Ernest J. Smith

Ernest John Smith (often referred to as Ernest Smith or Ernie Smith) was a Canadian architect.

Both he and his partner Dennis Carter, with whom he founded Smith Carter, were, according to Jeffrey Thorsteinson, among several "significant modern architects" who graduated from the University of Manitoba's architecture program prior to 1946, and who were "vital to the rise of a notable regional strain of Canadian architecture" referred to as Manitoba modernism.

Architectural historian Kelly Crossman remarks that in the 1950s Manitoba architectural firms "consistently ranked among the best in the country" and that the provincial capitol Winnipeg "played a significant role as an early centre of architectural modernism in Canada", identifying Smith Carter as one of two "especially" important Winnipeg design firms. Their work included "major projects, public and private." One of the most "prolific and influential" design firms in Winnipeg, they earned a reputation in the 1950s and 1960s for "slick, understated, lucid, refined and experimental architecture keyed directly into site and landscape" which "changed the urban character" of the city.

Early life and education

Ernest Smith was born on 17 December 1919 in Winnipeg, and grew up in the neighbourhood of Wolseley, on Aubrey Street.

Smith studied architecture at the University of Manitoba, described as "notably progressive" at the time. He won the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Gold Medal, and a postgraduate fellowship to attend the MIT, where he earned a Master of Architecture degree. While at MIT, Smith became interested in large project planning and housing developments, attending seminars by "leading experts in the field," including Catherine Bauer Wurster and Charles Abrams. Smith finished his thesis in September 1947 and came home to honour a commitment he made with fellow alumni Dennis Carter (another RAIC Gold Medal winner) and Walter Katelnikoff that they three would start their own firm upon his return to Winnipeg.

Career

Foundation (1947–1959)

The business partnership was initially formed as Smith Carter Katelnikoff with offices on 289½ Garry Street. Smith also taught design at the University of Manitoba while the practice was being established. Smith Carter Katelnikoff made their name locally with the 1948 renovation of their own offices on Portage Avenue East and, due to the demand created by Winnipeg's expanding population in the 1950s, several schools. At the same time, the firm grew on the strength of commissions for large schools in rural Manitoba and Western Canada where modern centralized facilities were replacing one-room schools. Smith's family recalled him "beating the bushes" throughout Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario pursuing school, church and hospital projects. The company would go through a number of name and partner changes and eventually became known simply as Smith Carter Partners and later Smith Carter Architects and Engineers, Smith serving as the managing partner for thirty-eight years until his retirement in 1985.

In the 1950s, as the firm's commissions grew, attention was increasingly paid to interior functions and appropriate materials, advocating a modernism adapted "to express local climatic and cultural circumstances." The firm designed Canada's longest running venue for outdoor theatre, Rainbow Stage (1951–1953). In 1953 and 1954, Smith acted as president of the Manitoba Association of Architects, and again from 1956 to 1961. Around this time, Smith designed his family home.

Westworth United Church

One of Smith's personally significant projects from this period is Westworth United Church (1958-1959), consisting of two major additions to an education building (a gymnasium) designed by Green Blankstein Russell in 1950. The additions, a central narthex and towering sanctuary, needed to "tie in with the existing building and yet give the sanctuary a dominating position." The new sections replicated the original school gym's height, relationship to the street, and "alternation of peach-toned brick and glass." Of particular interest architecturally, are the "graceful entry canopy," with a "lean and level top held aloft by slender brick-clad columns", and a "glazed portal space framed by two exterior planters." The sanctuary is defined by a soaring A-frame form, encased in a one-storey surround, and features exposed brick matching that on the building's exterior. Within the nave, interior decoration includes a tongue-and-groove wood ceiling. Instead of laminated beams as originally proposed steel beams were used, faced with hardwood, selected to minimize obstructions within the nave.

The church includes large stained-glass windows by Leo Mol (1959), among them the large east-end sanctuary window depicting The Last Supper and a series of eight smaller panels along the south elevation, the leftmost of which depicts the dove of the Holy Spirit and the Eucharist, next to which are panels depicting the Four Evangelists.

Scaling up (1959–1985)

The design and construction of the University of Manitoba's School of Architecture (1958–1959) was a benchmark for Smith Carter, considered "a paradigmatic example of 1950s institutional architecture". The project won the firm a Massey Medal.

