Collection search - Roderick George Robbie fonds [multiple media]

Record information – Brief
1
Roderick George Robbie fonds [multiple media]

Hierarchical level:

Fonds

Date:

1944-2010.

Reference:

R11569-0-1-E

Type of material:

Architectural and technical drawings, Photographs, Textual material, Art, Moving images

Found in:

Archives / Collections and Fonds

Item ID number:

2120637

Context of this record:

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Roderick George Robbie fonds
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Record information – Details

Fonds includes:

4 lower level description(s)
View lower level description(s)

Date(s):

1944-2010.

Place of creation:

Ontario

Extent:

33,35 m of textual records.
1275 photographs : 582 b&w and 549 col. prints; 144 col. slides.
14253 architectural drawings.
87 drawings : watercolours.
5 videocassettes (66 min) : VHS

Language of material:

English

Scope and content:

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Fonds consists of four series comprising the studies, business and personal archives of Toronto-based architect Roderick George Robbie over a period of seven decades, from his high school days in England to his emeritus days at Robbie/Young & Wright, IBI architects in Toronto. The majority of the material covers the 1970s to the 1990s, with a very strong focus on the 1980s, when the Toronto Skydome was being designed and built.

Successive series deal with:
1 - general administration and accounting records (few survive from before 1980);
2 - material transferred from the original firm's "library" (consisting essentially of research material and surviving project records predating 1980);
3 - promotion and project records essentially dating from after 1980 (one sub-series for promotion material, another one for project files) and;
4 - records relating to Roderick Robbie's private activities.

Focus of the fonds is on Roderick Robbie's personal contribution to the architectural profession. The fonds nonetheless covers major projects such as :
1- a proposal for the developpment of Frobisher Bay, in the early 1960s;
2- the design of the Canadian Government pavilion at Expo 67;
3- the study for Educational Facilities for the Metropolitan Toronto School Board in the late 1960s early 1970s;
4- renovations to William Neilson industrial facilities;
5- the Toronto Skydome;
6- the Ontario College or Art and Design in Toronto;
7- several designs for sports facilities in Canada and abroad which were not realized.

Material includes:
- Canadian and foreign publications, with a strong focus on educational buildings and building systems, "green" architecture;
- research files on the above;
- reports produced by R. Robbie for non-architectural contracts;
- student drawings;
- original architectural drawings (some presentation drawings are in watercolour)
- copies of architectural drawings (annotated or not);
- photographs of buildings under construction or in their final stage;
- correspondence with clients, contractors and regulatory bodies;
- audiovisual material re. promotion of specific projects (mostly Skydome), ;
- some correspondence re. R. Robbie's and his wife Enid's brief involvement in politics.

Provenance:

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Robbie, Roderick George, 1928-2012

Biography/Administrative history:

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Robbie, Roderick George, 1928-2012 : Roderick George Robbie (1928-2012), was a British born Canadian architect.

He trained at London's Regent St. Polytechnic and obtained a diploma in Architecture (Honours) in 1950 and a diploma in Town Planning from the same institution in July 1954. He began his professional career with British rail in 1951. He also served in the British Army, 42nd Survey Engineer Regiment of the Royal Engineers.

He and his wife Enid migrated to Canada in 1956 and he briefly worked with the firm of Belcourt and Blair and then with Peter Dickinson and Associates until 1961 when he founded his own cabinet with Fred Ashworth, Colin Vaughan (future Toronto city councillor) and Richard Williams.

Roderick and Enid Robbie actively participated in movements to ban the use of atomic weapons, militated for the New Democratic Party during the 1960s and for the Liberal party in the 1980s.

Enid Robbie (nee Wheeler) was a graphic artist in her own right. She passed away on December 20, 2001.

While working for Peter Dickinson Associates, Roderick Robbie led the planning and architectural design team which was developing designs for Frobisher Bay, a project which was shelved when John Diefenbaker came to power.

Roderick Robbie was also closely associated with the design of the Expo 67 Canadian Government Pavilion. It was he who came up with the idea of an inverted pyramid, the Katimavik, as the signature feature of the project.

In the late 1960s early 1970s, Roderick Robbie was influential in the development and adoption of systems-based architecture in Canada (standardisation, project management). He developed his expertise as technical director for the « Studies for Educational Facilities » of the Metropolitan Toronto School Board. The programme eventually served in the construction of hundreds of schools in the greater Toronto area and influenced standards and helped redefine the notion of project management as we perceive it today. Mr. Robbie has lectured on the subject both nationally and internationally.

