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Renowned architect, critic, educator, and author, George Baird was born August 25, 1939, in Toronto, Ontario. He was raised in Toronto and attended East York Collegiate. He graduated with his B. Arch from the University of Toronto School of Architecture in 1962. While a student, he had fellowships in Finland and Sweden, and his postgraduate research was at University College in London, England. He returned to Canada in 1967 to teach at the University of Toronto School of Architecture, where he was professor from 1967 to 1993 and dean from 2004 to 2009. In 1993 Baird left the University of Toronto to join the faculty at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design as the G. Ware Travelstead Professor of Architecture, where he taught design studio and architecture theory until 2004.
Baird established George Baird Architect and Associates in Toronto in 1972. His firm employed many of his University of Toronto students, including Bruce Kuwabara, Martin Kohn, Donald MacKay, Detlef Mertins, Barry Sampson, and John van Nostrand. In 1982 the office became Baird/Sampson Architects and in 1998 became Baird Sampson Neuert Architects Inc. Award winning projects include Cloud Garden Park in Toronto, the Erindale Hall on the campus of the University of Toronto at Mississauga, the Niagara Parks Butterfly Conservatory, and the French River Visitor Centre. The firm also specialized in urban design, and in its early years produced the first urban design plan for the City of Toronto, onbuildingdowntown.
Awards received by Baird include the Toronto Arts Foundation’s Architectural and Design Award in 1992, the order of Da Vinci Medal from the Ontario Association of Architects in 2001, the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Gold Medal in 2010, and the Topaz Medallion of the American Institute of Architects for Excellence in Architectural Education in 2012. Baird was inducted into the Order of Canada in 2016.
Baird’s published works include Meaning in Architecture with Charles Jencks in 1968, Alvar Aalto in 1969, The Space of Appearance in 1995, Queues, Rendevous, Riots with Mark Lewis in 1995, Public Space, Cultural/Political Theory: Street Photography in 2011, and Writing on Architecture and the City in 2015. A book of essays about Baird’s thought and writings was published in 2019, entitled The Architect and the Public: On George Baird’s Contribution to Architecture.
In 1963 George Baird married Elizabeth Davis, who became one of Canada’s most well-known food writers. The couple was married for close to 60 years. George Baird died on October 17, 2023, in Toronto.