Shirley Blumberg (CM, OAA, FRAIC, AIA) (born February 4, 1952) is a Canadian architect. She is a founding partner of

KPMB Architects KPMB is a Canadian architecture firm founded by Bruce Kuwabara, Thomas Payne, Marianne McKenna, and Shirley Blumberg, in 1987. It is headquartered in Toronto, where the majority of their work is found. Aside from designing buildings, the firm al ...

in Toronto, a Canadian practice. In 2013, Blumberg was invested as a Member of the

Order of Canada The Order of Canada (french: Ordre du Canada; abbreviated as OC) is a Canadian state order and the second-highest honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit. To coincide with the c ...

"for her contributions to architecture and for her commitment to creating spaces that foster a sense of community." Notable projects include the

Centre for International Governance Innovation The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI, pronounced "see-jee") is an independent, non-partisan think tank on global governance. CIGI supports research, forms networks, advances policy debate and generates ideas for multilateral ...

(CIGI) Campus, 2011 which is the recipient of the

Royal Institute of British Architects The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally, founded for the advancement of architecture under its royal charter granted in 1837, three suppl ...

International Award (2012), the

Architectural Record ''Architectural Record'' is a US-based monthly magazine dedicated to architecture and interior design. "The Record," as it is sometimes colloquially referred to, is widely-recognized as an important historical record of the unfolding debates in ...

“Good Design is Good Business Award” (2013) and the Governor General's Medal for Excellence (2014).

Biography

Blumberg was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and graduated from the

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) ( af, Universiteit van Kaapstad, xh, Yunibesithi ya yaseKapa) is a public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university statu ...

in 1972. She immigrated to

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...

in opposition to

Apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

in her home country in 1974, after spending a year in

London, England London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major s ...

. She completed her education in Canada graduating with Honours from the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institu ...

School of Architecture in 1976. In 1977, she joined

Barton Myers Barton Myers (born November 6, 1934) is an American architect and president of Barton Myers Associates Inc. in Santa Barbara, California. With a career spanning more than 40 years, Myers is a fellow of the American Institute of Architects and w ...

Associates, Inc. in Toronto and worked 10 years as an associate until Myers decided to move his office to

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wor ...

. This catalyzed Blumberg to join forces with three other associates of Barton Myers –

Bruce Kuwabara Bruce Bunji Kuwabara, (O.C., B.Arch, OAA, FRAIC, RAIC, AIA, RIBA) is a Canadian architect and a founding partner of the firm KPMB Architects (formed in 1987). He is an invested Officer of the Order of Canada and recipient of the RAIC Gold Me ...

, Thomas Payne and

Marianne McKenna Marianne McKenna, Officer of the Order of Canada, OC, FRAIC, OAA, OAQ, AIA, RIBA (born September 25, 1950) is a Canadian architect and a founding partner of KPMB Architects, a Toronto-based practice established in 1987. She is an invested Officer o ...

– to form Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects (KPMB), in 1987. Blumberg has focused on projects of architecture that benefit society and has directed a range of projects that speak to issues of pluralism, housing, and community building. This work includes the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre in

Don Mills Don Mills is a mixed-use neighbourhood in the North York district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was developed to be a self-supporting "new town" and was at the time located outside Toronto proper. In 1998, North York, including the Don Mills c ...

, Ontario and the

Toronto Community Housing Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) is the public housing agency in Toronto, Ontario. A municipal corporation of the City of Toronto, TCHC provides approximately 60,000 units of housing to an estimated 165,000 residents, making it is the ...

, Block 32 and adjacent Fort York Branch Library. Current projects include the

Global Centre for Pluralism The Global Centre for Pluralism (french: Centre mondial du pluralisme) is an international centre for research, education and exchange about the values, practices and policies that underpin pluralist societies. Based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, th ...

for the Aga Khan in Ottawa and the Lawrence Heights Redevelopment in Toronto. She is also the partner-in-charge of the Remai Modern Art Gallery of Saskatchewan (

Mendel Art Gallery The Mendel Art Gallery was a major creative cultural centre in City Park, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Operating from 1964 to 2015, it housed a permanent collection of more than 7,500 works of art. The gallery was managed by the city-owned Saskatoon G ...

