James W. Strutt: Architect
Encyclopedia
James W. Strutt was a Canadian architect. Inspired by American architects Frank Lloyd Wright
and Buckminster Fuller
, James Strutt's designs fostered the modernist age in Canadian architecture. He revered the former for incorporating nature into architectural design, and admired the latter for having invented the geodesic dome
. In all his work, Mr. Strutt explored the beauty of geometry, structure and form in nature.
, School of Architecture. His initial influences while at UoT were Frank Lloyd Wright
and Buckminster Fuller
; particularly Wright's material and environmental sensitivity, and Fuller's theories on weight efficiency ratios. Strutt was one of the students who were instrumental in getting Wright to UoT for a workshop and he would later collaborate with Fuller during his academic career. On a field trip to attend a lecture being given by Pier Luigi Nervi
at North Carolina State University, Strutt took a side trip to visit the Eduardo Catalano
House in Raleigh, NC and was very impressed by Catalano's modern statement.
For fifty-five years Strutt contributed prolificly to the field of Modern Canadian Architecture. Having practiced for over half a century, Strutt produced a large body of both residential and institutional exploratory architectures.
As his professional career progressed he pushed the existing paradigms of what constituted the norm in the cultural, technical and methodological practices of the built environment. His early explorations in non-orthogonal geometry and the hyperbolic-paraboloid led to several exemplary projects, including his own home, which is an early -and seminal- example of his residential work.
Many of his early experimental works were residential in scope, however the scale of his praxis was not limited there, but extended to both commercial and institutional architecture. He designed and built many projects that covered everything from retail to industrial business', educational institutions, and government laboratories to airports. His series of churches constitute a body of work that aspire to both reflect and elevate the parishioner through built form, a concept initiated, held and nurtured, based on his Bachelor of Architecture thesis.
Throughout his career Strutt held many positions in his profession's associated organizations, including most notably, Registrar and Dean of the College of Fellows of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada
(RAIC) and, in 1959, became the youngest president in the Ontario Association of Architects's (OAA) history. Strutt spent many years as an academic, was a Professor and Director at the School of Architecture (now the Azrieli School of Architecture) at Carleton University
.
He was, until his death, an enthusiastic persona, a passionate and inclusive ambassador of architecture, a generous scholar and mentor. Over 5,000 of his drawings form part of the permanent collection of Library and Archives Canada
.
GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS
Geophysical Lab. (Dept. of Mines & Resources) Experimental Farm, Ottawa, ON 1953
Seven Islands Airport Sept Isles, QC. 1954
Halifax Air Terminal Halifax, NS 1956
Neatby Building
additional to the Science Service Laboratory Experimental Farm, Ottawa, ON 1957
Uplands Air Terminal Ottawa, ON 1958
Plaza de las Americas– EXPO 67 Montreal, QC 1967
National Capital Coommision, District HQ Western Parkway, Ottawa, ON 1965
Canadian Embassy, Algeria Algiers: Modular Building System Adaptation 1998
MAJOR GOVERNMENT BUILDING RENOVATIONS
National Museum of Science & Technology 1867 St. Laurent Blvd., Ottawa, ON 1969
Jackson Building Bank & Laurier, Ottawa, ON 1965-8
The Ottawa Press Club Wellington St., Ottawa, ON 1961
BUILDINGS OF DESIGN SIGNIFICANCE
NATIONAL CAPITAL & ENVIRONS
Buildings
Royal Trust Building 55 Metcalfe Ave., Ottawa, ON 1962
Fortune Lodge Camp Fortune, QC 1963
Northern Electric Advanced Devises Centre Moody Dr., Bells Corners, ON 1963
LOEB Building for the Social Sciences Carleton University, Ottawa, ON 1964-6
Canadian Nurses Association Headquarters 50 Queen Elizabeth Drive, Ottawa, ON 1969
Westboro Beach Pavilions –designated heritage Kitchisippi Lookout, Western Pkwy, Ottawa, ON 1966
Gatineau River Yacht Club Gleneagle, QC 1978
Churches
St. Mark's Anglican – designated heritage 1606 Fisher Ave., Ottawa, ON 1954
