Posts tagged “Raymond Moriyama”

Moriyama and Teshima Architects, past, present and future.
10 October, 2023

Starting far left, Ronen Bauer, Carol Phillips, Diarmuid Nash, Urvish Patel, Emmanuelle van Rutten, and Brian Rudy
A productive day recording interviews with staff at Moriyama and Teshima architects while also getting more b-roll footage of the space. It is fun to note and compare changes made to the office since first recording back in 2017. The offices is open concept to encourage collaboration and sharing of ideas where even senior staff do not have private space. Among some questions asked was staff experience with Moriyama and specific projects they collaborated on. Interviews focused on senior staff who did work with Moriyama, though I noticed there is also an emerging, young, diverse number of staff who have not even met Moriyama and will likely take the firm in new, unexpected directions. When one enters the offices of Moriyama and Teshima, one is immediately struck with the history of the place and the Japanese-Canadian design influences. The front has the parallel wood board panels, the fish pool at the entrance, Japanese influenced décor and several unique totems made by Moriyama that blend indigenous Canadian and Japanese cultures.

Above, one of six totems designed and built by Raymond Moriyama

Among most anticipated interviews is with senior partner, Diarmuid Nash, who worked there and collaborated with Moriyama the longest. Nash has the experience and stories that are valued such as when the firm made (and lost) the bid for the Ontario Science Centre renovation during the 1990’s. Nash also worked on several more projects alongside Moriyama due to his tenure.

Moriyama and Teshima have accomplished many interesting projects, but nothing on the vast scale like the Ontario Science Centre (OSC) that launched the firm in the first place, from more modest boutique designs to large scale government contracts. Government investment in education and infrastructure is not what it used to be, so architecture firms are challenged with material and budget constraints. There is obvious excitement, however, with the staff when they discuss projects that facilitate environmental and technological innovation in building and design, such as using repurposed materials or breathing new life in older buildings. The firm are still involved in some of Canada’s most important buildings, but the country is not what it used to be. Moriyama & Teshima is no longer bound by national architecture constraints as they now have a growing and thriving portfolio of international projects.
'Go Ohn' Centennial Bell rings for the last time.
22 September, 2023

Filmed (and recorded audio of) the Go Ohn Centennial Bell at Ontario Place West Island and attendant shelter before dismantlement to make way for Ford's private mega spa. The Go Ohn Bell and shelter was designed by Raymond Moriyama and installed by the Japanese Canadian Centennial Society in 1977. Digging through the Toronto archives, found historical images and text related to the bell.

Image below from the Future of Ontario Place website

Above, Mitchell Akiyama and his relation to the Centennial Bell

From Akiyama's Vimeo entry:
In 108 Spectres of Release, Mitchell Akiyama animates the historic Buddhist temple bell on the West Island, given to Ontario Place by Japanese-Ontarians in 1977. Akiyama transforms the bell itself into a speaker, which replays recordings of Akiyama’s grandmother, who was in attendance at the bell’s original inauguration ceremony. Born in Canada, Akiyama’s grandmother was interned during the Second World War and later displaced by government-mandated relocation to eastern Canada before she eventually settled in Toronto. Reviving the bell, Akiyama allows his grandmother’s voice to surface tensions between memorialization and lived experience. 108 Spectres of Release serves as a deeply personal articulation of Japanese-Canadian history in a space where the bell’s commemorative function has largely ceased.
Raymond Moriyama passes, aged 93. Long live Moriyama's works and ideas!
1 September, 2023