), the Ronald O. Perelman Center for Political Science and Economics at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universit ...

, and 20 Washington Road for

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the n ...

. Blumberg is also part of the campus framework planning effort for Princeton University with Urban Strategies and

Michael Van Valkenburgh Michael Robert Van Valkenburgh (born September 5, 1951) is an American landscape architect and educator. He has worked on a wide variety of projects in the United States, Canada, Korea, and France, including public parks, college campuses, sculpt ...

and Associates. Blumberg is a member of the

Design Review Panel, and has served on the City of Toronto Design Review Panel. In 2014 Blumberg served on the design review panel for the memorial to the Victims of Communism. Proposed to be located on one of the last pieces of open land in the parliamentary district of Canada's capital,

Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...

, Blumberg voted against the design and catalyzed a protest against the initiative and the location. Shirley led the gelling of the Design Exchange, an architectural clash including the 1990s Ernst & Young Tower, 1930s Moderne machismo and a 1960s Mies van der Rohe's Toronto-Dominion Centre next door. She was partner-in-charge of this $8 million project at Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg, the architecture firm that won the job in January 1988, after beating 40 other design firms in an interview process. Her attention to detail and thought process for every part of the

Design Exchange The Design Exchange (DX) is a Canadian event venue. It is located in Toronto's financial district in the historical Toronto Stock Exchange building, that was incorporated into a skyscraper in 1991, the Toronto-Dominion Centre (222 Bay Street). Th ...

allowed her to unify these clashing architectural styles into one distinguished building. Beyond using a variety of materials, Shirley used them in virtuosic ways, saying, “we wanted to demonstrate their limits, to see how far we could push them.” During this project she says, "design isn’t just people sitting around and sketching on a drawing board. It’s a huge industry with many collaborators, from designers to fabricators to suppliers.” Some of Blumberg's public service included being a part of the seven-member jury that evaluated finalists for new Ottawa

Memorial to the Victims of Communism The Memorial to the victims of Communism ( cs, Pomník obětem komunismu) is a series of statues in Prague commemorating the victims of the communist era between 1948 and 1989. It is located at the base of Petřín hill, Újezd street in the M ...

. Her main criticism to the project was why a memorial to victims of communism was so prominent and so “centrally placed that it would seem to quite overshadow Canada’s true history,” as well as the memorial not being able to be built for the estimated price of $5.5 million.

Selected Projects

* 1994: The

, Toronto, Ontario * 1996: Alliance Communications Corporation Head Office * 1997: Alias, wavefront Studios * 1997: Disney Television Animation Studios * 1997: Ammirati Puris Lintas, New York City, New York * 2000: Penthouse on the Waterfront * 2000: Cardinal Ambrozic Houses of Providence * 2003: James Stewart Centre for Mathematics,

McMaster University McMaster University (McMaster or Mac) is a public research university in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The main McMaster campus is on of land near the residential neighbourhoods of Ainslie Wood and Westdale, adjacent to the Royal Botanical ...

, Hamilton, Ontario * 2004: Centennial College Applied Research and Innovation Centre, Scarborough, Ontario * 2004: University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) Faculty of Management * 2005:

Canada's National Ballet School Canada's National Ballet School, also commonly known as the National Ballet School of Canada, is a classical ballet school located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Along with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School, it is a provider of professional ballet tr ...

(in joint venture with Goldsmith Borgal & Company Ltd. Architects), Toronto, Ontario * 2006:

Gardiner Museum The George R. Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art (commonly shortened to the Gardiner Museum) is a ceramics museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum is situated within University of Toronto's St. George campus, in downtown Toronto. The museum bu ...

