Adrian Blackwell received his Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Waterloo and his Master of Urban Design from the University of Toronto. He is an artist and urban and architectural designer whose work examines the relation between physical spaces and political/economic forces. He has exhibited his work at artist-run-centers and public institutions across Canada, in the 2005 Shenzhen Biennale, the 2011 Chengdu Biennale and at London’s Architectural Association. In 2007 he was a member of the winning team in the international competition to renovate Toronto's Nathan Phillips Square and has won awards for his architecture and urban design from the Canadian Architect, Toronto Urban Design Awards, Design Exchange and I.D. Magazine. He has curated exhibitions, including Detours: Tactical Approaches to Urbanization in China and organized symposia such as Architecture and Spectacle in (Post) Socialist China. He writes regularly about the intersections of art, architecture, urbanism and his current research focuses on architecture’s political potential, urbanization in contemporary China, the disappearance of public housing in North America and the constitutive paradoxes of public space. Before joining the University of Waterloo, he was a visiting professor at Chongqing, Michigan and Harvard universities and an assistant professor at the University of Toronto. He has been a member of Toronto’s Anarchist Free School and the Toronto School of Creativity and Inquiry and is a co-founder and co-editor of the journal Scapegoat: Architecture / Landscape / Political Economy.
Associate Professor
Associate Director - Research
