The National Gallery of Canada to Present ARTISTS, ARCHITECTS, AND ARTISANS, 11/8-2/2

At the National Gallery of Canada
From November 8, 2013 to February 2, 2014

OTTAWA, Nov. 6, 2013 /CNW/ – Beginning November 8, and until February 2, 2014, the National Gallery of Canada (NGC) invites the public to immerse itself in Canada at the turn of the 20 th century by walking through its ambitious exhibition Artists, Architects and Artisans: Canadian Art 1890 – 1918. Bringing together more than 320 objects, this fascinating exhibition explores the energetic productivity of art makers and designers during a prosperous time in Canadian history. Organized by the NGC, Artists, Architects and Artisans: Canadian Art 1890 – 1918 is sponsored by Heffel Fine Art Auction House. For more information, visit www.gallery.ca/aaa and watch the interview with NGC Curator of Canadian Art and exhibition co-curator Charles Hill.

“Artists, Architects and Artisans breaks new art historical ground,” explained NGC Director and CEO Marc Mayer. “It’s not the final word on a period of immense creativity in Canada. It is, rather, a proposal for new ways to look at the history of the arts in our country, offering viewers and scholars numerous themes to be pursued and expanded in the future.”

The exhibition examines the architecture, urban plans, decorative painting, applied arts, graphic design and photography of Canada’s first boom period, when artistic quality reached a level previously unknown in the country’s short history.

Among the many artists featured are painters Ozias Leduc, George Reid, Marc-Aurle de Foy Suzor-Ct, Tom Thomson and Lawren Harris; sculptors Louis-Philippe Hbert and Alfred Lalibert; photographers Sydney Carter and Harold Mortimer Lamb; and architects Edward et William Maxell, Percy Nobbs and Samuel Maclure.

1890 – 1918: a prosperous and prolific era in Canada
The decades following the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1886 to the end of the First World War saw Canada grow from an awkward alliance of formerly independent colonies to an agricultural and industrial nation. Optimism and a new spirit of national pride marked the peak boom years, stimulated by the immense growth in population due to immigration. Urban growth demanded new buildings, which became shells for civic ambitions and new opportunities for art workers. From the furnishings and interiors of a house, to the design and decoration of a public building, to the planning of the streetscape and larger urban fabric, it was an age of reform. Artists, architects and artisans worked together in cooperative ventures, introducing painting into architecture, design and furniture.

One exhibition, one national portrait
Entering the first room of Artists, Architects and Artisans: Candian Art 1890 – 1918, visitors are greeted by Alfred Lalibert’s lively bronze sculpture Boy with Turkey (Air), 1915, brought from Montreal’s March Maisonneuve for the duration of the exhibition. This sculpture and Boy with Fish, 1915, which stands at the exit, have been generously loaned by the City of Montreal.

Walking through a dozen rooms in the exhibition, visitors will discover numerous objects – painted murals, detailed architectural drawings and plans, prints, photographs, sculptures, finely crafted jewellery, ceramics, metalwork, furniture, stained glass, and textiles – from across Canada, from Halifax and Charlottetown to the le d’Orlans, Trois-Rivires, Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Regina, Calgary, Edmonton, Burnaby, Vancouver and Victoria.

About the curators
The National Gallery of Canada’s Curator of Canadian Art, Charles Hill, is the lead curator of Artists, Architects and Artisans: Canadian Art 1890 – 1918. During the six years of exhibition planning, he was supported by the expertise of a curatorial team: NGC Associate Curator of Photographs Andrea Kunard, as well as curators and art historians Christine Boyanoski, Laurier Lacroix, Rosalind Pepall, Bruce Russell and Geoffrey Simmins.

Charles Hill has worked in the National Gallery of Canada’s curatorial department for Canadian art for more than 40 years. As Curator of Canadian Art, he is responsible for acquisitions, research and presentation of historic Canadian paintings, sculpture and decorative arts. Mr. Hill was appointed a member of the Order of Canada in 2000, received an Honorary Doctorate from Concordia University, Montreal, in 2007, and was given the Award of Distinguished Service by the Canadian Museums Association in 2012.

Catalogue
Artists, Architects and Artisans: Canadian Art 1890-1918 is accompanied by a catalogue, containing over 400 illustrations, which shows how art makers and designers in various disciplines promoted an aesthetic that integrated art in all aspects of daily life. Published by the NGC, the 340-page volume features a foreword by the Gallery’s Director, as well as essays by Charles Hill, Andrea Kunard, Laurier Lacroix, Geoffrey Simmins, Rosalind Pepall, Christine Boyanoski and Bruce Russell. The catalogue is on sale at the NGC Bookstore for $45 and at www.ShopNGC.ca, the Gallery’s online boutique.

