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Profession 1934--1977+

 

                                                J. Campbell Merrett
                                                Biographical Outline
                                                December 1945

Born: Montreal, August 26th, 1909.
Married: April 1937; two children.

Education:  Selwyn House School,  Montreal,        1916-1922
            Ashbury College       Ottawa,          1922-1926
            McGill University,    Montreal,        1926-1931
                   Degree: Bachelor of Architecture.
            Awarded Province of Quebec Travelling
                   Scholarship, 1931: studied in
                   Europe, esp. England, France, Italy
                   Sweden, Germany, Holland,       1931-1934
            Post-graduate course, Architectural Ass'n
                   School of Architecture, London:
                   with Certificate,               1932-1933
                   of London,                      1933-1934
            Special Planning Course, Massachusetts
                   Institute of Technology
                   Boston, Mass.,          October 1944

Experience: Architects' Offices:
                   Barott & Blackader (E.I.Barott), Montreal
                   Sir Aston Webb & Son, London, England
                   Ross & Macdonald, Montreal
                   Fetherstongaugh & Durnford, Montreal
                   Canadian National Railways, Montreal,     1936-1942 
                   Construction Control, D. M. & S., Ottawa, 1943-1944
                      (Assistant to the Controller) on loan from C.N.R.

            Town Plannning Director, Saint John Town Planning Commission,
                   Saint John, N.B., May 1944 - December 1945.
                   (Preparing Master Plan for City and part of County)

Professional Member, Royal Architectural Institute of Canada
Associations   "     Province of Quebec Association of Architects
& Interests:   "     American Society of Planning Officials

             First President, Architectural Research Group,
                   Montreal, 1938-1942: with three others prepared
                   first Canadian Town Planning exhibition of its
                   kind, "City for Living", Montreal, 1941.
             Prior to 1943 (move to Ottawa) was joint chairman
                   P.Q.A.A. Reconstruction Committee: member
                   R.A.I.C. Reconstruction Committee; member
                   various other P.Q.A.A. committees; member
                   Advisory Committee, McGill University School
                   of Architecture.

THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC ASSOCIATION OF ARCHITECTS
627 DORCHESTER STREET WEST
MONTREAL

                               March 11th, 1935


        J.C.Merrett, Esq.
         B.Arch., Architect,
          3200 Westmount Blvd.
           Westmount, P.Q.


        Dear Sir,

            Pursuant to your letter of February 20th,
        I enclose herewith copy of a resolution passed at
        our Council meting of March 7th:

        Upon the motion of Mr. J.R.Smith seconded by Mr. P.
        R.Wilson, it was unanimously resolved:
        "That Mr. J.C.Merrett, as a graduate of McGill Uni-
          versity (Dept of Architecture - 1931), having
           passed a special examination in professional
            practice (March 4th,1935), submitted certi-
             ficates of experience required, signed
              the Code of Ethics and paid the re-
               gistration fee and current year's
                dues, be admited in the P.Q.A.
                 A., and that his name appear
                  on the Register of Architects
                   for 1935;
                    And that copy of the pre-
                     sent resolution be sent
                        to Mr.Merrett".

                Please find enclosed herewith our receipt
        N0.2627 covering entrance fee and current year's dues.

                A corrected copy of the Register todate will
        follow within the next few days.

                                Yours truly,


                        M A U R I C E   P A Y E T T E

                                Honorary Secretary.

It was lucky for me that my scholarship had coincided with the worst of the ``Great Depression'', when none of the Montreal architects had much, if any, work. Ernest Barott who had given me my summer jobs still had none, and no job for me. Two firms, Fetherstonhaugh & Durnford and Ross & MacDonald, hired me for a few months each at slim salaries: fortunately I was able to live at home.

Then I landed a spot in the Architect's Office of the Canadian National Railways, away down McGill St. There I designed everything from passenger car interiors, highway overpasses and miscellaneous structures for the Railway and for Trans-Canada Airways (for which my boss was also Chief Architect), to the large public rooms of the Vancouver Hotel (done on site during a month's stay out there), and finally the Montreal Central Station building (now surrounded by Hotel and Office Building) with its main concourse.

