Moriyama & Teshima Architects fonds
(F 2187)

Records from one of Canada's most prestigious architectural firms are now part of Ontario's documentary history thanks to a donation from Moriyama & Teshima Architects to the Archives of Ontario.

The series encompass the Project records, Specifications and Contracts, Proposal submissions, Publications and planning reports, Raymond Moriyama's personal records and scrapbooks, Public relations files, Project microfilms and Audio tapes.

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Photograph of perspective rendering of Progress
Avenue development (Scarborough, Ont.), [ca. 1990]
Moriyama & Teshima Architects fonds
Reference Code: F 2187-1, project 8918
Archives of Ontario

The donation provides comprehensive coverage of the firm's projects from 1973 to 2004 and includes some records for projects back to the start of Raymond Moriyama's Toronto practice in 1957. These records represent a wide variety of public buildings and land use plans, such as libraries, watershed plans, parklands, civic centres and squares, university campuses, recreational facilities, schools and corporate learning centres, commercial complexes and museums.

The collection at the Archives of Ontario features some of Raymond Moriyama and Ted Teshima's better known and award-winning designs, including the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre; Bay Bloor Radio interiors; Bata Shoe Museum; Ontario Science Centre (Don Mills) and Science North (Sudbury); Malton and Barrie civic centres; Whitby and Ottawa-Carleton Municipal Halls; Mississauga and Durham YMCAs; University of Western Ontario's John Labatt Visual Arts Centre; Bank of Montreal Institute for Learning (Scarborough); York University's Vari Hall; North York Central Library and the Metro (Toronto) Reference Library; and the Niagara Parklands 100 year landscape plan.

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West entry and Central Library, North York Civic Centre, 1987
Stevens Evans
Colour print
Moriyama & Teshima Architects fonds
Reference Code: F 2187-1-80, project 8220
Archives of Ontario, I0007473

The Moriyama & Teshima records also contain the firm's internationally celebrated work on the new Canadian Embassy in Tokyo (1991), and on projects across Canada and in Miami Beach, New Orleans, Chicago and Buffalo.

These records illustrate the evolution of the firm's pluralistic modern style and a holistic design philosophy which incorporates humanism, a sense of the surrounding natural and man-made environment, and a creative search for an essential spirit to be embodied in each of the structural spaces they design.

Moriyama & Teshima's buildings are known for their sculptured angularity or curved exteriors, which are dynamic yet serene, as well as for their open, functional interiors, which are warm and intimate.

To view on line descriptions of these records consult fonds F 2187 in the Archives Descriptive Database.

The Moriyama and Teshima fonds (F 2187) is accessed through the Special Collections Reading Room. Contact a Reference Archivist for more information.

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