BRIAN MACKAY-LYONS

 

Architect, Professor, BA, BEDS, MARCH, FRAIC, RCA, (Hon. Int.) FAIA, (Int.) FRIBA, NSAA, AANB, AAPEI, OAA, VT, NH, UT

 

 

Brian was born and raised in the village of Arcadia in southwestern Nova Scotia.  He received his Bachelor of

 

Architecture from the Technical University of Nova Scotia in 1978 where he was awarded the Royal Architectural

 

Institute of Canada Medal.  He received his Master of Architecture and Urban Design at U.C.L.A., and was awarded the

 

Dean’s Award for Design.

 

 

After studying in China, Japan, California and Italy, Brian returned to Nova Scotia in 1983 to challenge the historic

 

maritime “brain drain” trend, and to make a cultural contribution to Nova Scotia where his Acadian and Mi’kmaq

 

ancestors lived.  In 1985, he founded the firm Brian MacKay-Lyons Architecture Urban Design in Halifax.  Twenty years

 

later, Brian partnered with Talbot Sweetapple to form MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects Limited.

 

 

The firm has built an international reputation for design excellence confirmed by over 125+ awards, including the Royal

 

Institute of British Architects International Fellowship in 2016, the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Gold Medal in

 

2015 and Firm Award in 2014, six Governor General Medals, two American Institute of Architects National Honor

 

Awards for Architecture, thirteen Lieutenant Governor’s Medals of Excellence, eight Canadian Architect Awards, four

 

Architectural Record Houses Awards, eight North American Wood Design Awards and in 2017 the firm received the

 

Global Award for Sustainable Architecture. Also in 2017, the firm has been shortlisted for the prestigious Moriyama

 

Award (result pending). A fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (FRAIC), and the Royal Canadian Academy

 

of Arts (RCA), Brian was named Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (Hon FAIA) in 2001 and

 

International Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (Int. FRIBA) in 2016.

 

 

For decades, Brian has made a significant contribution to both Architectural education and practice.  He is a Professor of

 

Architecture at Dalhousie University where he has taught for over thirty years and has held seventeen endowed

 

academic chairs and given 200+ lectures internationally. In 2004 he was visiting professor for the Ruth and Norman

 

Moore Professorship at Washington University in St. Louis. Ghost (1994-2011) was a series of international

 

Architectural Research Laboratories that took place on the MacKay-Lyons farm. Ghost was founded by Brian as a

 

meeting place for an international ‘school’ of architects who shared a commitment to: landscape, making, and

 

community. The final installment of Ghost took the form of a three-day historic gathering where the twenty-five invited

 

guests and speakers commiserated over these shared values and their ‘resistance’ to the globalization of Architecture.

 

 

The work of the firm has been recognized in 330+ publications including six monographs: Seven Stories from a Village

 

Architect (1996); Brian MacKay-Lyons: Selected Works 1986-1997 (1998); Plain Modern: The Architecture of Brian

 

MacKay-Lyons by Malcolm Quantrill (2005); Ghost: Building an Architectural Vision (2008); Local Architecture: Building

 

Place, Craft, and Community (2014); and Economy as Ethic: The Work of MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects, authored

 

by Historian Robert McCarter, published April 2017. In addition to these monographs, the work of the firm has been

 

featured in 100+ exhibitions internationally.

 

 

Houses designed in Atlantic Canada have made his firm a leading proponent of regionalist architecture worldwide. This

 

recognition has led to a transition in the practice toward increased public and international commissions.

 

 

 

Brian’s lecture, Economy as Ethic: Critical Practice and the Cultivation of Place, will highlight work featured in a recent

 

book by Robert McCarter.

 

 

 

From The Work of MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architecture: Economy as Ethic (Thames & Hudson, 2017):

 

 

The work of MacKay‐Lyons Sweetapple Architects embodies their engagement of two interrelated primary principles,

 

economy and place. Economy as an ethical imperative leads to their efforts to make the most with the least, and to make

 

 maximal experiential and spatial richness with minimal form, material and cost. Reinforcing this imperative is the

 

 architects’ engagement of their place of practice, coastal Nova Scotia, and its climate, landform and material culture.

 

 

In the more than 30 years since the firm was founded, the work of MacKay‐Lyons Sweetapple has consistently been

 

 characterized by its absolute integrity—a quality that is elsewhere increasingly rare today—and the principles in practice

 

 the architects have evolved and implemented to realize their works constitute a critically important contribution to the

 

 larger discipline of architecture.

 

 

 

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The 2018 Atmosphere Symposium is co-chaired by: Lisa Landrum and Liane Veness with the support of the Faculty's Cultural Events Committee and the Centre for Architectural Structure and Technology (C.A.S.T.); web design and graphics support by Tali Budman (ED4 Architecture student), and administrative support from Brandy O’Reilly (Faculty of Architecture, Partners Program).

 

Questions? Please contact info@atmos.ca