Joseph William Storey (July 5, 1923 - August 12, 1975) was an internationally-renowned architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

 based in Chatham

Chatham, Ontario

Chatham is the largest community in the municipality of Chatham-Kent, Ontario. Formerly serving as the seat of Kent County, the governments of the former city of Chatham, the county of Kent, and its townships were merged into one entity known as the Municipality of Chatham-Kent in 1998.Located on...

, Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. He graduated from the University of Toronto

University 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 in 1946. He designed hundreds of unique homes, stores, offices, and public buildings, and many of his designs from 1950s and 1960s are still strikingly modern today. His working career spanned three decades, in which time he was also a popular member of Chatham city council. His dedication to his community made the profession of architecture synonymous with that of civic leadership and public service. Storey died suddenly on his way to work in 1975 at the age of 52. The Joseph Storey Architectural Conservancy celebrates his many contributions to his home town every summer with a walking tour of homes he designed.

Building a career

After graduation from university, Joe Storey worked for one year in Toronto

Toronto

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

 in the office of John Land Architect. After winning $750 in a Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation is a Crown corporation, owned by the Government of Canada, founded after World War II to provide housing for returning soldiers...

 competition, he returned to his hometown of Chatham, and at the age of twenty-four he established the practice of Joseph W. Storey, Architect in the fall of 1947. The reputation of the office was quickly established by Storey’s skilled translation of the functional clarity, simplicity, and elegant forms of modernism to the urban form of the then small town of Chatham.

As Chatham doubled in size over the next twenty-five years, many of its new buildings found their origins in the office of Joe Storey. Landmark buildings of Chatham such as the Ursuline Convent, Ursuline Motherhouse Chapel and Ursuline College (1958–1962) the head office of Union Gas (1965, major addition in 1973), the Kent County Courthouse (1949), the Chatham YMCA (1962,) Kent County Municipal Building (1967), the Federal Post Office Building (1955), and the Chatham Civic Centre (1975) came from a close-knit dedicated core of talented people brought together by Storey. Bob Tyndall, Wally Stewart and Roger Duchene worked with Storey's firm from the early 1950s until Storey’s untimely passing in 1975. This team was joined by many other talented people through 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, such as architects and OAA members Douglas Hanley, Robert Steele, and James H. Jorden.

Joe Storey brought a level of design and technical excellence that was consistent not only to landmark buildings, but also to elementary and secondary schools, churches, band shells, senior citizen residences, industrial buildings, and to Storey’s favourite challenge, the single family home. Scores of modest ingeniously-planned and executed residences dot the neighbourhoods of Chatham. Examples of his work can also be found in Windsor (The Energy Conversion Plant, University of Windsor

University of Windsor

The University of Windsor is a public comprehensive and research university in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's southernmost university. It has a student population of approximately 15,000 full-time and part-time undergraduate students and over 1000 graduate students...

), London (Brescia University College

Brescia University College

Brescia University College is a Catholic liberal arts college for women located in London, Ontario, Canada. Affiliated with the University of Western Ontario, Brescia is the only university-level women's college in Canada...

), Sarnia

Sarnia, Ontario

Sarnia is a city in Southern Ontario, Canada . It is the largest city on Lake Huron and is located where the upper Great Lakes empty into the St. Clair River....

 (YMCA) and in many other small towns in southwestern Ontario.

Although Storey practised architecture out of the spotlight of Toronto, his work was innovative and progressive. His design for the Federal Post Office building (1955) featured the first use of curtain wall

Curtain wall

A curtain wall is an outer covering of a building in which the outer walls are non-structural, but merely keep out the weather. As the curtain wall is non-structural it can be made of a lightweight material reducing construction costs. When glass is used as the curtain wall, a great advantage is...

 in Ontario. One of Storey’s more interesting unbuilt projects of his career is his design for the conversion of four abandoned sugar beet silos on industrial lands into apartments. This idea and the search for investors carried over a number of years. The value of recycling our industrial heritage is well known today, but the silos were unfortunately destroyed after Storey’s death.

Ursuline College Chapel

The Ursuline Convent project began when Storey was thirty-two years old. It encompassed the designs for a major chapel, motherhouse, elementary and high school classrooms, and nursery school. Storey established a model here of translating the language of modernism to the traditional public and urban landscape of the small town. The architecture of the convent, known as The Pines integrated major works of art into the siting, the building, and their expressions. Storey maintained an excellent working relationship with the sisters of the Ursuline convent who were encouraging and adventurous clients, and subsequently recommended him highly to become the architect for a similar project for the Ursuline Religious Order in Lima

Lima

Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...

, Peru

Peru

Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

. This project was prominently featured in both in the RAIC Journal and Progressive Architecture Magazine.
The new buildings of the Pines in Chatham were sensitively sited with the nineteenth-century convent structures by making a series of connecting cloisters formed by both buildings and graceful covered walkways. This project has recently been identified by the Ontario branch of the international group for the Documentation and Conservation of the Modern Movement, to be included on a list of twenty-five examples of significant modern architecture in Ontario.

Civic contribution

In addition to the very full schedule of his professional life, Storey was an active member of the local Rotary Club, and also served as member of the Chatham City Council in the years 1956, 1957 and 1958. During that tenure, he brought the Planning Act to Chatham and instituted the first Chatham Area Planning Board. Storey also served on the Ontario Association of Architects Council representing the St. Clair Region of several years. In the latter years of his practice, he turned his artistic talents to photography, and pioneered innovative photographic techniques in presentation and design stages of his work that is commonplace today.

Death and descendants

Joseph Storey died suddenly on his way in to work from his summer cottage in Rondeau Provincial Park

Rondeau Provincial Park

Rondeau Provincial Park is a provincial park in southwestern Ontario, Canada, located on an 8 km long crescentic sand spit extending into Lake Erie. There are only two sand spits like this one in all of North America, one in Rondeau and one in Florida. Rondeau was established in 1894 as a response...

 in 1975 at the age of 52. His career, although filled with uncountable achievements, was only in its middle stage, and the most mature years of his work were yet to come. The sudden loss of his professional skills and civic leadership was felt keenly. Joe Storey was married to Marjorie Sunnen Storey of Chatham (d. 2004) and is survived by his sons Tom Storey, principal of the planning firm of Storey Samways Planning Ltd., of Chatham, and Mark Storey, an environmental engineer in Vancouver

Vancouver

Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

, B.C., and daughters Charlotte Storey DuChene, a magazine editor and writer in the Kingston area, and architect Kim Storey, a partner in Brown and Storey Architects (Toronto) since 1981.