The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) is a museum of architecture and research centre in what was the Golden Square Mile in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Phyllis Lambert is the Founding Director and Chair of the Board of Trustees, and Mirko Zardini is the Director and Chief Curator.
The centre is located at 1920 Baile street and was designed by Montreal native architect Peter Rose, now of Rose + Guggenheimer Studio (Boston, New York). Completed in 1989, it incorporates the Shaughnessy House mansion, built for Thomas Shaughnessy, a Second Empire-style mansion that Lambert purchased in 1974 to prevent its demolition. The Shaughnessy House at 1923 Dorchester St. W was completed by William Tutin Thomas, a Montreal architect, in 1876.
The mansion faces René Lévesque Boulevard, a facing sculpture garden by Melvin Charney. The mansion is a National Historic Site of Canada.
The CCA received the Honor Award for Architecture from the American Institute of Architects and the Governor General's Medals in Architecture in 1992.
Most of the rooms of the Shaughnessy mansion have been restored to their original 1874 state. The centre offers tours adapted to specific groups and educational programs for children.
It has vast collections of books and artifacts touching on all aspects of the built environment and certain aspects of industrial design. Within the general collections it has special collections such as those pertaining to architectural games for children, universal exhibitions and their architecture, and significant architects including Ernest Cormier, Peter Eisenman, Arthur Erickson, John Hejduk, Cedric Price, Aldo Rossi, James Stirling, and the artist Gordon Matta-Clark.
The centre mounts regular shows made up of research on thematic subjects, different aspects of its collections, and hosts touring exhibits from other museums. It also has an extensive bookstore, a concert hall, and well planned gardens. The sculpture garden which lies across René Lévesque Boulevard offers a full scale ghost-like lower shell of the bottom part of the Shaughnessy mansion, and assorted modernistic sculptures or constructs which are developed around the theme of architecture.
The Centre's considerable research library is open to the public, but only by appointment. It celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2009.
Read more about Canadian Centre For Architecture: Affiliations
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