In over 220 drawings and photographs, Robert Mellin presents the development of architecture in the decades immediately following Newfoundland's 1949 union with Canada. Newfoundland's wholehearted embrace of modern architecture in this era affected planning as well as the design of cultural facilities, commercial and public buildings, housing, recreation, educational facilities, and places of worship, and Premier Joseph Smallwood often relied on modern architecture to demonstrate the progress made by his administration. Mellin explores the links between Smallwood and modern architecture, revealing how Smallwood guided the development of numerous architectural projects. He also looks at the work of two innovative local architects, Frederick A. Colbourne and Angus J. Campbell, showing how their architecture was influenced by their life-long interest in art.

The first comprehensive work on an important period of architectural development in urban and rural Newfoundland, Newfoundland Modern complements Mellin's award-winning book on the outport of Tilting, Fogo Island.

Robert Mellin is an Associate Professor at McGill University's School of Architecture in Montreal. He has been a registered architect since 1978. In 2002 he was elected to the R.C.A. (Royal Canadian Academy), and he was elected to Fellowship in the RAIC in 2009. He has received eight Southcott Awards for his heritage conservation projects in Newfoundland, and in 2005 he received a Manning Award from the Historic Sites Association of Newfoundland and Labrador. In 2006 he received the Paul E. Buchanan Award for excellence in fieldwork and interpretation from the Vernacular Architecture Forum. He is past-Chair of the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador. His book Tilting: House Launching, Slide Hauling, Potato Trenching and Other Tales from a Newfoundland Fishing Village was published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2003 and it won the Winterset Literary Award. In 2011, Professor Mellin's book Newfoundland Modern: Architecture in the Smallwood Years, 1949-1972, was published as part of the McGill Queen's/Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation Studies in Art History series.

Robert Mellin's profile page

"Original and richly illustrated, Newfoundland Modern is a comprehensive and insightful tour d'horizon that will make St. John's the envy of other Canadian cities in terms of architectural history." Peter Neary, University of Western Ontario