Emeritus Professor
BArch (McG.), MArch (Yale)
AAPPQ, FRAIC, OAQ
Macdonald-Harrington Building
Room 305
Tel.: 514-398-6712
adrian [dot] sheppard [at] mcgill [dot] ca (Email)
Courses given
ARCH 251 Architectural History 2
ARCH 540 Sel Topics in Architecture 1
Course website
Brief CV
CV [.pdf]
Articles
Some Thoughts on Canadian and American Eclecticism in Public Architecture [.pdf]
The Return of Expressionism and the Architecture of Luigi Moretti [.pdf]
Fermont: The Making of a New Town in the Canadian Sub-Arctic [.pdf]
Place Victoria: A Joint Venture between Luigi Moretti and Pier Luigi Nervi [.pdf]
Luigi Moretti: A Testimony [.pdf]
The Watergate Project: A Contrapuntal Multi-Use Urban Complex in Washington, DC [.pdf]
ADRIAN SHEPPARD was in continuous professional practice for nearly 30 years before joining McGill University in 1979. He is active in civic affairs and has written and lectured on housing, on the conversion of old buildings, on Canadian architecture, on architectural education, and on the work of Luigi Moretti.
Adrian Sheppard is a native of Belgium and received his secondary education there and in Canada. After obtaining his Bachelor of Architecture degree from McGill University, he traveled and practiced in Europe for four years. He first trained with Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew in London, then worked in Rome with Luigi Moretti and Pier Luigi Nervi where he was appointed Project Architect for the Place Victoria project in Montreal and the Watergate Development in Washington. Subsequently he worked with Jan Verster in Amsterdam. He returned to North America in 1964 to pursue graduate studies at Yale University.
In 1973 he became a partner in the firm of Desnoyers Mercure Gagnon Sheppard, Architects where he was Project Architect for the design of a variety of architectural and planning projects, both in Canada and overseas. DMGS, in association with Norbert Schoenauer, became acknowledged authorities on housing and urban planning. Together with Norbert Schoenauer, he co-designed the sub-arctic town of Fermont and many of its buildings. Together they developed the plan for the proposed new town of Woodroffe near Ottawa. Two years later, in association with Moshe Safdie, he prepared the plan for the new town of Keur Farah Palavi in Senegal, and for Secteur Fournier, a new urban district in Hull. In 1979 he became a founding partner of Sheppard Dionne Laflamme, Architects, a firm specializing in affordable housing and the conversion of old buildings to new uses.
Adrian Sheppard is a co-recipient of the Vincent Massey Medal in Architecture for the Jardins-Prince-Arthur housing project and of the Heritage Canada National Prize for Conservation Architecture awarded for the Cours Le Royer project in Old Montreal. In 1994 he was inducted into the College of Fellows of the RAIC. In 2002 he was awarded the Engineering Class of 1944 Outstanding Teaching Award. In 2009 he was appointed to the rank of Professor Emeritus.
He has taught at the Boston Architectural Centre, Université de Montréal, Dalhousie University (formerly the Technical University of Nova Scotia), and McGill University. In 1992 he was appointed Visiting Professor of Architecture at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. As an academic, he has focused his interests on the teaching of the Design Studio, Professional Practice, and History of Modern European and North American Architecture.
Adrian Sheppard has represented the School of Architecture on a number of committees for the Order of Architects of Quebec and for a number of years was responsible for the Order's admission examination. He was a board member and treasurer of Héritage Montreal, member of the Commission consultative de Montréal sur les biens culturels, commissioner of the Bureau de consultation de Montréal, President of the Jacques-Viger Commission. He was a member of the Comité consultatif of Societé Immobilière du Québec (SIQ) for the restoration of a number of significant patrimonial buildings including the Court of Appeal in Montreal (designed by E. Cormier). He is permanent President of the Comité d’architecture et d’urbanisme (CAU) of Montreal.
He has written on conservation, rehabilitation, recycling of old buildings, on Montreal housing, on current architectural projects, on the new town of Fermont, on contemporary architectural history, and on the teaching of architecture. He has contributed a number of entries on modern architects in Contemporary Architects (St. James Press London), has written on Canadian and American eclecticism in public architecture, published in Architettura dell’Eclecttismo. He has written extensively on Luigi Moretti and Pier Luigi Nervi. His writings on Moretti will be published in 2010 in Luigi Moretti (1907-1973): Razionalismo e trasgressivita tra barocco e informale (Electa editors).