, Toronto, Ontario * 2008: Japanese Canadian Cultural Center, Toronto, Ontario * 2008: SugarCube, Denver, Colorado * 2009: Block 24 E, Railway Lands West (NEO & Montage Condominiums), Toronto, Ontario * 2009: One Bedford Residential Development, Toronto, Ontario * 2009: University Boulevard Project, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia * 2010: TIFF

Bell Lightbox TIFF Bell Lightbox is a cultural centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located in the first five floors of the Bell Lightbox and Festival Tower on the north west corner of King Street and John Street. TIFF Bell Lightbox features five cinemas, two ...

and Festival Tower, Toronto, Ontario * 2011:

Vaughan Vaughan () (2021 population 323,103) is a city in Ontario, Canada. It is located in the Regional Municipality of York, just north of Toronto. Vaughan was the fastest-growing municipality in Canada between 1996 and 2006 with its population increas ...

City Hall, Vaughan, Ontario (

LEED Gold Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a green building certification program used worldwide. Developed by the non-profit U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), it includes a set of rating systems for the design, constructio ...

) * 2011:

, CIGI Campus, Waterloo, Ontario * 2011: Maple Leaf Square (Bremner Blvd), Toronto, Ontario * 2012: Block 32,

Corporation, Toronto, Ontario (in association with

Page and Steele Page + Steele, formerly known as Page and Steele, is an architecture partnership created in 1926 by Forsey Pemberton B. Page (1885–1970) and W. Harland Steele (1900–1996) in Toronto, Ontario. It is now part of the IBI Group of architectural an ...

/ IBI Group Architects) * 2012: Toronto Community Housing Corporation, 150 Dan Leckie Way, Toronto, Ontario * 2013: Audain Art Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia * 2013: Ponderosa Commons Phase I,

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...

, Vancouver, British Columbia (in joint venture with Hughes Condon Marler Architects) * 2013:

Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario The Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario (ETFO; french: Fédération des enseignants et des enseignantes de l'élémentaire de l'Ontario, FEÉO) is a labour union representing all public elementary school teachers, occasional teachers, and ...

, Toronto, Ontario * 2013: Sugino Studio, Toronto, Ontario * 2014: Library District Condominiums, Toronto, Ontario (in association with

/ IBI Group Architects) * 2014: Fort York Branch Library, Toronto, Ontario * 2015: Ponderosa Commons Phase II,

, Vancouver, British Columbia (in joint venture with Hughes Condon Marler Architects) * 2015: Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre, University of British Columbia,

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. Th ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include ...

* 2015: Jack Layton Ferry Terminal and Harbour Square Park, Toronto, Ontario * 2016: 20 Washington Road, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey * 2017: Julis Romo Rabinowitz Building & Louis A. Simpson International Building, Princeton University,

Princeton, New Jersey Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of whi ...

* 2017: Global Center for Pluralism, Ottawa, Ontario * 2017: Remai Modern Art Gallery of Saskatchewan,

Saskatoon Saskatoon () is the largest city in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It straddles a bend in the South Saskatchewan River in the central region of the province. It is located along the Trans-Canada Yellowhead Highway, and has served as ...

, Saskatchewan * 2018: Lawrence Heights, Toronto, Ontario * 2018: Ronald O. Perelman Center for Political Science and Economics,

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Ma ...

* 2018: 11 Wellesley, Toronto, Ontario * 2020 Landscape of Landmark Quality, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario

References

External links

Finding aid for the Kuwabara Payne Mckenna Blumberg fonds

Canadian Centre for Architecture The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA; french: Centre Canadien d'Architecture) is a museum of architecture and research centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located at 1920, rue Baile (1920, Baile Street), between rue Fort (Fort Street ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blumberg, Shirley Canadian women architects 1952 births Living people People from Cape Town People from Toronto Members of the Order of Canada University of Toronto alumni University of Cape Town alumni