Read more about The National Gallery of Canada to Present ARTISTS, ARCHITECTS, AND ARTISANS, 11/8-2/2 – BWWVisual ArtsWorld by www.broadwayworld.com

Design of new Engineering building at the University of Toronto unveiled

The design for the University of Toronto’s new Centre for Engineering Innovation & Entrepreneurship (CEIE) was recently unveiled. The landmark CEIE is targeted for opening in late 2016 on the St. George Campus, adjacent to Convocation Hall.

As the conceptual plan shows, the building will move beyond the traditional lecture hall and classroom with unique collaborative learning and hands-on design spaces. These spaces will allow for a variety of configurations to promote dynamic group work as well as formal teacher-student presentations. The building also features dedicated space for alumni and industry partners to meet with students and collaborate with faculty while at U of T.

“It will, quite simply, provide the environment to nurture the innovator and the creator inside our students and prepare them to lead on a global level,” said Cristina Amon, Dean, Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. “The CEIE brings together the talents of the entire faculty and the broader university to create the next solutions in engineering. It provides the space, facilities and collaborative environment to encourage students, researchers, alumni and industry partners to work together to get great ideas off the ground.”

The schematic design from Montgomery Sisam Architects of Toronto and UK-based Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios includes the Lee & Margaret Lau Auditorium, a 500-seat interactive space meant to optimize audience engagement. The CEIE plans also incorporate smart building concepts, which integrates heating, cooling, electrical and communications systems into a single network, providing greater energy efficiency.

A $1-million commitment from the Engineering Society is earmarked for a unique space on the lower level where student club members can socialize, hold events and collaborate on group projects. The Society’s contribution demonstrates undergraduates’ recognition of the importance of this new student space.

“The building will encourage innovative collaboration by bringing together research and educational centres and institutes within a single building that address many of the emerging initiatives within the Faculty,” said Professor Emeritus Ron Venter (MIE), who leads the building’s planning committee.

“These include sustainable energy, infrastructure, water, robotics, design and advanced manufacturing, global engineering opportunities and leadership in technical and social innovation.”

U of T Engineering’s Entrepreneurship Hatchery, for example, will have a home in the new building. The Hatchery fosters undergraduates’ entrepreneurial ventures with the help of mentors, venture capitalists and other professionals.

The University of Toronto Institute for Sustainable Energy will also be housed at the CEIE. The Institute is an inclusive multidisciplinary initiative designed to bring together researchers, students, and teachers from across the university, together with partners from industry and government. Its goal is to increase energy efficiency and reduce the environmental impact of energy use and conversion.

“The building will help foster the best in entrepreneurial engineering,” said George Myhal (IndE 7T8), Chair of Engineering’s Campaign Executive Committee – whose $5-million gift was among the first in support of the building. “We will see many innovative and exciting solutions emerge from this building,” he added.

Donations announced on Oct. 29 at the design unveiling include significant gifts totalling over $10 million from the Engineering Society, Lee (ElecE 7T7, MEng 8T2) and Margaret Lau, and an anonymous donor. These donations build on the momentum of previously announced gifts from Bill (ChemE 6T7) and Kathleen Troost, whose donation will provide space for the Institute for Leadership Education in Engineering (ILead); Peter (CivE 6T2) and Jocelyn Allen, and Paul Cadario (CivE 7T3), whose contribution to the Centre for Global Engineering (CGEN) includes support for CGEN in CEIE. The U of T Engineering community has so far secured more than $50 million toward the building.

Source: http://www.canadianarchitect.com/news/design-of-new-engineering-building-at-the-university-of-toronto-unveiled/1002697853/

Can Architecture Make Us More Creative?

What do MIT’s Building 20, the Ancient Greek Agora, 18^th Century British teahouses, and early 20^th century Parisian cafés have in common?

They were some of the most creative spaces in the world.

People who gathered there would interact. People, such as Socrates or Chomsky or Edison, exchanged ideas, argued about morals, and discussed technologies. They participated in an informal discourse driven by passionate involvement.

And these places, although for different reasons, fostered interaction by bringing people together and giving them a place to talk. As Jonah Lehrer put it, “the most creative spaces are those which hurl us together. It is the human friction that makes the sparks.”