When the war came in 1939 that office became involved in work for the Government Guch as airport buildings---theoretically a ``reserved occupation''. During that time, those first months when W.W.2 seemed quiescent, I did a lot of soul searching as to whether or not to enlist for military service. In spite of two military grandfathers (and various uncles-in-law an cousins) my military experience was limited to that of private in the Ashbury Cadet Corps, and rejection by R.M.C. on physical grounds, and I had little doubt that I would make a poor soldier, whether private or commissioned. Nevertheless I joined the McGill C.O.T.C. and for several months trained at nights in the gym and on the campus. gif gif Occasionally there was a direct order from the Minister, C. D. Howe, as when I was told to issue pronto a permit for work at the Eldorado Mine where (top secret) uranium was to be produced (for research on the atom bomb).

My term in Ottawa coincided with the first two years of Tim's life. He and his mother were living in our apartment on Lorne Crescent, and I was a week-end commuter between Ottawa and Montreal. At first I spend 6 weeks living in the Château Laurier, at Government expense, until I found a congenial family (Joan and Campbell Radcliffe) to board with, in Sandy Hill, and bicycled to & from work. For a couple of summer months I had a room & breakfast at Ashbury in order to enjoy the cool of Rockcliffe Park, and play tennis at the Rockcliffe Tennis Club. Nick Archdale, then the Head at Ashbury, and his wife Sheila were good friends and tennis mates. Through them I met some of the wartime diplomatic contingent living in Rockcliffe. These included one ``Junkie'' Fleishman of the yeast family, who was U.S. Naval Attaché, and at whose house we often convened after a game to drink his mint juleps in frosted silver tumblers. Prince Bernhard of Holland was an occasional visitor and after one doubles game with him we went for twa with Princess Juiana at the nearby house where she and her young daughters were wartime refugees.

While I was with the C.N.R. and before I went to Ottawa, three of my architect pals and I started a little organization which we called the Architectural Research Group, gif whose objectives were to bring about some serious town planning in Montreal and generally promote anything in the way of good planning, architecture and design in general. We started by doing a study and report on slum conditions in Papineau Ward in the city. We gif wrote a critique of the McGill School of Architecture, still far behind the times, which resulted in preventing its being closed and instead given new life. (At a dinner we gave for poor old Traquair on his retirement he complimented us on our report even though it laid on him indirectly much of the blame for the School's decline.) This led to our promoting as director of a re-constituted school, one Serge Chermayeff, a well-known Russian-born (refugee) architect practising in London and wanting to emigrate. He came and spent a couple of months [six weeks?] in Montreal but was too advanced for the ``advisory committee'' of senior architects and so McGill did not ``buy'' him. He went on to the Chicago Bauhaus and then to Yale, and John Bland was appointed, later, Director of the McGill School.

A.R.G.'s big achievement was to research, design and build (all in our spare time) a bilingual exhibition which we called ``City for Living'', or ``La Cité ou Vivre'', and which broke all attendance records at the Art Gallery. We were allowed to promote it by erecting on the front steps of the Gallery a typical Montreal circular iron outdoor staircase, painted bright red: the morning it appeared Sherbrooke St. traffic almost jammed up. gif This exhibition went on to several other sites, including Ottawa [?? check] (where ``A.R.G.O.'' happened later).

The Architectural Research Group's ``City for Living'' Exhibition, Montreal Art Gallery. The exhibition was opnend by the Mayor on May 12, '41 the same day the City Council adopted By-law #1682 creating Montreal's first City Planning Department. (Over 6000 people visited the exhibit, breaking the (then) Gallery attendance records: it went on to several other sites, including Otawwa--- where ARGO later formed.)

In the Spring of 1944 the City of Saint John, N.B. decided it might need some active town planning



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Prof. T.H. MERRETT
Fri Oct 17 16:05:04 EDT 1997