Architecture plays a powerful role in nation building. Buildings and monuments not only constitute the built fabric of society, they also reflect the intersection of culture, politics, economics, and aesthetics in distinct social settings and distinct times.

This extraordinary anthology traces the interaction between culture and politics as reflected in Canadian architecture and the infrastructure of ordinary life, from first contact to the postmodern city. Whether focusing on Jesuit perceptions of New France, the construction of Parliament, or the ideas of Marshall McLuhan and Arthur Erickson, these essays showcase ways of thinking about architecture that extend beyond considerations of authorship and style to address cultural politics and insights from race and gender studies and from postcolonial and spatial theory.

Architecture and the Canadian Fabric transforms how we see the role of architecture in mythmaking and nation building and in doing so radically questions how we continue to live in, interact with, and interpret the fabricated world.