erty. A later home, in Delaware, was more playful in
style, with unusual, broad, flat columns; fanciful dec-
orative arches in the music room; and large windows
throughout to enable the family’s hobby of bird
watching.
The firm’s most imaginative commission was the
Widener Memorial Tree House at the Philadelphia
Zoo. Not just an exhibit, the six oversize environ-
ments provided spaces and activities that visitors
could experience as did the animals who typically
lived there. The primordial swamp, milkweed
meadow, beaver pond, honeycomb, ficus tree, and
everglade each feature the sounds and smells of
their real-world counterparts. Both children and
adults enjoyed and learned from the interactive tree
house exhibits, which changed regularly.
Described by some as the best new piece of public
architecture in Boston, the Hynes Convention Cen-
ter was the lively answer of Kallmann, McKinnell &
Wood to the question of how to design a convention
center that functioned as an attractive and inviting
public space. The three-story building opened to
the street with generous windows on every level. Its
granite facade matched the granite of the nearby
Boston Public Library, and its height was similar to
that of the buildings across the street. The old con-
vention center, an undistinguished, nearly feature-
less building, was incorporated into the new center;
the rooms of the old building were still used for large
product displays, while the new building provided
forty-one meeting rooms, spacious auditoriums, and
an elegant glass-domed ballroom, all colorfully and
tastefully decorated.
Canadian Architecture Canada is home to several
notable buildings constructed in the 1980’s, and Ca-
nadian architects made their mark both in Canada
and elsewhere. The Olympic Stadium in Montreal
was begun in 1973 for the 1976 Olympics; however, it
was not completed until 1987. Because the Olympic
Games must be played in the open air but an open-
air stadium would be impractical most of the year
in Montreal, French architect Roger Taillibert at-
tempted to build the world’s first retractable domed
stadium. The retractable roof and the massive and
dramatic tower that supported it were completed in
- After years of technical problems with opening
and closing the roof, it was closed permanently.
The West Edmonton Mall, completed in 1986,
was the largest shopping center in Canada, and for
several years was the largest in the world. With more
than eight hundred stores, one hundred food out-
lets, and such entertainment options as an amuse-
ment park with a roller coaster, a seven-acre wave
pool, a professional hockey rink, and a large bingo
hall, the mall quickly became a tourist destination
and a major contributor to Edmonton’s economy.
The Centre Canadian d’Architecture/Canadian
Centre for Architecture, designed by Peter Rose of
Montreal, was an exceptional example of Canadian
postmodernism. It was built around an elegant eigh-
teenth century home that had been threatened with
demolition. Instead, Rose designed a U-shaped build-
ing around the older structure. The classically styled
building incorporated features similar to those of
neighboring Victorian homes.
Another prime example of postmodernism in
Canada (although not designed by Canadian archi-
tects) was the Mississauga (Ontario) City Hall and
Civic Square. Using simple forms and generally light
colors, it both provided an emphatic urban focal
point in an otherwise featureless area of rural land-
scape and newer subdivisions and offered multiple
levels of meaning, or coding. For example, casual
observers might notice that the council chamber’s
shape resembled a silo, such as might be found on a
nearby farm, and the white-banded brickwork re-
flected Victorian architecture common in Ontario.
Architectural students, on the other hand, might no-
tice the plan’s resemblance to an Italian piazza.
Impact The rejection of modernism and the move
toward postmodernism in the 1980’s represented at
base a decision that buildings should be designed to
be functional and to be a responsible part of the
landscape they are to inhabit, both visually and envi-
ronmentally. Modernist buildings were edifices unto
themselves that ignored their environments and re-
quired people to adjust to the needs of the building.
The buildings of the 1980’s, however, sought by and
large to anticipate the needs of its denizens and to
respond to their surroundings. It may not be coinci-
dental that this change occurred at a time when lay
people were developing a greater awareness of archi-
tectural styles and of the design issues that affected
their experience of and relationship to public and
private spaces.
Further Reading
American Institute of Architects.American Architec-
ture of the 1980’s. Washington, D.C.: American In-66 Architecture The Eighties in America