The question, then, is how can contemporary architecture foster the same kind of creativity?

To learn more about architecture and its role in creativity and learning, keep reading after the break.

In 1942, in the midst of WWII, MIT’s Radiation Lab required expansion. Under direction of the military, the lab was developing radar technologies for fighter jets that helped to identify enemy bombers, a task for which the school hired hundreds of scientists. To accommodate the increased and immediate need, the school constructed Building 20, a 250,000 square foot, timber frame structure. Designed as a temporary solution in a single afternoon, and built in six months, the building prioritized space needs over design. It did not even pass fire code (it was given exemption as a temporary structure).

Courtesy of historum.com – 1920′s Parisian Cafe

Despite its physical shortcomings, which included leaks, poor ventilation, and heating and cooling problems, the building quickly became a center of groundbreaking military research. After the war, when the building was set for demolition, MIT found itself once again pressed for space. So, instead of demolishing it, they used it as space for overflow. In moved an eclectic group of departments and groups, including the Research Laboratory of Electronics, the Laboratory for Nuclear Science, the Linguistics Department, the R.O.T.C., the particle accelerator (is this a group?), and many other equally diverse groups.

The result was an eccentric amalgam of people who knew little to nothing about each other, suddenly thrust together within the walls of what seemed like an awful building. “And yet, by the time it was finally demolished, in 1998, Building 20 had become a legend of innovation, widely regarded as one of the most creative spaces in the world” (Jonah Leherer). Over its forty years, the building had amassed an almost unbelievable track record of breakthroughs. It saw, for example, the first video game, the first advances in physics behind microwaves, major developments in high-speed photography, the creation of the Bose Corporation, modern computer hacking, etc.

Why? The large and confusing building forced all different types of scientists and thinkers to interact. It did so by simply putting them close together, with no real means of hermitage. People often got lost and had to ask for directions. Others got hungry and had no choice but to patronize the single vending machine. Everyone had to use the long hallways. At the end of the day, you couldn’t help but run into people.

Each of these informal, yet powerful symptoms of Building 20 not only forced its inhabitants to speak, it did so in an environment that fostered discourse. “In a vertical layout with small floors, there is less research variety on each floor. Chance meetings in an elevator tend to terminate in the lobby, whereas chance meetings in a corridor tended to lead to technical discussions,” explains Henry Zimmerman, an electrical engineer whose office was in the building for years.

© tmrc.mit.edu – Building 20 (aerial)

Building 20’s success is also a result of its temporariness. Because it was only meant to last a few years, and no one had much of an interest in its longevity, researchers felt free to manipulate it to fit their needs. This was as simple as knocking down walls without asking and as odd as bolting things to the roof. One scientist working on the first atomic clock, to make room for a three-story tall cylinder, cut holes through two floors of his lab.

This flexibility kept the building alive and moving with the sway of its inhabitants. It was not restrictive, and in fact promoted original creation. In the words of Richard Rogers, it was an “architecture rather like some music and poetry which can actually be changed by the users, an architecture of improvisation.” It was not static and independent. It was interactive.

The example of Building 20 bears both good and bad news for architecture. Bad: architects had nothing to do with its success. Good: the building did. So, it is from this accidentally profound space that architects looking to design for creativity must learn.

Lesson one: make people interact.

Historically, the most creative places in the world, which I might define as those places that have produced the most number of significant original ideas, depend on discourse. Take the examples mentioned above: the Ancient Greek Agora; the 18^th century teahouses where the Enlightenment developed; or early 20^th century Paris cafés where modernism was born and grew up.

Raphael. The School of Athens. 1511.

The sociologist Ray Oldenburg calls these spaces the “third place,” environments separate from home or work where people gather and, more importantly, collide. As Stephen Johnson puts it, “The collisions that happen when different fields of expertise converge in shared physical space…that’s where the true sparks fly.” These places were truly creative because they fostered generative interactions between people.

Those interactions lead to what Jane Jacobs, the famous urban theorist, called “knowledge spillovers” – those instances when ideas cross-fertilize. People are very good at repurposing or recycling ideas, they just need to hear them.

Why can’t architecture act as their hearing aids?

The point of this “third place,” then, is twofold: first, architects should consider it as a programmatic possibility – a place solely for discourse; and second, architects should acknowledge the significance of interaction and collision in the everyday. That is, spaces should promote this type of discourse comprehensively, as a logic for the architecture itself.