St. Peter's Anglican – gunnite concrete hypars 915 Merivale Rd., Ottawa, ON 1959
St. Paul's Presbyterian 971 Woodroffe Ave., Ottawa, ON 1959
Rothwell United 47 Sumac, Cardinal Heights, Ottawa, ON 1960
Bells Corners United – award 3955 Richmond Rd., Bells Corner, ON 1962
Trinity United - R.A.I.C. Millennium Church 1099 Maitland Ave., Ottawa, ON 1962
St. Paul's Anglican 194 Prince Albert, Overbrook, Ottawa, ON 1964
House – classic modern
Shaefer House Montreal Rd., Ottawa, ON 1949
Palmer House 824 Maple Crest Rd., Ottawa, ON 1950
Dowbiggin House Senneville, QC 1952
Dawson House Senneville, QC 1953
Shore House 1204 Mountain Rd., Ottawa, ON 1954
Burke House Revelstoke Dr., Ottawa, ON 1954
Gibson House Cunningham Ave, Ottawa, ON 1955
Southam Ski Lodge Kingsmere, Gatineau Park, QC 1956
Hall House Dorothea Dr., Ottawa, ON 1956
Loeb House 225 Minto Place, Rockliffe Park, Ottawa, ON 1958
Dobell Chalet Edna Lake, QC 1958
Weiner House 418 Roger Rd., Ottawa, ON 1958
Morley House 190 Edgewood Dr., Aylmer, QC 1960
Anderson House 241 Skyridge Rd., Aylmer, QC 1960
Fischer House: heritage, confirmed 339 Pleasant Park R. Ottawa, ON 1962
Borman House 20 Qualicum Dr., Ottawa, ON 1968
WEIGHT-EFFICIENCY EXPLORATIONS
Hyperbolic Paraboloid Explorations
Strutt House – Rhomb & hypar 1220 Mountain Rd., Aylmer, QC 1956
Geldhart House – circle & hypar 170 Edgewood Dr., Aylmer, QC 1958
van Leeuwan House – circle & hypar 120 Maybury St. Aylmer, QC 1959
Zarzycki House – circle & hypar Aylmer, QC 1959
Baldock House – hexagon & hypar 1224 Mountain Rd., Aylmer, QC 1959
Hanlan House – square & hypar 126 Maybury, Ayler, QC 1960
Quain Chalet Lake, Mont. Cascades, QC 1961
Stopforth House – square & hypar Mine Rd., Chelsea, QC 1962
Kemper House – square & hypar 11 Briacliffe, Rothwell Hts., ON 1962
Merrit House – square & hypar 54 Laurier Ave., Deep River, ON 1963
Geometries
Waring House – packing of tetrahedrons 1124 Mountain Rd., Aylmer, QC 1954
Rochester House – 12 connected network Concession Rd. #7, Almonte, ON 1976
Gatineau River yacht Club – rhombi dodecahedrons Chelsea, QC 1979
Panelized Steel Frame Explorations
C.I.D.A. Agricultural Research Centre Sudan 1983
Turks and Caikos Holiday Homes – hurricane resistant Turks and Caikos 1984
Columbian Houses – low cost earthquake resistant Manizales, Colombia 1985
Peruvian Prototype – safe housing for miners Lima, Peru 1986
Meredith House – low cost, energy efficient 1203 Mountain Rd. Aylmer, QC 1987
Shanghai V.I.P. Houses – four, fabricated in Canada Shanghai, China 1994
Lambert House – low cost, energy efficient 1211 Mountain Rd., Aylmer, QC 1994
Kobe Prototype – earthquake proof emergency homes Kobe, Japan 1995
St. Kitt's House – affordable, hurricane resistant St. Kitt’s, Caribbean 1996
Jamaican Prototype – affordable, hurricane resistant Jamaica, Caribbean 1997
Application of Prefabricated Panel System
Canadian Embassy – Algiers – built Algiers, Algeria. 1998
Poland Housing Development – proposed Zabrze, Poland 1999
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
and Buckminster Fuller
Buckminster Fuller
Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller was an American systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, futurist and second president of Mensa International, the high IQ society....
, James Strutt's designs fostered the modernist age in Canadian architecture. He revered the former for incorporating nature into architectural design, and admired the latter for having invented the geodesic dome
Geodesic dome
A geodesic dome is a spherical or partial-spherical shell structure or lattice shell based on a network of great circles on the surface of a sphere. The geodesics intersect to form triangular elements that have local triangular rigidity and also distribute the stress across the structure. When...
. In all his work, Mr. Strutt explored the beauty of geometry, structure and form in nature.
Biography
James W. Strutt (James William Strutt: January 8, 1924 - November 8, 2008) was born in Pembroke, Ontario. He attended school in Pembroke, Montreal and Ottawa. Upon finishing at Ottawa Technical High School in 1942, he enlisted into the Royal Canadian Airforce, becoming a pilot. Following the war, he attended the University of TorontoUniversity of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...
