George BAIRD

1939 - 2023

George Baird CM, FRAIC, OAA (retired) B.Arch, University of Toronto 1962, AM (Hons) Harvard, 1994, Doctor of Engineering (Hons) University of Waterloo, 2011 August 25, 1939 - October 17, 2023 After a slow decline in his health, George Baird died in his sleep on October 17, 2023. George was born on August 25, 1939, in the Women's College Hospital, where his mother's physician was Marion Hilliard, the famed pioneering feminist medical doctor. His mother was Gertrude Mary (1908-1972), and his father George Charles (1904-1968). He is survived by his loving sister, Susan Carol. His early years were spent on the far eastern edge of the Township of North York. Although his parents' home was not a farm, they were surrounded by farmland. His aunt Margaret, an elementary school teacher, home schooled him for one year, with the result that when he did start formal elementary school, it was in Grade 2. His first year of school was in a local one-room schoolhouse, but in his second year he was transferred by bus to the Don School at Don Mills Road and Lawrence Avenue. There, his best friend was Stephen Crisp, whose father was the gardener for F. R. Wood, whose mansion on Bayview Avenue was designed by the famed New York firm Delano and Aldrich. On occasion, after school, he was taken home with Stephen, and – Mr. Wood being by then quite elderly and infirm – he would wander around the huge estate. He had two distinct recollections from that time: a lawn that it was Stephen's father's task to keep immaculate; and second, a visit to the interior of the mansion where he saw his first painting by Auguste Renoir. There being no high school close to his parents' home, the North York Board of Education made an arrangement with the East York Board for him to attend East York Collegiate. And so one fall day in 1952, he found himself milling around with a crowd of boys outside East York Collegiate – not one of whom he knew - waiting to be admitted to the building. He was terrified. Despite this difficult beginning, he eventually acclimatized himself to East York – and indeed even prospered there – with help from two friends: Gary Gray - who has remained a close friend up until his death - and later, Ralph Gorcey. So comfortable was he there that he was selected as class valedictorian. In the fall of 1957, he joined the incoming class in architecture at the University of Toronto, where he quickly made friends with four classmates: Paul Barnard, Carl Hall, Blandford Gates, and most of all, Ted Teshima. While in the architecture program there, he participated in the Hart House Finnish Exchange in 1959 – his first trip to Europe – and in the 1961 WUSC Seminar in Sweden, where he met James Lorimer from Winnipeg, who remained a close friend. Upon graduation, he began working for Jerome Markson, an architect whose work he much admired. That same year, George met Elizabeth Davis; they were married in 1963. At the same time, he had become a British Council Scholar, and so in the fall of 1964, the couple set out for London. They spent the next three years there, while he worked on a dissertation at the University of London. He did not know it beforehand, but he had landed in the middle of the most intense discussion about architecture that was proceeding in the world at that time. His supervisor was Robert Maxwell, and he introduced George to Joseph Rykwert, Alan Colquhoun, James Stirling and Kenneth Frampton. He also made close friends with Charles Jencks, an American classmate at University College London. Together, Charles and George published their first book: Meaning in Architecture, a collection of essays based on his dissertation research. The book made them both minor celebrities on the London architectural scene. He also published his second book: Alvar Aalto. In 1967, Elizabeth and George returned to Toronto, and in 1968 he joined the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Toronto. He also began his architectural firm, George Baird Architect. As the result of an extraordinary turn of events, in 1972, four recent graduates of the school proposed to join this small practice, without being paid. As a result, George was joined by Joost Bakker, Bruce Kuwabara, Barry Sampson and John van Nostrand. This arrangement lasted for a few years, and Barry Sampson remained, and the firm became Baird Sampson Associates, Architects. Barry Sampson died in 2020, but the other three remained friends until his death. Finally, with the arrival of Jon Neuert, it became Baird Sampson Neuert Architects. After Barry Sampson's death, Jon Neuert took over the management of the firm. In 1974, Geoffrey James, then the Visual Arts Officer, invited George to a Canada Council retreat in Richmond, Quebec. There, he met Phyllis Lambert, who went on to found the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal, and who remained a friend until his death. In 1978, he was invited to co-curate and exhibition of Canadian architecture in Berlin together with his colleague, George Kapelos, who remained a friend ever after. George remained on the Faculty at U of T until 1993, despite growing dissatisfaction with the way the University was treating the Faculty. When in 1992 he was offered a position at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, he decided to accept it. This led to an eleven-year weekly commute during the academic term between Toronto where he lived and Cambridge, Massachusetts where he taught. While he was at Harvard, he became Director of two academic programs, and also published two more books: The Space of Appearance – the long overdue dissertation – and Writings on Architecture and the City, an anthology of his occasional essays for other publications. In 2003, George was offered the Deanship at the University of Toronto and decided to end his commute. The reconstruction of the Faculty had already begun under his predecessor, Larry Richards. He did not need to recruit a lot of new faculty, but he took a number of Richards' hires through the tenure process. Probably his most important accomplishment was – with the assistance of Ron Daniels, who had been the Dean of Law at U of T concurrently with his Deanship – to negotiate a $14 million gift from Ron Daniel's uncle, alumnus John Daniels, and his wife, Myrna. About to turn 70 in 2004, George decided to step down from the Deanship. Since then, until his recent decline in health, he continued to teach. He also published one more book: Public Space; Cultural/Political Theory; Street Photography. In 2010, George was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada; in 2012, he was awarded the Topaz Medallion by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture and the American Institute of Architects; and in 2016 he was invested in the Order of Canada. In 2022, George's health began to gradually fail. He wanted to express his gratitude to a number of people, first of all his faithful office manager of many years, Elizabeth Barry; and his personal trainer, Brian Anderson. He was also especially grateful for the care he received from his medical team: Dr. Stephanie Inouye, his primary care physician; his cardiologists, Dr. Husam Abdel-Qadir and Dr. Natasha Aleksova, their nurse practitioner, Holly Rector, all at Women's College Hospital; and his kidney specialist, Dr. Asad Merchant at Toronto General Hospital. They all went far beyond the call of duty. Above all, George wished to honour his beloved wife, Elizabeth. There will be a celebration of George's life at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture early in the new year. Charitable donations may be made online to the George Baird Memorial Fund at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at: https://engage.utoronto.ca/george-baird