True Nordic: How Scandinavia Influenced Design in Canada

True Nordic presents a comprehensive look at more than nine decades of Nordic and Scandinavian influence on Canadian craft, design and industrial production.

Emphasising durability and truth to materials, the humanistic integrity of Scandinavian and Nordic Modernism resonated culturally with Canada, such as the iconic functionality of Danish designer Arne Jacobsen and the organic simplicity of renowned Finnish architect Alvar Aalto. Including essays by the much respected architect and theorist George Baird and founding curator of the Design Exchange, Rachel Gotlieb, contributors to True Nordic share their substantial insight and expertise into how these influences inspired the development of a particular style and the cultural language of Canadian design.

George Baird is an Canadian architect and architectural educator most closely associated with the University of Toronto, although he also taught at Harvard University. Baird has been recognized for his teaching of architecture and urban design and was awarded the 2012 AIA/ACSA Topaz Medallion for Excellence in Architectural Education.

Rachel Gotlieb served as the founding Curator of the Design Exchange between 1990-2002, and co-wrote Design in Canada (Knopf Canada, 2001). She has also curated and co-curated several important exhibitions, including: Pop: Design from the Space Age (Design Exchange 1994); Thor Hansen: Crafting a Canadian Style (Textile Museum of Canada, 2005), On the Table: 100 Years of Functional Ceramics; (Gardiner Museum, 2007), and Beaver Tales: Canadian Art and Design (University of Toronto Art Centre, 2008). She has taught design history at Ryerson University School of Fashion, OCAD and Sheridan College.

Mark Kingwell is a Canadian professor of philosophy and associate chair at the University of Toronto. Kingwell has published twelve books, most notably, A Civil Tongue: Justice, Dialogue, and the Politics of Pluralism, which was awarded the Spitz Prize for political theory in 1997. In 2000 Kingwell received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, for contributions to theory and criticism. He has held visiting posts at institutions including: University of Cambridge, University of California at Berkeley, and City University of New York where he held the title of Weissman Distinguished Professor of Humanities.

Dr. Michael J. Prokopow is a cultural historian and curator. Between 2004 and 2008, he was curator of the Design Exchange, Canada’s only museum of 20th century industrial design. In 2012, he was co-curator of ＂Museum for the End of the World＂ The Monumental Project, Scotia Bank Nuit Blanche, in Toronto. In addition, in 2011 he curated an exhibition on the work of architect and theorist George Baird at the Daniels Faculty of Landscape, Architecture and Design and he was co-curator of the Leona Drive Project, a site specific installation in Willowdale, Ontario. Currently he is working on a project for the New York Times.