Historic Timeline

Frederick Gage Todd prepares the first comprehensive report for the National Capital Region.

Québec’s Architects’ Act is altered to allow landscape architects to use the word “architect” in their title. This achievement is largely credited to Frederick Gage Todd.

In March, at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto, the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects and Town Planners is formed with Gordon Culham (President), Howard Dunington-Grubb (Vice president), Frances Steinhoff (Secretary-Treasurer) and Carl Borgstron and Edwin Kay (Councilors). Also present: Laurie Dunington-Grubb, Humphrey Carver, J.V. Stensson, and Helen Kipax.

IFLA was founded at Cambridge, England, in 1948 with Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe as its first president, representing 15 countries from Europe and North America. Canada is a founding member.

Picture of IFLA Presidents, from left to right: Geoffrey Jellicoe (1948-1952); Walter Leder (1952-1956); René Pechère (1956-1958); Sidney Shurcuff (1958-1962); Francisco C. Cabral (1962-1966); Richard Schreiner (1966-1968). Source : Harvard University, Graduate School of Design, Archival Collections, Frances Loeb Library.
 

Niagara Falls, Ontario, and guests from the Upstate New York Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (1956) - Souper annuel de l’Association des architectes paysagistes et urbanistes du Canada with some of the members of Upstate New York Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (1956).

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J. Austin Floyd prepares the profession’s first Schedule of Fees and Agreements between clients and landscape architects. 

csla-aapc.ca/fellows

University of Guelph BLA program

University of Toronto adds a landscape architecture division (a four-year BLA) to its programs. The BLA will be phased out in 1999. History

The School of Architecture at l’Université de Montréal

CSLA is restructured into a federation of provincial and regional component associations. Edwin Skapsts, Jack Walker and Clive Justice lead the restructuring.

Students from the University of Guelph and the University of Toronto establish LA Bash, the annual international student conference.

University of Manitoba MLA program

University of Guelph MLA

In March 1977, the CSLA creates a quarterly, bilingual publication entitled Landscape Architecture in Canada, edited by Moura Quayle.

Visit l'École d’architecture de paysage's website and read an article on its history written by Nicole Valois and Ron Williams: Histoire de la formation en architecture de paysage à l’Université de Montréal (openedition.org)

University of British Columbia BLA program

The first indication of an awards program in the profession appears in the 1969 minutes of the CSLA Board of Directors. It mentions that at the October Annual Meeting in Ottawa, 3 Awards of Excellence and 4 Awards of Merit were presented. The committee that organized this “Design Competition” consisted of Norman P. Fodchuck (Chair), Donald W. Pettit, FCSLA and Henry Stengel, while the jury was made up of Otis Bishopric, FCSLA and Roderick Clack. Regional awards programs began to emerge in the early 1980s. The CSLA established its awards program in 1982, with the first awards being made at CSLA Congress ‘83 in Edmonton. Following the 1983 Awards, the decision was made to have a national awards program which would evaluate submissions for “Regional” merit and secondly for “National” merit. At the 1985 Board of Governors meeting in Saskatoon, approval was granted, formally incorporating all regional awards programs into one national CSLA program. From 1984 to 1986, Arnis Budrevics, OALA, FCSLA, served as Awards Chair. At the Board of Governors meeting held on March 19, 1986, in Halifax, he presented a 7-page report which clearly and comprehensively stated all the goals, objectives and operating procedures under which the Awards Committee would operate. The proposal was accepted and the necessary funds were included in CSLA’s annual budgets. The administration of the awards program was entrusted to the University of Manitoba’s Landscape Architecture Department to administer on behalf of the CSLA until 2022, when the administration reverted to the CSLA head office. An archive of award-winning projects can be viewed here.

In November, the CSLA publishes the Landscape Architectural Review (LA Review) “to provide a forum for the presentation and promotion of landscape architecture” under the CSLA aegis and every CSLA member receives a copy.
 

CSLA Publishes Fifty Years of Landscape Architecture: The Canadian Society of Landscape Architects 1934-1984, by Cecelia Paine, ed.

