Ernest Cormier and the Université de Montréal

Ernest Cormier (1885-1980) has long been regarded in Canada as the most outstanding architect of his generation. This fully illustrated, detailed analysis of his pavilion at the Université de Montréal is the first to clearly establish Cormier's work as a significant part of an international movement in which North American and European influences converge.Among Cormier's major buildings which include the Montréal Criminal Courthouse Annex, the Supreme Court of Canada, and his own house, the main pavilion at the Université de Montréal pioneered modem institutional building in Québec. Today it stands as a landmark work of 1920s architecture whose vast scale was influenced by the Chicago Tribune Competition rather than by European issues of rationalist form.The essays also discuss Cormier's early training as an engineer and his elegant and skillful use of such modem materials as reinforced concrete and of yellow American-made glazed brick in the creation of a personal monumental vocabulary that ushered Canadian architecture into a new era. Included in the more than 100 illustrations is a magnificent current photographic survey of the main pavilion by Gabor Szilasi.Isabelle Gournay is a graduate of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. She lives and works in Atlanta where she combines research and teaching.Centre Canadien d'Architecture/ The Canadian Centre for Architecture.