Anne Cormier
2017 Winner of the Margolese Prize
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Anne Cormier, MOAQ, MIRAC
An architect and educator, Anne Cormier’s impact spans the fields of practice, education, research, and leadership. In addition to being a co-founder of the award-winning Montreal-based firm Atelier Big City (Cormier Cohen Davies architectes), she is also a Professor at the School of Architecture at the Université de Montréal, where she served as Director between 2007 and 2015. Cormier’s dedication to social and design excellence in architectural and urban projects has drawn her to leadership roles with the World Design Summit. She is also a researcher with the Laboratoire d'étude de l'architecture potentielle (LEAP), an inter-university group dedicated to research on the design process in architecture and she is a member of the National Capital Commission’s Advisory Committee on Planning, Design and Realty in Ottawa.
It’s rare that one individual can tacitly fight for the better good through so many varied realms within one career, and at a high level of excellence.
2017 Selection Committee
Photo: Louise Tanguay
Photo: Ulysse Lemerise
Photo: Ulysee Lamerise
Atelier Big City received the 1998 Prix de Rome in architecture from the Canada Council for the Arts, the 2006 Governor General’s Medal, and a 2017 Award of Excellence from the Ordre des architectes du Québec. Cormier is a member of l’Ordre des architectes du Québec, and L’Institut royal d’architecture du Canada (Royal Architectural Institute of Canada). In 2020, she was named a fellow of the RAIC for her outstanding service to the profession. She holds a Bachelor of Science (Architecture) and a Bachelor of Architecture from McGill University, as well as a Certificat d’études approfondies en architecture urbaine (Certificate of Advanced Studies in Urban Architecture) from the École d’architecture de Paris-Villemin.
When Randy Cohen, Howard Davies and myself founded our firm, Atelier Big City, we adopted the motto Make Architecture a Public Policy. We firmly believed then that Architecture has a major role to play in the quality of everyday life. We still do. The Margolese Prize acknowledges the social importance of design. I am deeply grateful to the late Leonard Herbert Margolese for this.
Anne Cormier, Canadian Architect
