Designing From the Level of Needs
The importance and influence of Blanche Lemco van Ginkel on the world of architecture during the second half of the twentieth century is exemplified in this photograph. The young Lemco van Ginkel – about thirty at the time – had just graduated with a Master of City Planning degree from Harvard University, and was representing the Philadelphia CIAM group at CIAM 9 in 1953. Seen here with Le Corbusier in front of the Unité d’habitation in Marseille, the roof terrace of which she designed and conceptualised, Lemco van Ginkel seems to be explaining something, using hand gestures to make a point, while Le Corbusier, standing next to her, hands on hips, is listening. Perhaps this image is emblematic of the respect and appreciation Le Corbusier had for the young woman?
The design of the roof terrace of the Unité d’habitation in 1948 shows Lemco van Ginkel’s attitude towards architecture, urban planning and public space very early on in her career. Modelling the terrace after a town square with all its facilities, she focused on children, sport and leisure.
Together with her husband, Blanche Lemco van Ginkel founded an architectural and urban planning practice in 1957. Notably, they succeeded in saving Old Montreal, a historic neighbourhood that was scheduled for demolition to make room for the city’s urban development plans. Lemco van Ginkel managed to convince Montreal of the importance of historic building fabric for a city when contemporary discourse was still far removed from anything close to such an approach. Their success led to the implementation of urban planning as a profession in Canada, with Lemco van Ginkel herself working on the necessary legislation . [1]
As an educator, Lemco van Ginkel taught at various well-known institutions, including McGill University, the University of Philadelphia, Harvard and the Université de Montréal. Far from merely teaching, Lemco van Ginkel also was developing her own courses on urban design, still an emerging field in the 1960s and 1970s, and was sculpting and influencing its role in architecture. Being a new field of work and study, her hope was for urban design to be a more inclusive environment for women than architecture. ‘Architecture is a cultural pursuit and those who practice it, or are allowed to practice it, reflect our culture, our mores, our attitudes, in Canada as elsewhere,’ she wrote in 1991. [2]
In 1977, Blanche Lemco van Ginkel became the first woman to be appointed Dean of Architecture in North America at the University of Toronto. [3] Lemco van Ginkel broke ground for women in many fields, mostly through pushing the limits of what was perceived as possible for women in educational and governmental institutions. She also tried to shed light on the achievements of Canadian women in architecture through publishing articles, curating exhibitions and sharing her own experience publicly. [4]
The emergence of urban planning as a profession was greatly facilitated by the work of Lemco van Ginkel. She approached urban planning not from an authoritative top-down way of thinking, but from the level of needs and from a more human scale. In this way, she displayed far more understanding and flexibility than most of her peers in the 1970s. At the same time, she also valued the meaning and importance of existing urban structures, perhaps in reference to the walkable city, a concept which was largely destroyed in North America with the emergence of the automobile, and also the need for a collective memory of a place.
Image Credit: Unknown.
1. The first Quebec Provincial Planning Commission, between 1963 and 1967.
2. Lemco van Ginkel, Blanche. “Slowly and Surely (and Somewhat Painfully): More or Less the History of Women in Architecture in Canada.” SSAC Bulletin, vol. 17, no. 1, 1992: pp. 5-11.
3. She served in this capacity for a five-year term, from 1977 to 1985.
4. Consider, for example, an exhibition in 1986: ‘For the Record: Ontario Women Graduates in Architecture, 1920–60,’ University of Toronto.
