Giovanna Borasi will lead the Canadian Centre for Architecture

Marking a change in leadership, Mirko Zardini will step down as Director at the end of December 2019, after leading the CCA for nearly 15 years. Giovanna Borasi, Chief Curator of the CCA since 2014, will assume the directorship in January 2020.

Giovanna Borasi. Photograph by Richmond Lam. Courtesy of CCA

Founded in 1979 by Phyllis Lambert, the Canadian Centre for Architecture has pursued its mission of making architecture a public concern for 40 years. As a center for research in the field as well as a public museum with a singularly extensive collection, the institution is recognized nationally and internationally for its incisive voice in the discourse on the built environment. Marking a change in leadership, Mirko Zardini will step down as Director at the end of December 2019, after leading the CCA for nearly 15 years.

“The CCA will continue to grow its intellectual field, building on the critical excellence and impact that has been developed under the directorship of Mirko Zardini. I am very excited to have the opportunity to work with our next director, Giovanna Borasi, who has been integral to the curatorial vision of the CCA as its Chief Curator.”

Bruce Kuwabara, Chair of the Board of Trustees has announced that Giovanna Borasi will assume the directorship in January 2020

During this time, the organization's emphasis on archival work has also expanded, as have CCA's archival holdings themselves. CCA now hosts a collection of important works, including the archives of Pritzker Prize winning architect Álvaro Siza Vieira, Spanish architects Ábalos & Herreros, and architectural historian Kenneth Frampton.

Reflecting on his tenure as director, Zardini commented,

“I never aspired to become 'director' of anything, per se, but I couldn't resist the challenge of assuming this position and the possibility of activating the CCA as an engine for exploration and research at the forefront of architectural thinking and practice. My aim has always been to advance new and different questions within the scope of the institution's core mission to raise public awareness of the role of architecture in contemporary society, and to establish a new platform from which to articulate an agenda for architecture in the 21st century. This involved transforming the CCA into the provocative and imaginative institution Phyllis Lambert originally envisioned. My directorship would not have been possible without her support, and my goals for the institution could never have been realized without the expertise and sustained commitment of the CCA team over these many years. Intellectual collaboration among the network of architects, urban and landscape designers, historians, and critics who share our values and generate new ideas has been equally indispensable, and likewise the enormous generosity of architects who decided to donate their archives to the CCA.”

Phyllis Lambert sees this moment of transition in leadership at the CCA as confirmation of vital continuity, affirming the institution's underlying mission through acknowledgment of its past and present projects while at the same time opening the way for new priorities that will unfold and inform the CCA's agenda for decades to come, ensuring that it remains one of the most relevant platforms and voices in the international conversation on architecture and the built domain.

“Mirko upheld my original mission and then took it further by transforming the model of research at the CCA, strategically growing its collection, diversifying its audience, and taking bold strides into the digital realm. Throughout his tenure, he and Giovanna Borasi worked to create and contribute to contemporary research and debate on architecture. I join my fellow members of the Board of Trustees of the CCA in thanking Mirko for his many years of inspired leadership, and I look forward to the new ideas and inquiries Giovanna will bring to the table as she takes the helm of the institution.”

Giovanna Borasi, Phyllis Lambert, and Mirko Zardini. Photograph by Richmond Lam. Courtesy of CCA

Mirko Zardini. Photograph by Richmond Lam. Courtesy of CCA

Giovanna Borasi and Mirko Zardini. Photograph by Richmond Lam. Courtesy of CCA

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Giovanna Borasi

Giovanna Borasi studied architecture at the Politecnico di Milano. Her exhibitions and publications have drawn particular attention to alternative ways of practicing and evaluating architecture, and the influence of social and political issues on urbanism and the built environment. After working as an editor for Lotus International (1998–2005) and Lotus Navigator (2000–04), Borasi was appointed Deputy Editor in Chief of Abitare (2011–13). Before joining the CCA, she co-curated House Sweet Home, Different Ways to Live at Spazio Ventisette, Milan (2000), and collaborated with Mirko Zardini on two others: Asfalto: Il carattere della città at the Milan Triennale (2003) and Notizie dall’Interno for the Italian Pavilion in the 9th Architecture Biennale in Venice (2004). Borasi worked as Curator for Contemporary Architecture at CCA (2005–10), and in 2014 was named Chief Curator. Her exhibition and publication projects include Environment: Approaches for Tomorrow: Gilles Clement / Philippe Rahm (2006), four projects co-curated with Mirko Zardini, 1973: Sorry, Out of Gas (2007), Actions: What You Can Do With the City (2008), Imperfect Health: The Medicalization of Architecture (2011), and Other Space Odysseys: Greg Lynn, Michael Maltzan, Alessandro Poli (2010), as well as her projects Some Ideas of Living in London and Tokyo: Ryue Nishizawa and Stephen Taylor (2008), Journeys: How Travelling fruit, ideas and buildings rearrange our environment (2011), The Other Architect / Another Way of Building Architecture (2016), Besides History: Go Hasegawa, Kersten Geers, and David Van Severen (2017), and Scripts for a new world. Film Storyboards by Alessandro Poli (2019). In 2015, her Out of the Box: Ábalos & Herreros picked up and expanded the provocative 'out of the box' exhibition concept in a new direction, inviting three teams of architects to consider this archive from their quite different points of view in a series of three small exhibitions presented in sequence. In 2018, Borasi initiated a series of short documentary films about future urban challenges with What It Takes to Make a Home, which focuses on homelessness; it will première at the Architecture and Design Film Festival, New York, in October 2019. Borasi has published widely in journals such as ARCH+, Domus, 2G, Cartha, Harvard Design Magazine, e-flux, and PLOT.