Smith Carter were Massey Medal finalists for the Monarch Life Building (1959–1963; since 1999, the Workers Compensation Board of Manitoba Building), described as a "paragon of modernist order and dignity". The design team, led by Carter, sought to express "the bold confidence and security of the corporation, its concern for its clients and employees, as well as its commitment to the economic development of the city of Winnipeg."

Transformation of Portage and Main

During the 1960s and 1970s, Smith served in a number of industry association senior positions, including president of the Manitoba Association of Architects (1956–1961) and chairman of the National Joint Committee on Construction Materials (1963–1965). He was dean of the College of Fellows of the RAIC from 1972 to 1975, and chancellor of the RAIC itself in 1979.

Throughout the 1960s, the City of Winnipeg conducted transport studies which led to a rethinking of traffic flow through Portage Avenue and Main Street, the city's hub, and had Smith Carter conduct the transit forecast studies which concluded that mixing pedestrian and vehicular traffic would no longer be viable, ultimately leading to the construction of an underground concourse replacing the four sidewalks of the corner. Significant or large scale works during this period include the Canadian Wheat Board and Grain Commission buildings (1962 and 1970, respectively), the Royal Bank of Canada and Bank of Canada buildings (1965 and 1971), the Pan Am Pool (1967), and the Manitoba Centennial Centre (1967–1972). One of the firm's most identifiable works from the period, and "one of the most identifiable landmarks of the city" is the Richardson Building (1967–1969; with Skidmore, Owings and Merrill as consulting architects), It forms the anchor of the Lombard Place development, which includes the Winnipeg Inn (1970, currently the Fairmont Hotel) and the underground concourse later connected to Trizec's Winnipeg Square shopping mall (1979) and the Commodity Exchange Tower (1974-1979, often referred to as the "Trizec Building" locally). Such large scale projects, along with the Woodsworth Building on Broadway (1973), The Great-West Life Assurance Company (1983), and the Air Canada building (1985), changed the urban character of Winnipeg.

For a few years during this period (1969 to 1971), Smith Carter merged with Parkin Architects, thereby becoming, briefly, "the largest architectural and engineering concern in the country and the tenth largest in the world."

Canadian Grain Commission Building

Smith was the principal architect of the Grain Commission building, whose Brutalist elements include the use of precast concrete (mixed with Manitoba limestone aggregate) and the building's top-heavy silhouette, a "faint echo" of a sheaf of wheat, an effect which recalls the Torre Velasca in Milan. The building's "extended cap" was designed because of a space needed between the upper and lower floors for specialized mechanical equipment used to transport grain to an upper-level flour mill and test brewery. Smith remarked on the challenges involved:

Mixing two different functions in a vertical building is difficult. Normally construction would be separated horizontally. In this case, we worked out two separate modules for offices and lab space, [and] found we needed greater depth in the lab and rationalised the present form.

The overall aesthetic was designed in keeping with the neighbouring Depression-era Federal Building, located to the south across William Stephenson Way. This connection is manifested in effects of scale as well as in a similarity of colour and tone.

• Sculpture in the forecourt

The firm recommended a large scale exterior sculpture for the building, notifying Public Works Canada in June 1972. In April 1973, Smith met with the Regional Committee member, Kenneth Lochhead, and they "mutually agreed" that the building required a major contemporary work of art for the forecourt, determining a budget of $50,000, with Smith to follow up with a list of artists and in July 1974, a competition was proposed between ten invited artists. In January 1975, five artists, Henry Saxe, Ulysse Comtois, John Nugent, Ricardo Gomez, and Hugh Leroy, were chosen by Smith (with Kenneth Lochhead's advice). The Advisory Committee selected Nugent's No. 1 Northern, a large steel abstract sculpture intended as a metaphor for fields of wheat, represented in multi-layer rectangular shapes and painted the "brilliant" yellow of harvest wheat, designed by Nugent to represent Canada's hardy top grade, red spring wheat hybrid of the same name that dominate the Prairies in the fall.

The work proved controversial after its installation in late 1975, with Earl Baxter, chairman of the Board of Grain Commissioners, leading a campaign in protest shortly after its unveiling, and by July 1978, they had prevailed: the work was dismantled and reinstalled two years later in front of a Revenue Canada building, only to be removed again in 1993. In 1997, almost twenty years after it was removed, Nugent's sculpture was reinstalled in front of the Grain Commission building.

