Events & Gatherings
Mendel International Lecture
April 16, 2026
6:00 PM-7:30 PM
SaskTel Theatre
Join us to hear from two of Canada’s top architects at this year’s Mendel International Lecture. The talk features Bruce Kuwabara, whose award-winning projects include Remai Modern, Canada’s National Ballet School, and the Canadian Museum of Nature; and Alfred Waugh, designer of Saskatoon’s New Central Library and innovative projects including First Peoples House on the University of Victoria campus and Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre.
Tickets are free for members and $15 for non-members. Member codes will be sent via email.
Event/Exhibition meta autogenerated block.
When
April 16 at 6:00PM–7:30PM
Where
SaskTel Theatre
April 16 at 6:00PM – 7:30PM
Kuwabara and Waugh will reflect on their work, including their upcoming collaboration on the new Vancouver Art Gallery, and themes including sustainable building, interdisciplinary design, and culturally sensitive architecture.
About the speakers:
Bruce Kuwabara is a founding partner of KPMB Architects and the Chair of the Board of Trustees at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal. In 2006, he was awarded the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Gold Medal and in 2012 he was invested as an Officer of the Order of Canada for shaping “our built landscape in lasting ways.” Bruce was lead design partner on 14 of KPMB’s Governor General’s Award-winning projects.
His portfolio encompasses cultural, civic, educational, hospitality, and healthcare projects. Notable cultural works include Canada’s National Ballet School in Toronto, the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, and the Remai Modern art gallery in Saskatoon. Educational projects include the Julis Romo Rabinowitz Building and Louis A. Simpson International Building at Princeton University, Isttaniokaksini / Science Commons at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, and the Center for Computing & Data Sciences at Boston University.
Recent and current projects include the Contemporary Calgary art gallery (an expansion and renovation of the 1967 Centennial Planetarium), the Bay Adelaide Centre North Tower for Brookfield, the Temerty Discovery Centre for the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health’s (CAMH), the redevelopment of the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) campus, the reimagining of the Agnes Etherington Art Centre at Queen’s University, and Odenak, an integrated mixed-use residential community in Ottawa, Canada’s capital city. He is also working on the Japanese Canadian Monument in Victoria, British Columbia and the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Alfred V. Waugh emerges as a trailblazing Indigenous architect in Canada, renowned for innovative designs that honor cultural and environmental values. Born in Yellowknife to an English-heritage prospector father and a Fond du Lac Denesuline mother, he cherished summers on Great Slave Lake, fostering his independent creativity.
Graduating with a Urban and Regional Analysis degree from Lethbridge (1989) and honors in architecture from UBC (1993)—as its first full-status Indigenous alumnus—Waugh designed the award-winning Nicola Valley Institute of Technology at Busby Perkins + Will, securing a 2004 Governor-General’s Medal.
Through Formline Architecture + Urbanism, founded in 2005, he defines contemporary Indigenous architecture. Highlights include the Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre (2009), First Peoples House at UVic (2010), and the UBC Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre (2022 Governor-General’s Medal winner), lauded for material symbolism and inclusivity.
In 2025, his firm advances the Indigenous House at UTSC—under construction, shaping architecture trends—and Saskatoon’s New Central Library, with mass timber progress underscoring sustainable innovation and the award of the commission to design the Vancouver Art Gallery with KPMB. Waugh’s work inspires diverse communities, bridging Indigenous ways of knowing and western knowledge.
Thank you to Colliers and Tom and Keitha McClocklin for supporting the Mendel International Lecture.