(October 11, 1929 – September 1, 2023) Raymond Moriyama passed away, aged 93, on September 1st, 2023 and led a life of both strife and exaltation. Strife from being born Japanese-Canadian and a youth amid the outbreak of World War Two, when he was a child. His family lost their property and business and they, with about 22 000 other Japanese Canadians, were rounded-up and relocated to places like Slocan, BC where Raymond spent part of his youth. Moriyama felt great bitterness from being separated from his mother, socially isolated from his ethnic community due to fifty percent of his skin being burnt from a childhood accident (they called him ‘diseased’) and being denied the same upbringing as non-Japanese citizens. Somehow, Moriyama managed to get past his anger and use the Slocan environs as his place of learning and first forays into architecture. When World War two ended, the Moriyama family started from scratch, relocating to Hamilton Ontario, but Raymond excelled academically and flourished as an architect. From a young age, during the 1950’s, Moriyama was awarded for his designs of golf course shelters dubbed the ‘Half Way House Golf Course’, the Civic Gardens Centre (now called The Toronto Botanical Gardens), and the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre (JCCC). The latter would lead to Moriyama being selected to design the Ontario Science Centre (OSC).

It was by chance I was asked by the treasurer of the Architecture Conservancy Ontario (ACO) to record an interview with Raymond Moriyama for the 50th anniversary of the OSC. I arrived at the Moriyama & Teshima architecture office at 117 George Street to meet a dapper, elegantly dressed, Raymond Moriyama who was cordial and showed us the conference room. The ACO just needed a ten minute video segment recorded about the OSC, but Moriyama spoke for three hours about the ideation and making of the iconic building and my camera and mics recorded all of it. Moriyama’s work and ideas illuminated areas of my childhood, youth and adulthood. Since an early age, I had school and family trips to the Science Centre and there was always a feeling of being happily overwhelmed at the vastness and beauty and engagement with the science centre. I also attended, however, briefly, Keele Public School, designed by Moriyama. Even children could appreciate it’s unique, almost futuristic, flowing, submarine-like shape. The Toronto Reference Library, another Moriyama building is an ongoing destination since adolescence, is an inspiring paean to knowledge. I always get the cold sweats when looking over the inner space from the top floor balcony.

Though Moriyama is with us no more, his designs and ideas continue to shape and guide our lives in Ontario. His works are worth struggling to preserve. Below, Moriyama speaks to how Canada is still relatively young country and the golden age, that ‘golden moment’, has yet to arrive.
Magical Imperfection: The Life and Architecture of Raymond Moriyama.
1 October, 2020

Above, the Magical Imperfection documentary on Canadian architect, Raymond Moriyama, depicting his life, times and works. The documentary is viewable via Youtube but only available for Canadian site visitors. Below, the trailer which should be viewable for international site visitors.

Magical Imperfection (David Hoffert, writer and Scott Calbeck, director: 2020), a documentary on the life and works of Raymond Moriyama. From the marketing copy: Magical Imperfection tells the inspirational story of world-renowned Canadian architect Raymond Moriyama. Moriyama’s acclaimed architectural achievements, including the Ontario Science Centre and the Canadian War Museum, draw upon his life experiences, including the trauma of wartime internment as a Japanese Canadian. Imprisoned in his own country during the 1940s because of his race, Ray found the strength to combat injustice by devoting his career to social justice and equality.
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Scott Calbeck and his Magical Imperfection
31 August, 2023

Met with Scott Calbeck, director of the documentary, Magical Imperfection, at Toronto’s Fort York library media room, on the cusp of autumn. I was aware of Magical Imperfection through research and while Calbeck tackles Moriyama’s whole life, the goal of HeartOSC is to try to focus on the Ontario Science Centre (OSC). One of gems of Calbeck’s doc is footage from an interview with Moriyama specifically on the OSC on CBC’s Man Alive, which I find difficult to source. At the core of the Magical Imperfection film are two filmed interviews with Moriyama conducted at about 2014.

During our interview, Calbeck told of reading about the Canadian War Museum and learning about Moriyama and his dramatic upbringing and career in Canada. Calbeck got in touch with Moriyama and before long, visited the then-offices at Moriyama & Teshima architects at 32 Davenport Road later that year. Moriyama and Calbeck developed a years long friendship and a documentary ensued, that took a decade to complete even though they had funding from Rogers. Moriyama, his life and times are an expensive topic that span a world war, social and economic and political shifts and the rise of someone from a once derided class in Canada to become the most celebrated and accomplished national architect. It was great listening to Calbeck to share anecdotes on meeting and getting to know Moriyama.

