New book provides insight into famous architect

East Kildonan

“It was a book that just had to be written,” said Gail Perry of her new book John D Atchison, Architect: His Work and Times, published by the Winnipeg Architecture Foundation and launched at McNally Robinson bookstore recently.

“My concern was that if another generation passed, we were going to lose Atchison altogether,” said Perry. “It was important to get this information collected and together, as a start.”

In her book, Perry writes that while no single characteristic defines an Atchison building, it will always have “disciplined composition (their ‘just right’ look).” His buildings were beautiful, state of the art for the time, and are still comfortable, efficient and elegant today.

Perry was an architectural enthusiast since she was a little girl, and Perry read the 1970s centenaries publications on local and regional history. Atchison’s name popped up most frequently, yet Perry knew he was part of the revolutionary Chicago School of Architecture.

“What was the connection?” Perry wondered. “It was killing me that I didn’t know”.

She finally got her answer through writing the book.

Atchison mentored under “the father of the skyscraper,” William Le Baron Jenney, beginning in 1892 at the Chicago firm Jenney and Mundie. Jenney attracted the brightest and best to their office. Their revolutionary work with new steel frame technology allowed the unprecendented construction of tall buildings on small amounts of land.

Meanwhile, Winnipeg was exploding with industry, new businesses and immigration. The city was rising fast and land values skyrocketed. In 1905, Atchison moved his practice and young family to Winnipeg. Here, he also advocated for the professionalism of architecture, modelled after his Chicago experiences and worked to establish a faculty of architecture at the University of Manitoba and develop what became the Winnipeg Art Gallery. He pressed for city planning, and was an intrinsic and guiding force in its implementation.

Atchison built prolifically, from skyscrapers to stables, homes, schools, a hospital and more in Winnipeg and surrounding areas. John Pritchard and Lord Wolseley Schools in North Kildonan are Atchison designs.

Surprisingly, I discovered that as a child I played a great deal in a 1908 Atchison built home on Henderson Highway. It belonged to the grandparents of my friend Debbie Wolfreys Barnes. Its smooth deeply red brick exterior was perfect for chalk drawings, and the piano we played in the huge front room echoed gloriously. It is true, Atchison indeed had a beautiful command of outdoor light. The home was one of the few early and innovative Prairie Style homes in Winnipeg.

Winnipeg’s frenzied pace slowed and in 1923 John Atchison, now a long time Canadian citizen, moved his family to California where he constructed many beautiful homes.

Following after him by train a century later was Gail Perry and her “loving, long suffering” photographer and architect husband. They visited the places where Atchison lived and worked, researching, interviewing, and discovering and photographing all existing Atchison buildings.

In California, Perry spoke with Atchison’s grand daughter Betty Jane Witz who provided dimension to a man who left no diaries, few business letters or notes, although he lectured greatly.

The book is as beautiful and as elegant as an Atchison building. Perry says she hopes the research into Atchison will continue.