Canada 5468796 Architecture

When Winnipeg-based 5468796 Architecture were highly commended in the 2010 AR Awards for Emerging Architecture for the OMS Stage they flew their whole team to Europe for the prize giving. The Canadian posse was 12 strong, including the project developer, and together they rented a house and ‘made London home’ for a few days. It was their first taste of international recognition, just three-and-a-half years into their careers, and was significant not only for them but also for the community of local start-up practices that have emerged in Winnipeg in recent years. Stuck in the middle of Canada, Winnipeg is, by their own admission, a remote and conservative place, where it is difficult to convince people of the value of architecture and design. Now, however, a clutch of 10 or so new practices are challenging the status quo, and helping to revive the Modernist legacy established by the disciples of Wright, Mies and Gropius who came to the region in the ’60s and ’70s to help make the Department of Architecture at the University of Manitoba one of the strongest Modernist schools in Canada. As practice founder Sasa Radulovic says, however, ‘over the last 20 or so years, the scene has been relatively stale’, so sensing a renaissance in the offing, in everything they do − from practice teaching to public engagement − they seek to raise the profile of architecture.