GARWOOD-JONES, Trevor 1928 - 2011 Trevor Garwood-Jones passed away on Monday, March 14, 2011, of heart failure - three days before his 83rd Birthday. Few loved life more than Trevor. He was travelling, dancing, practicing his putting and making the rounds to see his various architectural clients right up until the weekend he died. His children Peter, Richard, Alison, daughter-in-law Doreen and his black lab, Penny, will miss him terribly and strive to keep his positive energy and generous spirit alive. His beloved wife Catherine, now in the late stages of Alzheimer's, is in St. Peter's Hospital Chedoke (one of Trevor's buildings) and is unaware of his passing, and for that we are grateful. In a groggy haze several hours before he died, Trevor said to his kids, "Have you gone to visit your mother? That would be good." She was in his thoughts to the very end. Trevor was predeceased by his brother, Maurice. The family would like to thank the staff in the Cardiac Care Unit at Hamilton General for their kindness and care. Special thanks for the loving phone calls and emails from friends and family.

Visitation at BAY GARDENS FUNERAL HOME - "William J. Markey Chapel" , 947 Rymal Rd. East, HAMILTON (905.574.0405), on Friday, March 18, 2011 from 1-3 p.m. and 6-8 p.m. A Celebration of Trevor's Life will be held in the Bay Gardens Chapel on Saturday, March 19, 2011 at 11 a.m. Cremation has taken place. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Salvation Army at 905-521-1660 or to The Heart & Stroke Foundation. Please sign the online Book of Condolences at www.baygardens.ca 

Famed Hamilton Architect Dead at 82

Hamilton Spectator, March 14, 2011

Updated March 15, 2011 

The architect who shaped the vibrant face of Hamilton in the 1960’s and 70’s has died at the age of 82. Trevor Garwood-Jones died suddenly of a heart attack on Monday morning. “Until the weekend, he was seeing clients, practicing his putting, going to theatre,” says Alison Garwood-Jones, the youngest of his three children. “He died in the saddle, and that’s the way he would have wanted it.” 

Garwood-Jones’ landmark building in this city is the Hamilton Place Theatre Auditorium. There are few finer sights than to see the lounge at night, cantilevered over Main Street, filled with elegant people sipping cocktails during the intermission of an opera or concert or play. “His buildings of the 60’s and 70’s set the tone for development in Hamilton,” says architect Greg Sather of McCallum Sather Architects. “Hamilton Place was one of Trevor’s biggest achievements. It’s recognized around the world as one of the greatest performing arts venues. Ask any artist and they will say they love performing there.” Sather was one of many talented architects who worked in Garwood-Jones’ stylish office, housed in a weathered stone building on Young Street in Hamilton. “There aren’t too many architects in the city who didn’t work for Trevor, and many went on to establish their own practices. For me, he was very supportive — a mentor. He was good at critiquing my work and understanding of where I was coming from.” 

Many of the major civic buildings of Hamilton emerged from the drafting tables of the Garwood-Jones firm, in later years known as Garwood-Jones and Hanham. The GO Transit Centre, Hamilton Convention Centre, Ellen Fairclough Building, Hamilton Place, St. Peter’s Long Term Care, James Street Baptist Church, and Flamborough YMCA represent a partial list of notable buildings. In 1979, Garwood-Jones won an OAA(Ontario Association of Architects) design award for the Art Gallery of Hamilton. “It was such a hopeful time,” Alison Garwood-Jones says of that fruitful period when Hamilton was blossoming, and her father “had the right ideas at the right time.” “The arts were so alive with the Canadian Brass, Karen Kain and Frank Augustyn dancing on stage, Boris Brott with the orchestra. Everyone was involved and my father was a good collaborator.” 

Though some critics were not fans of the architecture of the Garwood-Jones era — a style that was formally called Brutalism — and was known for exposed concrete and bunker like boxes, Greg Sather says the style evolved, and Garwood-Jones changed with the times. “He was blamed for not having a proper entrance to the Art Gallery of Hamilton,” Sather says. “But it was beyond his control; city council had endorsed the concept of Plus 15’s (elevated bridges between buildings), and the entrance was supposed to be on the second floor, and then the concept was quickly abandoned.” After learning of his death, the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario issued this statement. “Although some aspects of his early work are presently out of fashion, designs such as the monumental Auditorium of Hamilton Place Theatre, the board room of the Art Gallery of Hamilton and the saw tooth façade of one of his first large commissions, the MacNab Street YWCA, among many other,s are great works of architecture that will be an enduring legacy of this charming and engaging man with a bold uncompromising vision for architecture and this City.” 

