Mann, Henry Yorke

Henry Yorke Mann was born 15 August 1930 in Rossland, British Columbia, to parents Richard and Barbara Mann. His father was a building contractor and master craftsman carpenter in Rossland. While growing up Mann worked summers and weekends with his father and his grandfather, Henry George Mann, learning carpentry and concrete work. Mann completed his senior matriculation in 1949 at Trail, B.C., and the same year entered Washington State College, Pullman, WA, in mechanical engineering on a ski scholarship. A competitive skier since his youth, Mann trained to compete in the 1952 Olympic Winter Games before an athletic injury ended his skiing career. While attending Washington State College Mann married Pat Watson from Trail, B.C. In 1951 Mann transferred to the University of Oregon’s School of Architecture on a foreign student scholarship and obtained his Bachelor of Architecture degree in 1954. During his studies in Oregon, Mann worked for a month as a designer and draftsman for Buckminster Fuller, assisting with a prototype structure at Eugene, OR. In 1954 Mann served as a research architect with McMillan & Bloedel and in 1955 he served as an architectural engineer with Western Consulting Ltd. From 1955 to 1963 he worked as a project architect and chief draftsman with Mercer & Mercer Architects in Vancouver. From 1960 to 1963 he served as chief architect on the Killarney Community Centre in Vancouver for Mercer & Mercer. In 1963 he started his private practice, Henry Mann Architect, in North Vancouver. Between 1963 and 1969 Mann’s private practice grew to consist of five office staff and a twelve person construction firm. The construction firm, which he started with his father in 1965, eventually merged to include John Senac, becoming Senac and Mann, in 1967. The construction side of the business carried out custom builds for projects designed by Mann’s architectural firm. During this time Mann designed around 60 projects and built around 25 projects, including his own residence in North Vancouver (1958), his office (Architect’s Floating Office in Coal’s Harbour, Vancouver), the Eijgel residence (1968), the Jankola residence (1967), the Ralph residence (1968), the Clark residence (1969), the Ozard residence (1969), the Laura Lynn Riding and Country Club, the Engineers’ Club in Vancouver (1964), a number of other major projects, as well as feasibility and design studies for Arbutus Point Resorts and the Mountain Village Ski Resort in Rossland, B.C. Mann’s Eijgel residence was nominated for a Massey Award in Architecture and selected as one of the top 100 buildings in Canada by the Massey Foundation in 1969. From 1966 to 1967 and 1970 Mann was a part-time lecturer at the University of British Columbia’s School of Architecture. In 1964 he served as chair of the Architectural Institute of B.C.’s communication committee. In 1969 Mann decided to restrict the size of his practice and the following year dissolved his partnership with Senac and moved to the Tantualus Mountains near Squamish, B.C., with his wife Elizabeth (Hillmer) and stepson Eric. In 1973 Mann purchased ranch land near Oliver, B.C., and built the McCuddy Creek Ranch, which over the following years grew to 50,000 acres and a purebred herd of 250 Mann Polled Charolais cattle. As a rancher during the 1970s and 1980s, Mann garnered numerous awards and records for his Charolais breeding program. In 1997 Mann sold the herd and ranch property with the exception of his residence, Manndala, and returned to architecture. Over the following eighteen years, Mann designed numerous award winning projects including the Nightowl residence (2003), Dunira Lodge (2005), Allard residence Chestermere (2004), Allard residence Salt Spring (2012), Posts Standing (2001), Salix Straw Bale House (2004), Totems (2005), and Quietude (1999). Mann’s designs are characterized by a philosophical combination of the spiritual and the physical which is reflected in his building’s structural integrity, sustainability and natural materials, and respect for the needs of the client and for the site. Mann was married in 2014 to Denise Franklin, his partner of 20 years. He was the father to stepsons Eric Hillmer-Mann and Kym Franklin and stepdaughters Theresa Slater and Cindy Bahm. Mann died on 2 April 2015 in Oliver, B.C.

2 October 2020