Rhodri Windsor Liscombe and Michelangelo Sabatino. Canada: Modern Architectures in History. London: Reaktion Books, 2016. 392 pp.

Richly illustrated and under four hundred pages in length, the book offers a tightly framed overview of Canadian architectural history spanning more than a century, touching on developments in urban planning, landscape architecture, and the allied arts. The writing is concise and to the point, but with little room left for reflection and summary the book’s brevity can also be frustrating. Students and non-expert readers may find the text difficult at times owing to the sheer density of information. The authors define architectural modernism through its relationship to two, interrelated contexts: firstly, the political, financial, industrial, and sociocultural evolution of Canadian society, and secondly, a consumer-driven economy characterized by technological change and urban-suburban growth. These two contexts act as a frame for viewing architecture that renders it de facto modern while reflecting in it a series of transformations to Canadian society at large. Other developments serve to underscore the peculiarities of Canadian practice, including a surge in cultural nationalism during the 1960s which led Canadian architects to adapt modernist principles with greater sensitivity to address issues of site and liveability, a phenomenon the authors refer to as “contextual modernism.” Each of the five chapters is framed by events familiar to historians of all stripes, from the opening Canada’s transcontinental railway in 1886, to the two world wars, Expo ’67, and the defeat of Trudeau’s liberals and their “just society” in 1984. The selection of case studies is based on eight thematic categories: dwelling, connecting, learning, representing, working, constructing, consuming, and recreating. Through the waxing and waning of these categories we are meant to register Canadians’ shifting priorities as political and economic events wrought changes to the country. The book is mostly democratic in its geographical representation, although a greater portion is dedicated to Canada’s three largest cities, and among these Vancouver looms large. The authors are forthright in acknowledging that modernism had certain regional biases built into it since architectural education, wealth, and expertise coalesced in urban areas. However, this unevenness is also representative of the current state of modern architecture scholarship in Canada, a field that is still very much in its infancy. Other themes help unify a long view of architectural modernism, such as architecture’s role in nurturing the rise of consumer society or showcasing federalist policy. This latter theme is especially evident after 1945 when infrastructure and housing were pillars of welfare state ideology, and as modern architecture spread throughout the public sphere following a surge in cultural, educational, and religious commissions. The dramatic effect of post-war reconstruction is also palpable in sub-urban expansion where modern housing at once ratified ideas about the role of women and the nuclear family in post-war Canadian society. This socio-political lens culminates in the final two chapters, bracketed by Pierre Trudeau’s social liberal policies and a neo-liberal shift to laisser-faire capitalism that—paradoxically—made pressing issues out of social and affordable housing. The authors coin this phase “regenerative modernism,” a term that implicitly welcomes architecture’s renewed social mandate. Spanning the period 1985 to the present, the last chapter provides a much needed survey of contemporary architecture and highlights the changing nature of the profession itself following an all-encompassing digital turn and spike in multi-national practices. The book’s greatest weakness is its excessive use of formal analysis as a mode of architectural inquiry. In addition to placing undue emphasis on the exterior of buildings, this focus fails to capture developments in the programmatic, social, and experiential spheres. It also discounts recent scholarship which asserts architecture’s role in shaping ideas about ethnicity, class, and sexuality, as well as the importance of architectural interiors as a …