Biographical Note

Blanche Lemco van Ginkel was born in 1923. She graduated from McGill University in Canada with a Bachelor of Architecture in 1945 and from Harvard University with a Masters in City Planning in 1950.

She is a retired partner of the architectural firm of Van Ginkel Associates, Architects and Town Planners in Toronto, begun in 1957, as well as a Professor Emerita at the University of Toronto. In 1948 she worked with Le Corbusier in Paris before coming to the University of Pennsylvania in 1951-1957. Her work at Van Ginkel Associates includes designs for historic Bowring Park in St. John's, Newfoundland, the Port of Montreal, working as a consultant in Expo'67 Montreal as well as various residential and town planning projects in Canada and abroad.

Van Ginkel is a Fellow in the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (FRAIC), a member of Ontario Association of Architects, a member of the Canadian Institute of Planners, an associate of the Royal institute of British Architects, a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, and an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (Hon. FAIA). She was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University in Aix-Marseille in 2005. She is also a founding member and has served as an advisor to the International Archives of Women in Architecture (IAWA).

Van Ginkel died in 2022.

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