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Roger Ian Kemble was born on 4 July 1929 in Hull, Yorkshire, England. He was educated at St. Peter’s, York, England’s oldest public school. Kemble migrated to British Columbia in 1951 and studied at the Architectural Institute of British Columbia from 1952 to 1956 and at the Jan Zach Atelier in Victoria from 1954 to 1957 where he studied design, painting, and sculpture. He received a master degree in urban design from the University of British Columbia School of Urban and Regional Planning in 1986. Kemble was a resident of Vancouver from 1958 to 1997 and then lived in Mexico City from 1997 to 1998 where he was guest lecturer at the Universidad Nacional. Following his two years in Mexico he moved to Nanaimo, B.C. Kemble established his own firm, Roger Kemble, Architect, in 1960. Among the leading early postmodern architects in Canada, Kemble’s creative approach to design in the 1960s and 1970s resulted in a series of colourful, plywood-box residences in the Vancouver area. The design was a sharp departure from the then popular post and beam style of residential design. Notable projects include his MacDonald Residence (1964), West Residence (1964), 16” Telescope Housing Dominion Astrophysical Observatory (1967), Milne Residence (1967), Gray Residence (1970), Culhane Residence (1974), and Smith Villa (1982). In 1989 he published The Canadian City: St. John's to Victoria: A Critical Commentary, University of Ottawa Press, which brings together his sketches, studies, and reflections on the state of urban design in Canada. Kemble travelled across Canada visiting sixteen cities as part of the research for the book and his master of urban design degree. Kemble was known as an enfant terrible in the Vancouver architecture scene and was recognized for his critical views of current architecture in his writings and public speaking. He was a regular contributor to The Canadian Architect magazine.
Kemble received one Massey Medal for Architecture in 1967 for his Telescope Housing Dominion Astrophysical Observatory in Little Saanich Mountain, Victoria, B.C. He was also a finalist for the Massey Medals in 1964 for his Stuart MacDonald Residence David West Residence, both projects in West Vancouver. He also received a National Canadian Housing Design Council award in 1964 and the Canadian Architecture Yearbook award of excellence in 1981.
Kemble was a direct descendent of the famous English family of acting Kemble's. His uncle, Charles Kemble, was the last of the acting Kemble's to pass away in the early 1970's.
Roger Kemble passed away on 24 July 2023.