, School of Architecture. His initial influences while at UoT were Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
and Buckminster Fuller
Buckminster Fuller
Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller was an American systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, futurist and second president of Mensa International, the high IQ society....
; particularly Wright's material and environmental sensitivity, and Fuller's theories on weight efficiency ratios. Strutt was one of the students who were instrumental in getting Wright to UoT for a workshop and he would later collaborate with Fuller during his academic career. On a field trip to attend a lecture being given by Pier Luigi Nervi
Pier Luigi Nervi
Pier Luigi Nervi was an Italian engineer. He studied at the University of Bologna and qualified in 1913. Dr. Nervi taught as a professor of engineering at Rome University from 1946-61...
at North Carolina State University, Strutt took a side trip to visit the Eduardo Catalano
Eduardo Catalano
Eduardo Fernando Catalano was an Argentine architect.-Biography:Born in Buenos Aires, Catalano came to the United States on a scholarship to the Universities of Pennsylvania and Harvard...
House in Raleigh, NC and was very impressed by Catalano's modern statement.
For fifty-five years Strutt contributed prolificly to the field of Modern Canadian Architecture. Having practiced for over half a century, Strutt produced a large body of both residential and institutional exploratory architectures.
As his professional career progressed he pushed the existing paradigms of what constituted the norm in the cultural, technical and methodological practices of the built environment. His early explorations in non-orthogonal geometry and the hyperbolic-paraboloid led to several exemplary projects, including his own home, which is an early -and seminal- example of his residential work.
Many of his early experimental works were residential in scope, however the scale of his praxis was not limited there, but extended to both commercial and institutional architecture. He designed and built many projects that covered everything from retail to industrial business', educational institutions, and government laboratories to airports. His series of churches constitute a body of work that aspire to both reflect and elevate the parishioner through built form, a concept initiated, held and nurtured, based on his Bachelor of Architecture thesis.
Throughout his career Strutt held many positions in his profession's associated organizations, including most notably, Registrar and Dean of the College of Fellows of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada
Royal Architectural Institute of Canada
The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada , founded in 1907, is a Canadian association representing over 3,600 architects, and faculty and graduates of Canadian Schools of Architecture.RAIC is the voice for architecture and its practice in Canada...
(RAIC) and, in 1959, became the youngest president in the Ontario Association of Architects's (OAA) history. Strutt spent many years as an academic, was a Professor and Director at the School of Architecture (now the Azrieli School of Architecture) at Carleton University
Carleton University
Carleton University is a comprehensive university located in the capital of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario. The enabling legislation is The Carleton University Act, 1952, S.O. 1952. Founded as a small college in 1942, Carleton now offers over 65 programs in a diverse range of disciplines. Carleton has...
.
He was, until his death, an enthusiastic persona, a passionate and inclusive ambassador of architecture, a generous scholar and mentor. Over 5,000 of his drawings form part of the permanent collection of Library and Archives Canada
Library and Archives Canada
Library and Archives Canada is a national memory institution dedicated to providing the best possible account of Canadian life through acquiring, preserving and making Canada's documentary heritage accessible for use in the 21st century and beyond...
.
