The Fields Institute Turns Twenty-Five 170725 Final book with covers | Page 12

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Elaine McKinnon Riehm
this at one time, but the universality of the discipline carried
the day.
The building at 222 College Street itself is a changing
organism. The architects, Kuwabara, Payne, McKenna,
and Blumberg (KPMB), set out to design a building that
would accommodate what former University of Toronto
president Rob Prichard describes as “the peculiar preferences
of mathematicians,” and yet remain within budget. There was
tension between the requirements of mathematicians, stoutly
defended by the founders Bill Shadwick and Jerry Marsden,
and the ordinary norms of university building activities within
the Physical Plant of the University of Toronto.
In a search for architectural plans and images of the
Fields building, I recently visited the Canadian Centre for
Architecture (CCA) in Montreal, to which KPMB donated all
their Fields Institute drawings and sketches. The 991 items in
the collection range from details such as office coat hooks to the
south elevation, the College Street façade, with its proposed
landscaping. A 1993 watercolour sketch by Guanghao Quian
of the College Street front is reproduced on pp. iv–v. Instead
of the simple cantilevered angled roof over the doorway that we
all know, the sketch shows an elaborate domed library. This
was abandoned with great reluctance by the Fields Institute
Committee in order to keep within budget.
Is There a Connection between J.C. Fields
and the Fields Institute?
For many years, I have thought about the relationship between
the Institute and its namesake, John Charles Fields. While
doing resear