18th Century Tea House in England

Two recent studies on research practice make quite a good case for this point. Isaac Kohane, a Harvard Medical School Researcher, conducted a study on research done in groups to determine the influence of the researchers’ proximity and the quality of their research:

“He analyzed more than thirty-five thousand peer-reviewed papers, mapping the precise location of co-authors. Then he assessed the quality of the research by counting the number of subsequent citations…Once the data was amassed, the correlation became clear: when coauthors were closer together, their papers tended to be of significantly higher quality. The best research was consistently produced when scientists were working within ten metres of each other; the least cited papers tended to emerge from collaborators who were a kilometre or more apart. ‘If you want people to work together effectively, these findings reinforce the need to create architectures that support frequent, physical, spontaneous interactions,’ Kohane says. ‘Even in the era of big science, when researchers spend so much time on the Internet, it’s still so important to create intimate spaces.’” (Jonah Lehrer)

It’s good to be close.

Kevin Dunbar, a psychologist at McGill University, studied the generation of ideas within the laboratory by essentially following the scientists around with a video camera:

“Dunbar’s study showed that those isolated eureka moments were rarities. Instead, most important ideas emerged during regular lab meetings, where a dozen or so researchers would gather and informally present and discuss their latest work. If you looked at the map of idea formation that Dunbar created, the ground zero of innovation was not the microscope. It was the conference table… The most productive tool for generating good ideas remains a circle of humans at a table, talking shop. The lab meeting creates an environment where new combinations can occur, where information can spill over from one project to another.” (Johnson 61)

It’s good to talk.

Lesson two: let people tinker & don’t over-plan

Herman Hertzberger once wrote, “Architecture should offer an incentive to its users to influence it wherever possible, not merely to reinforce its identity, but more especially to enhance and affirm the identity of its users.” A building does not lose its character by involving its users. In Building 20, in fact, it was the interaction of user and building that defined the architecture itself. Users had the liberty to adapt a given space to fit their needs, which fostered a generative relationship with the building. They improved the building and the building improved them.

This idea brings with it an acknowledgement that the architect might not be able to predict everything – that there is no comprehensive solution. Often, buildings that are designed under this conception are the most susceptible to ruin. Since they are conceived as completed and static, change can do nothing but harm. But it is ridiculous to assume that nothing will change. Time, itself, will be sure of that. For this reason, Jane Jacobs believed that the “unpredictable nature of innovation meant that it couldn’t be prescribed in advance.”

How, then, can architecture respond both to the immediate needs of users, and to the future changes it will inevitably undergo? Many would argue that modularity is the answer. By standardizing parts, and making them easily moveable, modular systems simplify physical change. On a large-scale, it is easy to both add space, and take it away, just by buying or selling building components. On a small scale, systems of moveable partitions can allow easy space rearrangement.

But the solution is meaningless if the problem is not identified. The architecture must be robust, and welcome its users to take part in the process of making space.

Courtesy of historum.com – 1920′s Parisian Cafe

Architecture is an active participant in the interactions of people within it. Interaction, particularly of the informal type, is paramount to discourse and creativity. Architecture, then, has great potential in the way of fostering a culture of creativity.

In two coming articles, I will explore how architects, planners, and professionals are practically exploring this potential first, in work environments, and second, in education environments.

Source: http://www.archdaily.com/353496/can-architecture-make-us-more-creative/

Bauhaus on the Beach

Samy and Hedy Kamienowicz’s home in the Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles, Calif., was designed by Dan Brunn. More Photos »

By STEVEN KURUTZ

Is it possible for an architect to be adopted by a client?

To hear Dan Brunn talk about Hedy and Samy Kamienowicz, for whom he built a clean-lined but structurally complicated beach house in the Venice neighborhood, one senses he would be happy to move in and call the owners Mom and Dad.

“Samy is a great guy,” Mr. Brunn, 35, said. As for Ms. Kamienowicz, a small, sun-tanned woman of 66 with a direct conversation style, Mr. Brunn gushed, “Hedy is very special.”

Ms. Kamienowicz’s specialness, it seems, rests in large part on the fact that she gave Mr. Brunn the things that every architect craves: a healthy budget and unfettered creative freedom.

“All of my other clients ask: ‘What is this? Can I gain another foot?’ ” Mr. Brunn said. “Here it was just about the art of the building.” The blank areas that a less imaginative homeowner might eye suspiciously as wasted space are there “to experience the house and to experience the beach in different ways,” he added.

