JOHN SCHREIBER – A LANDSCAPE OF IDEAS

The John Schreiber Archive, a part of the John Bland Canadian Architecture Collection of the McGill University Libraries, contains the great majority of the drawings and papers of Montreal architect and landscape architect John Schreiber, who was a professor in the School of Architecture at McGill from 1953 to 1987. These documents, representing work from more than 200 of Professor Schreiber’s projects, constitute a rich treasure of original design work, expressed in draughtsmanship of great virtuosity. John Schreiber’s work is an outstanding example of the contribution to Canadian architecture and landscape architecture of a generation of “brilliant Europeans” who, leaving that war-shattered continent in the late forties and fifties, found an appreciative and fertile ground for their talents and ambitions in Canada.

JOHN SCHREIBER: HUMANIST, ARCHITECT, TEACHER

John Schreiber was the consummate teacher. It mattered little that one was a fellow architect, a contractor or a client, in his eyes, people were students, the world was a classroom, and the environment was a laboratory. His powerful mind was constantly remolding the world into a more exciting place, and that included the transformation of the perception of others. His teaching was driven by the same articulate voice and clear vision that gave form to his projects. It was through this constant flow of ideas - a fountainhead - that John’s incisive intellect brought us to seize the potential of the landscape and of architecture to enter into a meaningful dialogue.