Alison Garwood-Jones, a journalist for OpenFile Toronto, said her father loved to be around younger colleagues, and loved to teach. “He taught us, pick a career you’re passionate about and go for it.” That’s the way Trevor Garwood-Jones lived. Just  two days before he died, he was emailing Arthur Greendblatt, executive director of the Dundas Valley School of Art, about renovations to the school his firm had designed. The next email Greenblatt received contained the news that Garwood-Jones had died. Trevor Garwood-Jones would have turned 83 on St. Patrick’s Day. There are plans, his daughter says, to raise a glass of green beer in his honour.

GARWOOD JONES Trevor Garwood-Jones left his fingerprints all over Hamilton. The award-winning architect designed some of the most prominent buildings in the city during a 50-year career. It’s not a stretch to say Trevor Garwood-Jones left his fingerprints all over Hamilton.

“There are not many architects that the average person could name, but I think his name would be familiar to a lot of Hamiltonians,” says Mayor Bob Bratina. “His legacy is here before us and I don’t think we will ever see any of his buildings knocked down.”

Garwood-Jones, who worked on more than 100 buildings, including the recent $72 million renovations to Hamilton City Hall, died Monday morning at the Hamilton General Hospital from a heart attack. The Waterdown resident was to turn 83 this Thursday, St. Patrick’s Day.

His most recent project was the current $5 million-renovation of the Dundas Valley School of Art.

Perhaps his illustrious career was foretold when he had the opportunity to meet Walter Gropius, the famous German architect who founded the Bauhaus school of design after the First World War. Garwood-Jones’ daughter, Alison, said Gropius — who fled Germany when Hitler came to power — paid a visit as a guest critic to the architectural firm where her father worked in London, England, during the early 1950s. She said her father was the top student in his class, but got his wife, Catherine, to make him a bow tie like the ones Gropius always wore and also got himself a hat like those of the great architect.

“Gropius came in, looked at my dad’s work, said something to the effect of ‘Nice work, young man,’ and took off my dad’s hat and put it on his head,” said Alison, a freelance writer.

“My dad just went over the moon. That was his affirmation. He just went out into the world with a spring in his step and started his career.”

Born in Chatham, England, Garwood-Jones was the son of an engineer and an artist. His daughter believes he got his three-dimensional way of looking at projects from his father and his artistic bent from his mother. Garwood-Jones first studied to become an engineer at Cambridge University after the Second World War, but switched to architecture at the University of London. He graduated with a degree in 1953.

Garwood-Jones and his wife, who married in 1951, came to Hamilton in 1959 because a pal told him the firm of Husband & Wallace was looking “for some young architects to join the firm.” He scouted out the city and liked what he saw.

Garwood-Jones stayed with Husband & Wallace for a decade and then set up his own firm. It was then that the big projects he is now known for started coming his way.

“His struck out on his own in 1969, and it wasn’t too long after that he was drawing up plans for Hamilton Place,” said Alison.

Retired Burlington architect Harry Lennard, 72, worked with Garwood-Jones in the 1970s. He retired six years ago, but said his friend kept working even at the age of 82 because “he loved” the work.

“He always believed the client’s needs were paramount to a successful relationship,” said Lennard. “He was a great guy to work with.”

Even though Hamilton Place was not his favourite design — his favourite was St. Peter’s Hospital — Alison said her father “was proud to be part of a community like Hamilton. He was very grateful. Hamilton was really good to him.”

Apart from the landmark buildings, Garwood-Jones also designed a new Mormon church in Stoney Creek, a new Catholic church in Grimsby, a wing for St. Joseph’s Hospital, and renovations at the Hamilton GO Centre and the downtown armouries.

No one can say if he might have worked on the new Pan Am Stadium, but he voiced his support last summer for locating it beside a highway, as opposed to council’s idea of building it at the west harbour. Ivor Wynne is being renovated for the Games.

Garwood-Jones leaves his wife Catherine, 82, children Peter, 48, Richard, 46, Alison, 44, plus family in England.

Buildings

Hamilton Place

The Art Gallery of Hamilton

St. Peter’s Hospital

Hamilton Convention Centre/ Ellen Fairclough Building

The Hamilton Regional Cancer Centre (now the Juravinski Cancer Centre)

Flamborough YMCA

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Stoney Creek

St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church, Grimsby

Hamilton City Hall renovations

First Place Hamilton

The award-winning architect designed some of the most prominent buildings in the city during a 50-year career, most famously Hamilton Place, the Hamilton Convention Centre, the Art Gallery of Hamilton, the Ellen Fairclough Building, St. Peter’s Hospital and the Hamilton Regional Cancer Centre.