Looking across the room at Ms. Kamienowicz, Mr. Brunn said dreamily: “I showed Hedy the original plan and the original model, and she said, ‘Go ahead.’ There weren’t any modifications.”

Ms. Kamienowicz and her 72-year-old husband, who own Samy’s Camera, a photography store with several locations in California, had lived in the San Fernando Valley for years, in a big house where they raised their two daughters. “That house depressed me,” she said. “It was the colors: It was brown. I hate brown.”

Ms. Kamienowicz longed for the beach, but the commute from Malibu to the company’s headquarters on Fairfax Avenue was impractical. Eventually, they bought a condo in Venice Beach and moved their offices to the nearby Playa Vista section.

Still, she said: “After you live in a condo, you kind of want your own place. I wanted my own house and a project, a challenge.”

Ms. Kamienowicz had met Mr. Brunn by happenstance at the camera store, and five years ago she and her husband hired him to build an $8 million, 5,700-square-foot house on a virgin beachfront lot.

Beyond a few simple instructions (no browns; there had to be wall space to hang the couple’s photography collection and an elevator for her husband, who had polio as a child), the couple were hands-off. “If you hire someone with talent,” Ms. Kamienowicz said, “you leave them alone.”

That freedom allowed Mr. Brunn to incorporate some favorite design elements and materials, while experimenting with others. For instance, the wraparound balconies and white scheme echo the Bauhaus architecture he loved as a child in Tel Aviv. And instead of air-conditioning, there is a shallow pool in the front yard that replicates the cooling effect of courtyard fountains Mr. Brunn had seen in Italy.

But the steel skeleton is a departure from the cost-saving combination of steel and wood that he had been forced to use in the past. As are the floor-to-ceiling windows, which were imported from Switzerland and derive their structural support from glass rather than aluminum, creating a sleeker profile.

As Mr. Brunn said: “The whole thing is built like a high-rise. It’s built like a New York skyscraper.”

One of the architect’s biggest challenges was maximizing the ocean views while still providing enough wall space for the couple’s artwork. His novel solution was to transform a second-story wall into a row of interlocking doors that open like louvers to the width of a foot, each bringing a slice of the outside in.

“This really scared me from an engineering standpoint, a weatherproofing standpoint,” he said, demonstrating what he called “flip-flop” doors, which lend the house its name.

Mr. Brunn even suggested the furniture, persuading Ms. Kamienowicz to buy a five-figure Terminal 1 chaise longue from B & B Italia, which sits in the couple’s pared-down bedroom perched above the boardwalk.

For her part, Ms. Kamienowicz said, she couldn’t be happier with the way the home turned out. Standing in the master bedroom, looking out at the joggers and skateboarders and sun worshipers, with the Pacific beyond, she said, “You think this is a great view?” No answer was necessary.

10 tips to be a successful architect

Apart from having the right degrees, experience and license (here in the United States) there are ten things an architect can do to encourage success.
1. At any stage of a career, exceptional work is key to success. Good work transcends barriers to entry. This does not mean you’ve got to be a great designer. One may be an exceptional designer but a poor manager. Another may be an exceptional manager but poor designer. You don’t have to be an amazing designer to be a successful architect. You’ve got to be exceptional at something clients desire, i.e. management, interpersonal skills, business, design, etc…
2. A good portfolio and resume will get your foot in the door. Create something that’s uniquely you, not like everyone else. If you do make sure it’s well made. Otherwise it’s gonna fall flat. When you go out on a limb make it’s sturdy.
3. Make the right contacts (NETWORK) to get into an office you can thrive. Networking means, be nice. Stay in touch. Follow up. Meet in person. Have lunch. Call. Email. Be a friend. It will pay off. It may not mean a job, but it will mean a contact, friendship, learning relationship, mentor and maybe something more valuable long term – a person that will recommend you for the best job you could ever imagine.! You never know. Network through friends. Friends of friends. Teachers. Find emails online. Linked in. Twitter. facebook, etc…
4. Be persistent.
5. Get through the early years of drudgery. From stair details and schedules to endless hours of drafting. Interns pay their dues.
6. Be patient. The architect does drafting, visualization, project management, office management, design, specifications, contracts, client relations, marketing, and construction. If you’re meant to be an architect, you’ll find something you enjoy in that list.
7. Find a good boss. If you work for an architect that values diligence they’ll trust you with more, more quickly.
8. The harsh reality about architecture (I never wanted to believe this is true) is that some successful architects start out with wealth or make wealthy friends – they simply get interesting opportunity sooner or more often. If you’re not rich, make wealthy friends.
9. Word of mouth is important and reputation matters. Get a job, do it well and you’ll get more.
10. Take on as much responsibility as you can. Trial by fire is painful, but it makes
 for a better architect.

