Douglas Shadbolt

Douglas Shadbolt

Douglas Shadbolt, architect, teacher (b at Victoria, BC 18 Apr 1925; d Vancouver, BC 8 May 2002). Educated at Victoria College, the University of British Columbia and McGill University, Shadbolt finished his architectural studies at the University of Oregon between 1955 and 1957. Although Shadbolt practised architecture early in his career (working in Vancouver for THOMPSON, BERWICK, PRATT AND PARTNERS and for MCCARTER NAIRNE before completing his studies, and briefly for Carl Koch and for The Architects' Collaborative in Boston after he graduated), it was as an educator and administrator that he made his most important contribution to the development of architecture in Canada.

In 1958 Shadbolt began his teaching career at McGill University in Montréal. In 1961 he moved to Halifax to start a new architectural programme at Nova Scotia Technical College (now DALTECH). This was the first architectural program in Canada to alternate periods of study with periods of training in architectural offices. In 1968 he moved again, this time to Ottawa to begin a new and larger school of architecture at Carleton University. In 1978, with Professor Wim Gilles from Holland, he started an associated school of industrial design at Carleton.

In 1979 Shadbolt returned to his home province of BC, serving as director of the school of architecture at UBC from 1979 until his retirement in 1990, at which time he was named professor emeritus. In 1995 his biographical study of Ron THOM was published.

In 1987, Douglas Shadbolt was invested as an Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture Distinguished Professor, an award which recognizes sustained creative achievement in architectural education.