July 4, 2024
FACES IN ARCHITECTURE: WORLD-WIDE TOUR
LECTURE BY TERRY SMITH-LAMOTHE
Thursday, July 4th at 7:00pm
As an architect, one of my hobbies is collecting pictures of faces in the architecture. These can be human, animal or fantastic faces and made of stone, terra cotta, wood, metal or glass. This presentation takes the viewer to several North American, European and Asian cities, discovering the sometimes fierce, sometimes whimsical faces which look down on passers-by in the street below them — often completely unnoticed. Join me for a whirlwind tour of “faces in the architecture”.
Born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Terry Smith-Lamothe reversed the footsteps of his Cajun ancestors and came back to Nova Scotia in 1973. He settled in Halifax with his Canadian spouse, Judy, and their daughter, Jennifer, in 1979, opening a glass art studio and shop downtown, “Glassdesigns”. In 1985, his window “Graham Family Memorial” at Fox River’s Trinity Anglican Church, was selected by the Corning Museum of Glass Review as one of “the 100 best works in glass” in an annual global competition. In 1986, he won the national competition to design and build a 20’ x 10’ (6m x 3m) memorial window at Grand Pré National Historic Site to depict the expulsion of the Acadians in 1755, “Le Grand Dérangement”. He has also designed and fabricated several windows at St. Norbert’s Catholic Church here in Lunenburg. In 1986 he returned to University and completed his Master’s Degree in Architecture from the Technical University of NS (now part of Dalhousie) in 1990. He finished his career as Senior Healthcare Architect in the Provincial Public Works department at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. While at Public Works, he was an advocate for art in new schools and helped assemble (with parents, faculty and students) the floor mosaic in the lobby of the Bluenose Academy. Since his “pseudo-retirement”, he has been busy on several projects through his firm, Architech, Ltd., in Halifax. His favourite pastimes are relaxing at his lakeside cabin in Lunenburg County and, when travelling, taking photos of “Faces in the Architecture”. He has published two posters of these “Faces”: Halifax and Victoria, BC. His collection now includes hundreds of images from around the world, taken from street level, of human, animal and fantasy faces — faces often unnoticed by passers-by. Some are emblems which identify the purpose of the building, some are grotesques (like gargoyles) which were thought to ward off evil and some are just whimsical and full of humour. He learned rudimentary stone-carving from mason Heather Lawson and has created several carved sandstone and limestone installations which has given him a deep appreciation for the stone carvers of the “Faces” you will see in his presentation.
