Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Diamond, Abel Joseph (Jack)
Parallel form(s) of name
- A. J. Diamond
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1932-
History
Abel Joseph Diamond, "Jack," architect, educator (born at Piet Retief, South Africa, 8 Nov 1932). Jack Diamond was educated at the University of Cape Town (B Arch 1956), Oxford University (MA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, 1958), and the University of Pennsylvania (M Arch 1962), where he studied with Louis Kahn. Diamond arrived in Canada in 1964 as founding director of the new Master of Architecture program at the University of Toronto. He became associated with the city's reform movement, and by the late 1960s had established what would become one of its defining practices.
In addition to his position at the University of Toronto, Diamond has held academic appointments at York University and at the universities of Pennsylvania and Texas. In partnership with Barton Myers (1969-75), his important projects include York Square, Toronto; the Housing Union Building (HUB) at the University of Alberta, Edmonton; and Sherbourne Lanes Housing and the Ontario Medical Association Building, Toronto.
In 1975, Diamond established A.J. Diamond Architects, which, by 1989, had evolved into the partnership of A.J. Diamond, Donald Schmitt and Company, now known as Diamond Schmitt Architects.
A.J. Diamond has been a Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) since 1980, and in 1994 was made an honorary fellow of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). He received the 1989 Toronto Arts Award for Architecture and Design, and was granted a Doctor of Engineering (Honoris Causa) from Dalhousie University in Halifax in 1995. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1995, was named to the Order of Ontario in 1997, and was awarded the 2001 RAIC Gold Medal. Insight and On Site is a monograph of the firm's work and design philosophy, written by A.J. Diamond, Donald Schmitt and Don Gillmor in 2008, and in 2010 A.J. Diamond published a collection of his architectural paintings in the book Sketches from Here and There.