In Memoriam: Bruce Allan, 1947-2022

Bruce Allan, former architect and partner at ARCOP, passed away peacefully on October 29, 2022.

Bruce grew up in Beloeil QC and moved to Montreal to attend McGill University where he began his studies in architecture in 1964.

During his second year, at the end of 1965, a professor suggested a visit to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts to see the exhibition of the works of ARCOP (formerly  Affleck, Desbarats, Dimakopoulos, Lebensold & Sise).

When Bruce realized that most of the contemporary buildings in Montreal that left him mesmerized during his first year had been designed by this firm, he applied to the company for a summer job the following spring. As an young intern, he worked on projects including the McCord Museum and the final stages of the Man the Producer pavilion at Expo 67. 

“Expo gave me fertilizer for my future ideas—it was the starting point for many other things,” recalls Allan in a recording for the Centre des mémoires montréalaises. “There were so many kinds of architecture there, generously coloured pavilions, unusual geometries, material exploration […] all presented in an intensively concentrated place. It was like a catalog of ideas.”

With the evolution of the ARCOP partnership over the decades that followed, Bruce’s design sensitivities and talents were depended upon by all ARCOP partners. After the departure of the original founding partners and when Ray Affleck was struck by illness in the late 1980s, Bruce was named a partner and eventually a senior partner with design responsibilities. He maintained that position from that moment forward until the purchase of the firm, in 2012, by Genivar, which later became WSP. The present firm practices under the name of Architecture49.

Bruce worked on numerous projects all around the world, primarily throughout Asia, the Middle East, and North America. He was the design partner for the first design iteration of the West Block rehabilitation on Parliament Hill, in Ottawa, On., the Lac-Leamy Casino Hotel, in Gatineau, QC., and the Fairmont Tremblant, QC., among other projects in Ontario and Quebec.

A built project that Bruce was most proud to have contributed to was the Nunavut Legislature, in Iqaluit. “In the context of reconciliation with Canada’s First Nations where there is a will (some, on the other hand, would call it a government-imposed obligation) to dialogue with First Nations representatives to integrate traditional First Nations cultural values into the design architectural projects,” says former ARCOP partner Edward Hercun. “The Nunavut Legislature benefitted from this sensitivity and respect of local cultural values approach long before the Canadian Government made it mandatory.”

“In 1997, Bruce as the design partner embraced the approach that this legislature building was to reflect the cultural and historical values of the people that the project was to serve,” continues Hercun. “This is a design philosophy that was embraced by all ARCOP partners and introduced into conceptual design discussion of all international projects as well.

This sensitivity became one of ARCOP’s strengths. When an ARCOP client from India, Pakistan or Sudan engaged ARCOP as a Western based firm, there was often an expectation that they would receive an all-glass ‘western’ style architectural design. Bruce undertook research of local climate, local crafts and local cultural realties as well as the rich cultural and architectural heritage that predates ‘western’ culture by a few thousand years, from which he would seek inspirations to be interpreted into a contemporary architectural vocabulary and expression. Most, if not all, international clients were at first surprised, but upon further reflection these clients became appreciative and even proud of this fact.”

After retiring, Bruce remained involved with McGill as a member of the Faculty Advancement Board for Architecture & Engineering, as well as an advisor for the Comité consultatif d’urbanism for the NDG/Côte-des-neiges borough of Montreal.

Bruce is survived by his children, Torey and Andrea, his sisters, Judy (John) O’Neill and Mary Ruth (Ronald) Gehr, along with several nieces and nephews.

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