The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

literary Ron Thorn The Shaping of an Architect by Douglas Shadbolt Douglas & Mclntyre in a frenzied pursuit of excellence. Shadbolt knows the rush of excitement the young Thorn must have fell as the first commission is completed, and the anticipation of what projects lie ahead. The author senses, too, the loneliness Thorn experienced as he became the leader of others, who, on paper, were more qualified than himself Thorn was bom in Penticton of a Canadian mother and a Scottish father. The Thorns settled in Vancouver in 1924, when Ron was one year old. Much influenced by his remarkable mother, a lawyer and staunch Methodist, the young boy became a proficient pianist. In his later years at high school. Thorn's love of music was replaced by a passion for art. He enrolled at the Vancouver School of Art (now the Emily Carr College of Art and Design), and, through the influence of teachers Bert Binning and Jack Shadbolt, found a new love-architecture. In 1949, Binning told Thom to approach Ned Pratt for a job. Pratt, a long-time North Shore resident, was a partner in Thompson. Berwick and Pratt, at that time the fastest growing architectural firm in Vancouver. Thom was hired. Ronald James Thom had found his niche. As an apprenticed architect, he built his own home on Peters Road in North Vancouver. Married and anticipating the arrival of a first child, the Thom house had to be small and inexpensive. Thom eventually designed other houses on the street, of which only one remains. This was the start of a career built on houses, from modest to palatial, from the West Coast to Lake Ontario, with over 30 houses built in the Vancouver area alone. He also produced variations of his house plans for comer lots in Vancouver. Thom was influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright and by the climate and moods of the West Coast. Even though Thom is identified with the design of the unique and influential B.C. Hydro Building, it wasn't until I960 that he won the approval he so earnestly sought and later the opportunity to open his own firm. He won the competition for Massey College, modeled on Governor General Vincent Massey \ vision of an Oxford college in Canada. The competition took Thom away from the North Shore and with it, the bulk of his architectural work. An exception was the building of the simple, eloquent Lester B. Pearson College at Pedder Bay on Vancouver Island. The project was a joint venture with North Shore architect Barry Downs. Back in Ontario, Thom was the architect for the brand new Trent University in Peterborough, a delightful campus, recognized not only for its setting but also for the human scale of Thorn's buildings. He also built the Arts and Social Science Complex at Queen's University in Kingston. In all this, his architecture lost little of the influence of the West Coast. The tacit approval of many clients, who at one time were beating a regular path to his office door, and the winning of architectural awards, was not enough. Like Malcolm Lowrey before him. Ronald Thom had a demon. As the pressures of success and the prospects of failure invaded his psyche, his quick temper and dependency on alcohol became the main cause of two failed marriages, the collapse of his own firm and eventually his death. Another factor, perhaps more insidious, was the influence of a changing world on a man unsure of his credentials. Thom was committed to the emergence of a better architectural order, as his mother was to a better world through social change. Sadly, the son was ill-equipped to face what for him was the cut-and-thrust of unbridled competition and the emerging anarchy of postmodernism. A Rev/ew by W. Graham Argyle On the surface. Ron Thorn's story has been told many times, in many places. It is about the rise and fall of a man who was loved and admired by many for his great talent, yet destroyed by an adverse side that could not be hidden. Underneath, the story is about the thrust for social change and a better world after a souldestroying depression and a pivotal world war. It takes us through the confidence-building boom of the postwar years to the uncertainties of the S ^ °£ present information age. Thorn was an architect who made the North Shore his home. The story of this enigmatic man is told by his colleague and friend Douglas Shadbolt. an architect and past director of the UBC School of Architecture. The author is a student of people, their politics and game playing, as pieces of architecture - big and small - unfold. In a world that seems to be increasingly committed to high technology rather than people, Shadbolt's book provides a uniquely Canadian insight into our own immediate past. It is also a good reference for future architects. The book is a graphic delight and extensively illustrated, although some of the photographs would have been better in colour. It will sit well on a coffee table but the substance is in the story. Shadbolt tells it with an understanding and compassion for the architect and his architecture, making the book eminently readable, while adequately covering details of architectural practice and the settings in which Thorn worked. In short. I like this book. Shadbolt has captured the frailty and the greatness of a British Columbian architect