Mirko Zardini

Mirko Zardini. Following studies at the International Laboratory of Architecture and Urban Design (ILAUD) in Urbino and Milan, and the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia (IUAV), Zardini collaborated with Studio Giancarlo de Carlo (1979–81) and the office of Vittorio Gregotti (1983–85). He practiced as an architect in Milan and Lugano for over a decade while also breaking new ground with his research and publications. Zardini worked as an editor at Casabella (1983–88) and at Lotus International (1988–99); during this time, he collaborated with and contributed extensively to publications including Domus, El Croquis, and Archis, while also developing his profile as an innovative curator. As visiting professor, he taught design and theory at institutions including the Federal Polytechnic University (ETH) in Zurich, the Federal Polytechnic University (EPFL) in Lausanne, the IUAV in Venice, the Politecnico in Milan, the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, and the School of Architecture at Princeton University. Among his seminal early publications and exhibitions projects are Frank O. Gehry: America as Context (1994); Paesaggi ibridi: Highway, Multiplicity (1996); Annähernd perfekte Peripherie: Glattalstadt/Greater Zurich Area (2001); and the exhibition Asfalto: Il carattere della città at the Triennale di Milano (2003). Zardini joined the CCA in 2003 as Consulting Curator, and in 2005 was appointed Director and Chief Curator. His innovative exhibition Out of the Box: Price Rossi Stirling + Matta-Clark (2003) challenged four architectural historians to make a first 'cut' through these four major new archives. This project was followed by exhibition and publication projects including Sense of the City (2005), which enlarged on the basic premise of his earlier Asfalto exhibition to address other ubiquitous but often unconsidered elements of the city, four projects co-curated with Giovanna Borasi, 1973: Sorry, Out of Gas (2007); Actions: What You Can Do With the City (2008); Imperfect Health: The Medicalization of Architecture (2011), and Other Space Odysseys: Greg Lynn, Michael Maltzan, Alessandro Poli (2010), and his more recent projects Rooms you May Have Missed: Umberto Riva, Bijoy Jain (2015) and It’s All Happening So Fast: A Counter-History of the Modern Canadian Environment (2016).

Phyllis Lambert

Phyllis Lambert (born January 24, 1927 in Montreal) is an architect, author, scholar, and activist, and is the Founding Director Emeritus and formerly Director and Chair of the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) which she established in Montreal in 1979.

Lambert first made architectural history as the Director of Planning of the Seagram Building (1954-58) in New York City. Actively engaged in advancing contemporary architecture, as well as the social issues of urban conservation, Lambert founded Héritage Montréal in 1975, and in 1979 was instrumental in establishing the Société d'Amélioration de Milton-Parc, the largest non-profit cooperative housing renovation project in Canada. In 1996, she formed the Fonds d’Investissement de Montréal (FIM), the only private investment fund in Canada participating in the revitalization of housing in low- and medium-income neighbourhoods. For 23 years, Lambert served on the Board of the Vieux Port de Montréal, where she established public consultation as an instrument of planning. Spearheading the revival of Montréal’s downtown west quarter through the roundtable she initiated in 2005, Lambert’s involvement in shaping the city continues also through the Institute of Policy Alternatives of Montréal (IPAM) which she presides. For her tenacious engagement in advancing the role of architecture in the public realm, from Seagram to the CCA, Lambert received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale. In 2016, the Wolf Foundation in Israel bestowed upon Lambert its Wolf Prize in Arts for her six decades of championing innovation in building design and preservation of properties of patrimonial significance, and for invigorating the profession and research into architecture, which she infuses with intellectual doubt and political critique. Last year, she also received the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize 2016 Architecture Awards from The American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York.

Published on: September 12, 2019

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