The CSLA had developed an accreditation policy in the form of a 16-page brochure as early as 1979, when the accreditation of schools of landscape architecture at Canadian universities was provided exclusively by ASLA's Landscape Architecture Accreditation Board (LAAB). At the 1985 CSLA Congress in Saskatoon (July 4-6), Bradley R. Johnson, FCSLA was appointed the first Chair of the CSLA Accreditation Council and given the task of establishing the Council and accreditation program. In October 1985, the “Manual of Accreditation Standards and Procedures” was prepared. The first meeting was conducted on June 6, 1986, in Ottawa with Peter Jacobs, Brad Johnson, Don Pettit and Jim Stansbury in attendance and Doug Paterson present via telephone. The first Accreditation Team visit took place on November 23-24, 1987, at the University of Manitoba and accreditation of its program was approved in March 1988. This was followed by visits to the University of Toronto (in conjunction with the LAAB) on March 19-22, 1989, and the Université de Montréal on April 3-5, 1989. 

In January of 1985, the LA Review becomes a bilingual publication and is renamed Landscape Architecture Review/Revue d’architecture de paysage. It will be published until 1993.

Landscape Architecture Canada Foundation (LACF)

CSLA publishes "Portrait of a Profession: Landscape Architecture in 1988" by Moura Quayle, Neil Guppy and Luc Roberge

View the plaque

CSLA publishes "Glimpses of CSLA-AAPC History" written by Gunter A. Schoch 

CSLA publishes "Changing the Face of Canada: Profiles of Landscape Architects" written by Linda M. Le Geyt.

In the Fall, the first Issue of LANDSCAPES | PAYSAGES, magazine, edited by Cecilia Paine, is published, with the help of funds from the LACF.
 

Catherine MacDonald authors Making a Place: A History of Landscape Architects and Landscape Architecture in Manitoba

James R. Taylor publishes the first edition of The Practice of Landscape Architecture in Canada. The second edition is published in 2010.

"A Pocket History"

Michelle Legault is the Executive Director of both the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects (CSLA) and the Landscape Architecture Canada Foundation (LACF). 

Following her graduation from Laurentian University in 1996 with a Master’s degree in history, Ms. Legault began her career administering a scholarly publishing program and yearly awards program at the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada’s Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme. In 1999, she accepted a position as an Information Officer with the Canada Council for the Arts. In 2003, she became Head of the Canada Council for the Arts’ Arts Services Unit and, from 2007 to 2012, was the Executive Secretary of the Public Lending Right Commission, where she managed the $10M national Public Lending Right Programme. Since 2012, she has been at the helm of the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects. Ms. Legault brings key leadership strengths to the role of the CSLA’s Executive Director in the areas of communication, governance, project management, volunteer and member support and business and financial management. She is responsible for increasing the awareness and promoting CSLA’s goals and objectives, celebrating its members’ achievements, supporting education and research, developing policy, ensuring strong Board governance and enhancing the organization’s profile.

CSLA brokers a Reciprocity Agreement which is signed by 8 or 9 component associations; that agreement is renewed in 2020 with all component associations as signatories.

Ron Williams publishes Landscape Architecture in Canada and, with the LACF, the CSLA organizes and funds a cross-Canada book tour.

Administered by the Association Media and Publishing, the EXCEL awards are the largest and most prestigious award program that exclusively recognizes excellence and leadership in non-profit association media, publishing, marketing, and communications. The magazine will win the award again in 2016, 2018 and 2019.
 

csla-aapc.ca/charter

Cornelia Hahn Oberlander (2016)

In cooperation with the Canadian Nursery Landscape Association, the CSLA published the first edition of the Canadian Landscape Standard, based on the British Columbia Landscape Standard.

Administered by the Association Media and Publishing, the EXCEL awards are the largest and most prestigious award program that exclusively recognizes excellence and leadership in non-profit association media, publishing, marketing, and communications. The L|P Award was in the category of general excellence.