Woodsworth Building

Built for the Manitoba government between 1973 and 1976, the Woodsworth building, uniquely angled on its lot to face the Manitoba Legislature, is named after CCF reformer J.S. Wordsworth, a bust of whom, sculpted by Leo Mol, stands on the main floor. The building is finished on all four sides in sea-green glass and silver spandrel panels, with each corner segmented to soften the angle, while the entryway is inset on the southwest corner, coming right to grade in green glass on the southeast corner, inviting passersby to the large public cafeteria inside. There is also colourful artwork by Bruce Head, contrasting with the steel and glass of the building.

Designed to be fifteen storeys, there was a civic debate over its height, as legislators had previously proposed a maximum building height for the area of thirteen storeys, and the final two storeys were not built until 1976. There was also considerable criticism when the skywalk across Kennedy Street to the Law Courts Building was constructed in 1974, which was felt to have a negative impact on the historic courts building. Smith's original plan was for the connection was to be underground but skywalk was chosen as the cheaper alternative.

International work

Smith was said to have been proudest of the firm's work shaping the Winnipeg skyline and of their work abroad, such the Kermanshah Technical Training Centre in Iran, the Canadian Embassy in Moscow and the Canadian Chancery in Warsaw (about 1965; all but foundations demolished in 2001).

Apex and final stages

Smith retired in 1985 and moved into a retirement home he designed himself, featured in an exhibition by the Royal Academy of Arts. Meanwhile, Smith Carter's reach extended to high-level biomedical research facilities. Early examples included the St. Boniface Hospital Research Centre (1986–1987) and the John Buhler Research Centre at the Health Sciences Centre (about 1990). The project considered to be "seminal" by Smith Carter was the Canadian Science Centre for Human and Animal Health (1992–1998), one of only two Level 4 laboratories in Canada, establishing the firm as a leader in the design of highly secure laboratory facilities for disease research.

Alongside Dennis Carter, his business partner of thirty-eight years, Ernest Smith was awarded an honourary life membership from the Manitoba Association of Architects in 2000.

Other pursuits and community activism

A supporter of the arts, Smith was a member of the Winnipeg Art Gallery, the Council of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, co-chairman of the Fine Arts Committee for the Centennial Cultural Centre, and the board of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, of which he was President from 1969–1971.

Personal life

Smith residence

When his daughters Lynda and Emily were five years old and one year old respectively, Smith designed his family home in East Kildonan, off Kildonan Drive. The Drive is elevated as a protective flood dike, the house itself was built on land behind the flood dike and therefore quite low, requiring that the living spaces be elevated to the height of the street.

The general plan, a strict rectangle with a central core appendage for entry along with a breezeway and garage on the north side of the house, keeps day- and night-time activities separate. Smith's design allowed the site to be kept at the natural grade: the main entry to the house's upper level is approached by a bridge, while the lower level plan is "at grade, which allows a ramped approach to the garage and garden access at the rear from the family room by sliding glass doors." The ground level entry also eliminated the need for outside steps, which in Winnipeg must be kept clear of snow and ice in winter, the house levels split at this entry point into the upper level (living areas) and lower level (sewing, workshop and heating). Since the house is raised out of the ground, the lower leavel attains good light from an adequate depth of window.

Hillside Beach retirement home

Smith spent summers on Lake Winnipeg and at Grand Beach, where he first met his wife of 48 years, Marjorie, with whom he had two girls (Lynda and Emily) and a son (Christopher). He designed and built his retirement home at Hillside Beach on Lake Winnipeg in 1985. It was featured at the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts "Prairie Region Exhibition" at the Winnipeg and Mackenzie art galleries in 1997 and 1998. Smith remained there after Marjorie died in 1993, moving back to Winnipeg in 1998, and finally to a personal care home in The Pas in 2001, where his son Chris lived.

Death

Smith died on 22 October 2004. His memorial service took place at Westworth United Church, which he designed during the firm's early years.

Professional affiliations

• Royal Architectural Institute of Canada • Fellow (1963) • Dean (1973-75) • Chancellor (1980-82)
• Royal Canadian Academy of Arts • Council Member
• Manitoba Association of Architects • President (1953–54, 1956–1961) • Life Member (2000)

Select publications

• (with John A. Russell) "School of Architecture, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg." Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Journal 37 (8) (August 1960): 317-328.