IRHA Annual Activities Report 2004

1. Forums
On 29 March 2004, the IRHA Spring Forum took place in the CCA's Scholars Wing. Jean-Pierre Chupin, professeur agrégé, responsable scientifique, Denis Bilodeau, professeur agrégé, responsable scientifique, and Rim Ben Fredj, assistante de recherche from the École d'architecture de l'Université de Montréal presented the Laboratoire d'étude de l'architecture potentielle's Concours d'architecture et nouvelles pratiques réflexives / New reflexive practices in architectural competitions. This L.E.A.P. project recieved IRHA research grants in 2003 and 2004. These grants provided essential seed money that enabled this project to receive major FQRS funding. Additionally at this IRHA Forum, Robert Desaulniers, CCA Chief Archivist, presented a report on 1^ère Congrès international d'archives d'architecture, Alcala, Espagne. An enthusiastic audience attended this event.

2. Public Activities
The Architectural Periodicals in the 1960s and '70s colloquium, 6-7 May 2004, organized by Alexis Sornin with the support from Aliki Economides, was attended by 63 participants some coming from as far as Chicago and New York. This two-day event examined the material production, intellectual contribution and critical reception of European architectural periodicals during the 1960s and '70s. The keynote speaker was Roger L. Conover, Executive Editor at The MIT Press. The session chairs were France Vanlaethem, Université du Québec à Montréal; Hélène Jannière, École d'architecture de Paris-Val de Seine and Dirk De Meyer, Canadian Centre for Architecture. The speakers, selected from 56 submissions received in response to the Call for Papers, were Juliana Maxim, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; John T. Schlinke, Roger Williams University Library; Erdem Erten, Izmir Institute of Technology; Catherine Blain, École d'architecture de Versailles; Inderbir Singh Riar, Columbia University; Mary Lou Lobsinger, University of Toronto; and Paolo Scrivano, University of Toronto. A publication of papers from this colloquium is planned.

• Martin Bressani, McGill University - Surface into Depth: Tracing Viollet-le-Duc's Constructive Imagination
• Louise Pelletier and Alberto Pérez-Gómez, McGill University - Architects on Love

4. Publications
Since 1 October 2003, 82 copies of Peter Collins et l'histoire de l'architecture moderne / Peter Collins and the critical history of modern architecture, edited by Irena Latek have been sold under the distribution agreement between IRHA and ABC Art Books Canada. The geographic dispersion of buyers -- Quebec, Paris, Los Angles, Ottawa, New York, Seattle, Vancouver, Toronto, and New Hampshire -- indicates that the book is receiving international distribution. 34 copies remain to be sold.

5. Membership
In May 2004, Gerald Beasley, IRHA Director, announced his departure for New York to take up the leadership of the Avery Library at Columbia University, and was replaced as IRHA Director by Dirk De Meyer, Chief Curator at the CCA and Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Ghent. Mr. De Meyer will have an one-year Directorship following Gerald's one year tenure. With the departure of Nicholas Olsberg, CCA Director, Phyllis Lambert replaced him as the CCA Liaison Committee representative. Aliki Economides, IRHA Coordinator, also left the CCA in 2004 to commence a PhD at Harvard, and was replaced as coordinator by Elspeth Cowell, Assistant to the Chief Curator.

6. IRHA on the Internet (www.irhanet.org)
Renata Guttman, Head of Reader Services, CCA Library, continues to update the IRHA web site at the request of the IRHA Director and Coordinator on a volunteer basis.