Roderick Robbie also worked on the concept of Autonomous communities: small communities (satellite cities) which could be self-sufficient in many regards. He also touched on "green" architecture before the phrase was coined. His proposals, high level concepts for the most part, did not see the light of day but they nonetheless offer precious testimony of theory and practice from the 1960s to the 1980s. Roderick Robbie won a national award for environmental architecture in 1980.

In addition to the Expo 67 pavilion, Roderick Robbie has given Canada another iconic building: the Toronto Skydome, the first stadium with a fully retractable roof.

Roderick Robbie has designed many other stadiums (not all of them were built) and his design for Beijing's Olympic Stadium (with Marc Allen) was one of the eight finalists.

Several other of his designs (or projects he contributed to) have earned national distinctions : the Seymour Schulich Building of York University was awarded the 2006 Governor General Medal for architecture; the Sharpe Centre of the Ontario College of Arts and Design in Toronto won an international award from the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), an award of excellence of the Toronto Architectural and Design Awards and another from the Canadian Consulting Engineering.

Roderick Robbie was awarded the National Energy Building Award in 1980 (LEBDA), the Quarternario award for technological innovation in architecture in 1990. He became life member of the Royal Institute of Architects of Canada in 1989. Dalhousie University of Halifax has awarded him an honorary Ph.D degree in Law in 2001. He became member of the Order of da Vinci of the Association of Architects of Ontario in 2003 and he was appointed officer of the Order of Canada on May 3, 2003, in recognition of his major contribution to the Toronto «Studies for Educational Facilities».

He passed away on January 4, 2012.

Additional information:

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General note:

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Material was acquired by LAC in 2005 and 2016
Throughout his career, Roderick Robbie was associated with the following partnerships or joint ventures:

1950-1956 - British Railways, London, England, Junior to Senior Assistant Architect
1951-1956 - Parnell + Robbie, Chartered Architects, London, England, Partner
1956-1959 - Belcourt & Blair, Architects & Town Planners, Ottawa, ON, Junior Partner
1959-1961 - Peter Dickinson Associates, Ottawa, ON, Associate
1961-1965 - Ashworth Robbie Vaughan & Williams, Toronto, ON, Partner
1965-1972 - Robbie Vaughan & Williams, Toronto, ON, Partner
1972-1974 - Robbie Williams Partnership; Architects and Planners, Toronto, ON, Partner
1974-1977 - Robbie Williams Kassum Young Partnership; Architects and Planners, Toronto, ON, Partner
1977-1980 - Robbie Williams Kassum Partnership; Architects and Planners, Toronto, ON, Partner
1980-1985 - Robbie Architects Planners, Toronto, ON, President
1985-1993 - Robbie Architects Inc., Toronto, ON, President
1986-1989 - Robbie Adjeleian NORR Consortium (RAN Consortium), ON, Partner
1987-2004 - Robbie/ Young + Wright Architects Inc., Toronto, ON, President
1987-2008 - RAN International Architects & Engineers, Toronto and Ottawa, ON, President
1991-1992 - Robbie Sane/ Lambur Scott Architects in Joint Venture, Toronto, ON, Partner
1993-2004 - Robbie/ Sane Architects Inc., Toronto, ON, President
2004-2008 - Robbie/ Young + Wright Architects Inc., Toronto, ON, Chairman Emeritus
2008-2012 - Robbie Young + Wright/ IBI Group Architects, Toronto, ON, Chairman Emeritus

From 1967 to 1970, Roderick Robbie's time was essentially spent as technical director for the Metropolitan Toronto School Board's "Studies in Educational facilities" (SEF) project.

In 13 July, 1970, Roderick Robbie formed ESI, Environment Systems International (dissolved in 26 October, 2015)

Furthermore, Roderick Robbie joined forces with Richard Jacques, an architect established in the State of New York, in order to bid on School development projects in the United States. Together they designed the ground breaking new Albany High School.

Arrangement note:

The following volume numbers were never used: 40, 42, 43, 232, 233, 265, 302-308, 531-532, 550, 609, 711

Dates of creation note:

Only on drawing dates back to 1944.

Restrictions on access note:

Some restrictions to access may apply.

Related material:

Some Architectural projects, commissions from the Federal Government, such as post offices, the Frobisher Bay Project, the 1967 Government pavilion, are covered by records in the Canada Post FOnds, The Expo 67 fonds, and the Public Works and Government Services fonds.

Source:

Private

Related control no.:

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2009-00512-0
2019-00464-X
Ordering and viewing options

Conditions of access:

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Access restriction document

http://data2.archives.ca/pdf/pdf001/r000001404.pdf

Architectural: technical drawings

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