WILLIAM WOODWORTH, BArch, PhD.

Raweno:kwas

William Woodworth has had an architectural design practice in Toronto for over 25 years.

His father was a General Contractor in Detroit, and his maternal uncles had an electrical contracting firm there. Following his graduation from the architectural program at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, he immigrated to Canada and Toronto, the home of his maternal grandparents who were from the Six Nations of the Grand River, a large First Nations community outside of Brantford, Ontario. Following his architectural apprenticeship in Toronto, principally with Howard D. Chapman, son of the Beaux Arts Toronto architect Alfred Chapman, he opened his own practice in 1979.

He was a member of the Ontario Association of Architects and the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada until 1993. In 1991, he took a teaching sabbatical in Detroit, and completed a PhD in native traditional knowledge which he has today integrated into his design practice. He returned to Toronto in 1998 where he continues to pursue his interests after re-establishing his design practice. Today he practices as an independent architectural designer and is registered under the Ontario Building Code Act as a "designer".

HERITAGE

Today virtually every culture on the earth is represented in Ontario by peoples with the same honest aspirations to find a comfortable home among the founding cultures. William Woodworth is Mohawk from the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory, and English by ancestry, and this potent blend has enabled him to demonstrate unique forms of understanding and reconciliation in design which he can bring to your projects.

Heritage finds its most conspicuous challenge in architectural design since it is the fundamental visual and spatial expression in our environment. Many cultural world views have informed the historical development of architectural styles. Here in Canada, we have a rich history informed first by aboriginal peoples, and then by European cultures, principally the French and British. This makes heritage a complex many layered issue if we are to find a cohesive integrated place among ourselves.

Values are also an integral part of heritage, in the ways cultures find their relationships to homeland and the resources offered by that place. These, of course, are the fundamental "green agenda" of sustainability and environmental respect.

For over 25 years William Woodworth has been successfully addressing these challenges among his diverse clientele.

In addition to his design practice William Woodworth is the lead in an innovative project partnered with WaterFRONT Toronto to develop a sacred First Nations ceremonial grove, complete with visionary architectural emplacements in the planned new Lake Ontario Park at the present day location of Cherry Beach. You can visit this project at www.beacontotheancestors.com .

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT

William Woodworth has been profoundly influenced by the work of the seminal organic architect Frank Lloyd Wright [1869-1959].

During his boyhood he first visited a house on a local ravine designed by an apprentice of Frank Lloyd Wright, and its owner encouraged his mother to allow him to pursue his enthrallment with it, and a career in architecture. He was introduced principally to Wright in his own An Autobiography. He then visited Wright's Turkel House [1955] in Detroit as a boy, and later in University he was a friend to the son of one of Wright's most important late clients - William and Mary Palmer who built his house [1950] in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

During his studies at the University of Michigan he visited Unity Temple [1909] in Oak Park Illinois in a life changing experience, and later Taliesin East in Wisconsin, Taliesin West in Scottsdale, and some of Wright's west coast work, including the extraordinary Mayan influenced Hollyhock House [1911] of Aline Barnsdall in Hollywood, California. Then, he took a summer position with Derald West Architect in Lake Geneva Wisconsin, where he prepared measured drawings of Wright's Geneva Inn [1911], the first automobile motel. Following many Wright influenced projects in his practice in Toronto, during a teaching sabbatical he taught Frank Lloyd Wright and His Times [1993-1995] at Lawrence University in Southfield, Michigan which owned the sublime Affleck House [1940] in Bloomfield Hills. He gave teachings and design juries in the expansive living room of this archetypal Usonian house nestled on the brow of a ridge overlooking a ravine.

Later during his doctoral studies, he did research at the Frank Lloyd Wright Archive at Taliesin West where he was able to have a direct experience with some of Wright's drawings. Over the years, he has attended numerous conferences on Wright in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona, and visited many Wright houses and buildings including the seminal Fallingwater, the Edgar Kaufman House [1935] and the Darwin Martin House complex [1904] in Buffalo, New York.

Bill understands Wright as a respectful participant in the indigenous architectural discourse with the North American landscape, and is working on a book about this relationship. He understands sanctified landscape and space, and is fluent in the Wright's architectural vocabulary as evidenced in his work. He will bring this design integrated, environmentally responsible, and cultural sensitive approach to your project - Frank Lloyd Wright's lasting and relevant legacy.