John Di Castri retrospective exhibit - Wentworth Villa Architectural Heritage Museum - to September 10th

A John Di Castri retrospective exhibit is featured at the Wentworth Villa Architectural Heritage Museum, 1156 Fort St., Victoria.

 

The exhibition is sponsored by the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, and co-curated by local architect Chris Gower with design arts specialist Allan Collier.

 

It includes photographs, drawings, paintings and architectural models from more than 50 years of Di Castri’s practice. The exhibit features dozens of local commissions, including churches, schools, shopping malls and domestic buildings.

 

It is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Thursdays through Saturdays, until Sept. 10.

 

For more information, go to wentworthvilla.com 

 

 

 

 

Why you know John Di Castri, iconoclastic architect who reshaped Victoria

 

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 20 August 2023 - 04:44 AM.

John Di Castri is Victoria’s most widely recognized and celebrated mid-century architect and his life and work are the focus of our new feature exhibit, John Di Castri, Architect: A Retrospective (1924-2005). Drawing on the framework of a previous exhibit first shown during the architect’s lifetime, John Di Castri, Architect has now been updated with original artwork, plus new photography and text for this special viewing. Seven scale models of some key residential and institutional buildings also enrich the multi-faceted exhibit.

 

https://wentworthvil...-retrospective/

 

Born in Victoria, where he remained all of his working life, Di Castri’s career was uniquely local. His passion for art and creativity spanned multiple genres including music, drawing, painting and writing. But it was architecture that ultimately drew his full attention and inspired him to seek instruction from one of North America’s most innovative “organic school” architects, Bruce Goff, under whom he trained at the University of Oklahoma from 1949-51. Returning to Victoria he then went on to design hundreds of buildings for his home city, many of which remain today as treasured monuments to a unique cultural moment and to the architect’s community vision and creative genius.