Synopsis:
An award, valued at up to $1500, is given annually to a fourth-year Architecture student with high academic and design achievement, who shows leadership ability and the potential to play a notable role in the profession. The Fellowship honours Professor Warren M. (Bud) Smale (1924-1970) and E. Catherine Smale (1927-1991), both Architects who provided important leadership through their architectural practice and as civic and professional activists, in the realms of architecture, planning, historic preservation, and architectural education at provincial and national levels.
The History of the Smale Fellowship:
The Fellowship was established in 1970 following the death of Professor Smale at the age of forty-six. At the time, he was part of the original faculty of the newly created Waterloo School of Architecture. At its inception, the school was a bootstrap undertaking, initially established as a division of UW’s Engineering Faculty, in 1969 it moved to the division of Environmental Studies. However, Professor Smale’s involvement preceded, and was central to, the school’s creation. From 1964 to 1967, he acted as Chair of the OAA’s Educational Expansion committee which examined the need to establish new schools of architecture in Ontario1. The committee’s work was published in a report in 1966, the same year Professor Smale served as President of the OAA. The report was influential in leading the Ontario Government’s Department of University Affairs to establish two new schools of architecture - the University of Waterloo (beginning in September 1967) and Carleton University in Ottawa (Fall, 1968).
In addition to teaching, he ran a thriving practice in Simcoe and Woodstock, Ontario. It was notable for attracting a diverse spectrum of talented young Architects from around the world – Asian, European, Indian and Latin American – who, in addition to drawing an international perspective to the firm’s design approach, added a multi-cultural flair unfamiliar to regional Ontario communities in the late 50s and 1960s.
From 1968 until his death, his work advancing architectural education in Canada continued as Chair of the RAIC’s Standing Committee of Architectural Education and as a member of the Advisory Council at Ryerson Polytechnical University. He was a veteran of the RCAF, graduate of University of Toronto School of Architecture, and was recipient of a National Research Council grant which allowed him to complete a Master in Science (Product and Industrial Design) from 1950-1952 at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago under the direction of Mies van der Rohe.
When E. Catherine Smale began her architectural studies, the profession was an overwhelmingly male domain. At the country’s oldest school, UofT, only 16 women had graduated prior to 1950. That year, Catherine and two other women received their degrees. Among her classmates was also her soon-to-be husband, Bud. She practiced in Toronto and Simcoe, but her work in promoting both an awareness of and the professional practice of architectural preservation is perhaps the most important achievement of her career. As modern architecture swept mid-century Canada, historic buildings were indiscriminate victims of obliteration. In response, Catherine organized a grassroots volunteer initiative to inventory the historical buildings of Norfolk County (in southwestern Ontario). In recognition of the importance of this work, her team received government grants and staffing to continue their work throughout the late 1960s. Today, the collection of drawings and photographs is housed at the Eva Brook Donly Museum in Simcoe. Subsequently, she expanded her efforts and rallied funding for the repurposing of landmark buildings, including the Lynnwood Arts Centre and the Simcoe Town Hall. Appointments to the Board of the Ontario Heritage Foundation and Heritage Canada followed. In the realm of civic and regional politics, she was the first female elected as Councillor to both the municipal and regional levels of government in Simcoe and the Region of Haldimand-Norfolk.
Both Bud and Catherine Smale fundamentally believed in the importance of design, its impact on quality of life, the well-being of people and of the environment, and the potential for architecture and Architects to improve humanity’s interaction with the world.
1 The committee included James Murray and Douglas C. Haldenby, the latter being the father of Rick Haldenby, former director of the Waterloo School of Architecture.
Recipients of the Smale Fellowship:
2023 - Garrett McGill
2022 - Cassandra Lesage Fongue
2021 - Simone Delaney
2020 - Fion Fong
2019 - Joshua MacDonald
2018 - Felix Yang
2017 - James Clarke-Hicks
2016 - Jake Read
2015 - Jack Lipson
2014 - Architecture grad, class of 2014
2013 - Piper Bernbaum
2012 - Elisabeth van Overbeeke
2011 - Dan McTavish
2010 - Shamir Panchal
2009 - Aisling O'Carroll
2008 - Rob Micacchi
2007 - Allison Janes
2006 - Anne-Marie Armstrong
2005 - Chris Knight
2004 - Steven Chodoriwsky
2003 - Thomas-Bernard Kenniff
2002 - Leland Dadson
2001 - Tony Round
2000 - Constantinos Catsaros
1999 - Omer Arbel
1998 - Sudhir Suri
1997 - Neil Kaye
1996 - Meg Graham
1995 - Geoffrey Thün
1994 - Rick Galezowski
1993 - Yvette Jancso
1992 - Shaun Fernandes
1991 - Kevin Sugden
1990 - Adrian Blackwell
1989 - John Potter
1988 - Paul Sapounzi
1987 - Mary Louise Lobsinger
1986 - Peter Walker
1985 - Ronald Mar
1984 - Marc Rich
1983 - Rick Andrighetti
1982 - Joyce McGookin
1981 - Cameron Burns
1980 - David Jansen
1979 - Christopher Brown
1977 - Joan Kilpatrick
1976 - Kieran Keaveney
1975 - Rick Haldenby
1973 - Dennis Mahan
*Keep checking back as we add more recipients! If you were awarded the Smale Fellowship as a student and wish to feature your current work, please send us an email.