As an interesting sidenote, one of the last times Calbeck went to the OSC was to hear boxer, Rubin “Hurricane” Carter speak at the OSC in January 2000. Carter was a professional boxer wrongly imprisoned for multiple homicides which he did not commit. This speak to the fact that the OSC is not just a place of science education but also a forum for social justice.

Among other works Calbeck directed include Canadian indigenous literary figure, Pauline Johnson: The Pauline Johnson (1999) Story and was also involved as associate producer for Raw Opium (2010).

Screening of Magical Imperfection at the Japan embassy in Ottawa
Michael McClelland interview (excerpt)
20 July, 2017

Visited ERA Architects to interview architect, scholar, and principal of the firm, Michael McClelland. McClelland is a generous person and was kind enough to give a (now treasured) copy of Concrete Toronto: A guide to concrete architecture from the fifties to the seventies. Being from Toronto, I never really paid much attention to how much architecture defines the mood and tone of our city. Toronto has a lot of strange (in a good way) looking, massive concrete buildings. It is great to learn about the ideology and optimism that informs the 'utopian modernist' school of architecture that occurred during the 1950's through to the 1970's. The focal point of our interview is the Ontario Science Centre (OSC), one of the country's best examples of utopian modernist brutalist architecture. I heartily recommend McClelland's overview of brutalist architecture in Toronto that he presented for the ACO 150 Plus symposium at the Ontario Science Centre. McClelland suggests that architecture is similar to people in our society, they become less interesting in middle age. That may explain why the OSC got a facelift to the entrance 'Building A' in it's 30's!
Moriyama-designed OAC Centennial Arboretum Centre, University of Guelph.
18 August, 2023

Above, interview excerpt with University of Guelph Arboretum Director, Justine Richardson

Took a trip out to Guelph, Ontario with favoured Toronto-based architecture photographer, Vik Pahwa , to capture the Ontario Agricultural College (OAC)'s Centennial Arboretum Centre designed by Raymond Moriyama. Justine Richardson , Director of the University of Guelph Arboretum, was a superb host who prepared archival images, literature and articles on said building. The building is magnificent, the abundance of windows leads to an immersion in nature hard to find elsewhere except in Moriyama's other works. Would love to see this structure in winter, apparently the building is just as stunning. Construction of the Arboretum Centre was completed in 1974 and as the image denotes below, the land was mostly open and flat. From one perspective of the building, it can almost pass as a glorified garden shed, it seems small. But like Dr. Who's TARDIS, the interior appears far larger than the exterior. That is because a portion of the building is built into the landscape, much like the Earth Homes or Earth Shelter in style during the 1960's. A pop culture variant would be the "Hobbit Homes" from the J. R. R. Tolkein series.

Image above from U of Guelph Arboretum Centre website.

This contrasts with the current image of the building with attendant foliage, more in keeping with an Earth Shelter.

Vik Pahwa is ideal to have around on an architectural documentation trip, he maintains a surpassing weblog of architectural photography and his work is featured in at least two architecture books, Toronto Architecture: A City Guide, 3rd Edition and Remnants of Mid-Century Toronto.
Images of the Ontario Agricultural College (OAC)'s Centennial Arboretum Centre by Pahwa, below.

Stills above by Vik Pahwa
Raymond Moriyama, Ontario Science Centre architect featured for 'ACO 150 Plus'.
5 April, 2017

Raymond Moriyama, celebrated architect of the Ontario Science Centre (OSC) agreed to be interviewed by the Architecture Conservancy of Ontario (ACO) for the 50th anniversary aka the ACO 150 Plus symposium. While Moriyama will not attend the symposium, by way of compromise, he agreed to a video interview. The ACO just needed ten minutes of footage, but Moriyama was effusive and spoke for about three hours. Among topics covered were Moriyama's childhood internment in Slocan, BC, education, starting a fledgling architecture practice during his 30's, being summoned to develop the OSC, ideation, iteration, the opening, subsequent projects and the future of architecture and Canada. Here is a brief distillation, but not the whole enchilada.