Toronto-based Diamond Schmitt co-founder A.J. Diamond passes away aged 89

One of the most significant Canadian architects of his era is being remembered this week after news that Diamond Schmitt co-founder Abel Joseph “Jack” Diamond passed away this weekend in Toronto at the age of 89. Diamond was a mainstay on his adopted country’s architecture scene since first going into the practice in the early 1960s. Born in South Africa in 1932, Diamond studied for an architecture degree at the University of Cape Town in 1956 before reading Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) at Oxford University and then immigrating to the United States to attend the University of Pennsylvania, where he completed his master’s studies in architecture and began his career as an apprentice to Louis Kahn. Diamond moved to Toronto in 1964, where he served as the inaugural director of UT’s Master of Architecture program and eventually founded his own practice, A.J. Diamond Architects, with American Barton Myers in 1975. Previously on Archinect: Diamond Schmitt Architects' Emily Ca...