The Society of Architectural Historians has announced Canadian scholar Annmarie Adams among the 2023 class of SAH Fellows, one of the Society’s highest honors.
SAH Fellows are individuals who have distinguished themselves by a lifetime of significant contributions to the field, which may include scholarship, service to the Society, teaching, and stewardship of the built environment.
The Society of Architectural Historians describes Annmarie Adams as an Architectural historian who holds the Stevenson Chair at McGill University in the Philosophy and History of Science, including Medicine.
Adams was educated at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on the cultural landscapes of homes and hospitals, with emphasis on how to read the medical beliefs and gender expectations that are inscribed in the built environment.
Her 1996 book, Architecture in the Family Way: Women, Houses, and Doctors, 1870–1900, won the Jason A. Hannah Medal from the Royal Society of Canada as an outstanding contribution to the history of medicine. Designing Women: Gender and the Architectural Profession, co-authored with sociologist Peta Tancred in 2000, provides an interdisciplinary study of Canada’s women architects.
In 2008, Adams published Medicine by Design: The Architect and the Modern Hospital, 1893–1943, which looks inside healthcare planning. With funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, she is currently writing a book on the life of Maude Abbott as seen through 10 spaces occupied by the pioneering physician.
Adams’ expertise on health and design is much cited by the media, including The Atlantic, Elle Décor, Financial Times Magazine, The Guardian, Nature, The New York Times, and WIRED. She is a leader in architectural and medical education, having served as chair of the Canadian Council of University Schools of Architecture and, currently, as vice president of the Canadian Society for the History of Medicine.
At McGill, she has served as director of the School of Architecture and chair of SSoM. She is a Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. Adams has been a member of the Society of Architectural Historians since 1988. She has served on the SAH Board (2019–2022), was local co-chair of the SAH 2021 annual meeting, and is this year’s Eduard F. Sekler Talk speaker.
Maristella Casciato, Meredith L. Clausen, Thomas S. Hines, and Anoma D. Pieris will also be recognized as Fellows at an awards celebration on Thursday, April 13, 2023, at the Society’s 76th Annual International Conference in Montréal, Canada.