This book examines the exceptional work of Van Ginkel Associates, the office of husband and wife Sandy Van Ginkel and Blanche Lemco, whose significance in the development of Canadian architecture and planning can hardly be overestimated. With a multitude of international relations – including Team Ten, Hendrik Wijdeveld, Aldo van Eyck, Sven Markelius, Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn – they connected the radical new ideas of avant-garde architects in Europe with the Canadian context, where modern architecture and planning were still in their infancy.
Based on extensive research in the VGA Archive and interviews with Blanche Lemco and others, this book offers a concise introduction to the fascinating life and ideas of the Van Ginkels and their office, emphasizing not built outcomes but their highly conceptual approach and their lateral thinking. This is also a story of traveling ideas: how the Van Ginkels absorbed, developed, and mediated novel concepts and approaches and introduced them to a rapidly evolving, and urbanizing, Canada.