Source: http://howtoarchitect.tumblr.com/post/19248198842/10-tips-to-be-a-successful-architect

Check out my Stanford Who’s Who member video!

Learn more…

Hey everyone, take a look at my Stanford Who’s Who website over at: michel-fontaine.info

Medialand Services

About Us

As a reclamation consultancy, Medialand has developed an expertise both in rehabilitation and in site development. Medialand’s global approach seeks to integrate a project with its surrounding environment, thereby maximizing its value.

 

Given the scope of its expertise, Medialand is capable of intervening effectively in all stages of a project, from the creation of the design concept to the preparation of the plans and specifications, as well as the monitoring of the site.

 

 

Our Projects

REHABILITATION & LAND DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS

 

Quarry and industrial site rehabilitation plans and reports

 

-Canada-

– Phase 1 Rehabilitation Master Plan, Varennes Quarry, QC

 – Study of the potential use of four quarry sites, Montreal area, QC

– Rehabilitation Master Plan and construction of visual buffers, St-Constant Plant, QC

 – Gillies Bay Quarry, Texada Island, B.C.

 – Planning of a golf course on an industrial waste pile, St-Constant, QC

– Yamnuska Quarry & Deposition Site Rehabilitation, Exshaw Plant, AB

 – Woodstock and Bath Quarry, ON

 – Kamloops Quarry, BC

 – Brookfield Quarry, NS

 

-United States-

– Tulsa Quarry Rehabilitation, Oklahoma

 – Paxton Shale and Alpena Quarries Reclamation Plans, Michigan

– Ravena Quarry Rehabilitation, New-York

 – Roberta Quarry Rehabilitation – Phase 1, Alabama

 – Paulding Quarry Rehabilitation, Ohio

 – Davenport Quarry Site Rehabilitation, Iowa

 – Site planning for the implementation of a new plant and disused Quarry final reclamation, Sugar Creek, Missouri

– Metalline Falls Plant site rehabilitation, Washington State

 

Courtesy of Medialand

Genivar Enterprises

 

GENIVAR, through its combination with WSP, is one of the world’s leading professional services firms, working with governments, businesses, architects and planners and providing integrated solutions across many disciplines. The firm provides services to transform the built environment and restore the natural environment, and its expertise ranges from environmental remediation to urban planning, from engineering iconic buildings to designing sustainable transport networks, and from developing the energy sources of the future to enabling new ways of extracting essential resources. It has 15,000 employees, mainly engineers, technicians, scientists and architects, as well as various environmental experts, based in more than 300 offices, across 35 countries, on every continent.

 

Our History

 

GENIVAR traces its roots back to 1959. Since its founding and especially in the last decade, our firm has grown through internal expansion and more than 90 acquisitions.

 

In 1959, two engineering services firms, G.B.G.M. Ltd. and Les Consultants Dupuis, Côté Inc., began their operations in Quebec City. In 1987, these firms merged their activities to offer a broader range of engineering services in the building market segment through a merged entity named Groupe-Conseil Solivar Inc. In 1990 and 1992, Groupe-Conseil Solivar completed two acquisitions of firms active in the municipal infrastructure, transportation and environment market segments in order to establish its multidisciplinary full-service approach. In 1993, Groupe-Conseil Solivar proceeded to expand geographically and acquired three firms located in Montreal and then changed its name to GENIVAR.

 

From 1993 to 2006, some 30 firms were acquired, transforming GENIVAR into a multidisciplinary firm with operations across Quebec. GENIVAR also ventured into the Ontario market and the international arena following a key acquisition and the awarding of a major contract.

 

In April 2006, GENIVAR applied for a listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) as an income fund. The move was a resounding success and the GENIVAR Income Fund was listed on the TSX on May 25, 2006. From 2006 to 2012, more than 60 firms come on board, making GENIVAR one of the largest professional services firms in Canada, with offices in all regions. In January 2011, following legislative changes imposed by the federal government, the GENIVAR Income Fund converted to a public corporation known as GENIVAR Inc., still listed on the TSX with the symbol GNV.

 

In August 2012, GENIVAR completed a historic merger with WSP Group PLC, a multi-disciplinary professional services consultancy based in London, U.K., thus becoming one of the world’s leading professional services firms.

Courtesy of Genivar