Jerome Markson’s nearly six-decade-long architectural practice began in a time of profound transformation during the post-war period. His buildings were harbingers of important shifts in sociopolitical attitudes, urban policies, and modes of architectural production. From speculative homes in fledgling suburbs, to bespoke private houses, to social housing in downtown Toronto, to luxury landmarks like the Market Square condominiums, as well as important cultural and institutional buildings, his architecture reflects his pursuit of a more open and inclusive expression of modernity, one that moved past late-Modernism's formal legibility in favour of an increasingly idiosyncratic formal, spatial, and material expression.

Toronto’s Inclusive Modernity: The Architecture of Jerome Markson is the first comprehensive critical assessment of Markson's diverse body of work, interwoven with an account of Toronto's emergence as a cosmopolitan city. Extensive illustrations include wide-format collages by Scott Norsworthy, capturing Markson’s buildings in their urban environments today; architectural drawings; and contemporaneous images from the popular press, such as Maclean’'s and Chatelaine magazines. The significance of Markson's work is examined through three main themes: his prescient use of photography to situate architecture as an inclusive cultural medium and object of human desire; his nuanced responsiveness to Toronto's fast-evolving urban and suburban geographies; and the ways in which his diverse influences—including the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto, Britain's Townscape movement, and his encounters with vernacular architecture—were instrumental in his development of a more pluralistic, materially-oriented approach.

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George Baird is an architect and architectural theorist who has worked in Canada, the United States and Europe. Baird received his Bachelor's degree in Architecture from the University of Toronto, and carried out postgraduate research at University College, London. He is a founding partner in the Toronto architectural and urban design firm of Baird/Sampson/Neuert Architects Inc. which has completed many acclaimed projects. He has taught at major institutions in North America and Europe and lectured extensively throughout the world. Baird served as Dean of the University of Toronto's Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, and director of the MArch I (professional) and MArch II (post-professional) degree programs at Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Cambridge. His past publications include Alvar Aalto (1971), The Space of Appearance (2003), and of Meaning in Architecture (1968) co-edited with Charles Jencks.

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