Works
Limited Monograph of Built works:GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS
Geophysical Lab. (Dept. of Mines & Resources) Experimental Farm, Ottawa, ON 1953
Seven Islands Airport Sept Isles, QC. 1954
Halifax Air Terminal Halifax, NS 1956
Neatby Building
additional to the Science Service Laboratory Experimental Farm, Ottawa, ON 1957
Uplands Air Terminal Ottawa, ON 1958
Plaza de las Americas– EXPO 67 Montreal, QC 1967
National Capital Coommision, District HQ Western Parkway, Ottawa, ON 1965
Canadian Embassy, Algeria Algiers: Modular Building System Adaptation 1998
MAJOR GOVERNMENT BUILDING RENOVATIONS
National Museum of Science & Technology 1867 St. Laurent Blvd., Ottawa, ON 1969
Jackson Building Bank & Laurier, Ottawa, ON 1965-8
The Ottawa Press Club Wellington St., Ottawa, ON 1961
BUILDINGS OF DESIGN SIGNIFICANCE
NATIONAL CAPITAL & ENVIRONS
Buildings
Royal Trust Building 55 Metcalfe Ave., Ottawa, ON 1962
Fortune Lodge Camp Fortune, QC 1963
Northern Electric Advanced Devises Centre Moody Dr., Bells Corners, ON 1963
LOEB Building for the Social Sciences Carleton University, Ottawa, ON 1964-6
Canadian Nurses Association Headquarters 50 Queen Elizabeth Drive, Ottawa, ON 1969
Westboro Beach Pavilions –designated heritage Kitchisippi Lookout, Western Pkwy, Ottawa, ON 1966
Gatineau River Yacht Club Gleneagle, QC 1978
Churches
St. Mark's Anglican – designated heritage 1606 Fisher Ave., Ottawa, ON 1954
St. Peter's Anglican – gunnite concrete hypars 915 Merivale Rd., Ottawa, ON 1959
St. Paul's Presbyterian 971 Woodroffe Ave., Ottawa, ON 1959
Rothwell United 47 Sumac, Cardinal Heights, Ottawa, ON 1960
Bells Corners United – award 3955 Richmond Rd., Bells Corner, ON 1962
Trinity United - R.A.I.C. Millennium Church 1099 Maitland Ave., Ottawa, ON 1962
St. Paul's Anglican 194 Prince Albert, Overbrook, Ottawa, ON 1964
House – classic modern
Shaefer House Montreal Rd., Ottawa, ON 1949
Palmer House 824 Maple Crest Rd., Ottawa, ON 1950
Dowbiggin House Senneville, QC 1952
Dawson House Senneville, QC 1953
Shore House 1204 Mountain Rd., Ottawa, ON 1954
Burke House Revelstoke Dr., Ottawa, ON 1954
Gibson House Cunningham Ave, Ottawa, ON 1955
Southam Ski Lodge Kingsmere, Gatineau Park, QC 1956
Hall House Dorothea Dr., Ottawa, ON 1956
Loeb House 225 Minto Place, Rockliffe Park, Ottawa, ON 1958
Dobell Chalet Edna Lake, QC 1958
Weiner House 418 Roger Rd., Ottawa, ON 1958
Morley House 190 Edgewood Dr., Aylmer, QC 1960
Anderson House 241 Skyridge Rd., Aylmer, QC 1960
Fischer House: heritage, confirmed 339 Pleasant Park R. Ottawa, ON 1962
Borman House 20 Qualicum Dr., Ottawa, ON 1968
WEIGHT-EFFICIENCY EXPLORATIONS
Hyperbolic Paraboloid Explorations
Strutt House – Rhomb & hypar 1220 Mountain Rd., Aylmer, QC 1956
Geldhart House – circle & hypar 170 Edgewood Dr., Aylmer, QC 1958
van Leeuwan House – circle & hypar 120 Maybury St. Aylmer, QC 1959
Zarzycki House – circle & hypar Aylmer, QC 1959
Baldock House – hexagon & hypar 1224 Mountain Rd., Aylmer, QC 1959
Hanlan House – square & hypar 126 Maybury, Ayler, QC 1960
Quain Chalet Lake, Mont. Cascades, QC 1961
Stopforth House – square & hypar Mine Rd., Chelsea, QC 1962
Kemper House – square & hypar 11 Briacliffe, Rothwell Hts., ON 1962
Merrit House – square & hypar 54 Laurier Ave., Deep River, ON 1963
Geometries
Waring House – packing of tetrahedrons 1124 Mountain Rd., Aylmer, QC 1954
Rochester House – 12 connected network Concession Rd. #7, Almonte, ON 1976
Gatineau River yacht Club – rhombi dodecahedrons Chelsea, QC 1979
Panelized Steel Frame Explorations
C.I.D.A. Agricultural Research Centre Sudan 1983
Turks and Caikos Holiday Homes – hurricane resistant Turks and Caikos 1984
Columbian Houses – low cost earthquake resistant Manizales, Colombia 1985
Peruvian Prototype – safe housing for miners Lima, Peru 1986
Meredith House – low cost, energy efficient 1203 Mountain Rd. Aylmer, QC 1987
Shanghai V.I.P. Houses – four, fabricated in Canada Shanghai, China 1994
Lambert House – low cost, energy efficient 1211 Mountain Rd., Aylmer, QC 1994
Kobe Prototype – earthquake proof emergency homes Kobe, Japan 1995
St. Kitt's House – affordable, hurricane resistant St. Kitt’s, Caribbean 1996
Jamaican Prototype – affordable, hurricane resistant Jamaica, Caribbean 1997
Application of Prefabricated Panel System
Canadian Embassy – Algiers – built Algiers, Algeria. 1998
Poland Housing Development – proposed Zabrze, Poland 1999