, 1955
Les 3 gagnants du concours international Calvert House, Architecture bâtiment construction, 1954
Commentaires sur le jugement et le concours, Architecture bâtiment construction, 1954
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