Shirley Blumberg and Marianne McKenna part of Buone Nuove/Good News exhibition

August 22, 2024

We’re thrilled to share that founding partners Shirley Blumberg and Marianne McKenna will be featured in an upcoming exhibition about women in architecture at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU). 

Curated by Pippo Ciorra, Elena Motisi, and Elena Tinacci, Buone Nuove: Good News – Women in Architecture is a travelling exhibition that showcases and celebrates Italian and global women architects and designers who have changed the field of architecture. 

First unveiled at the MAXXI museum in Rome in 2022, the exhibition will begin its inaugural North American showing on September 5 at TMU’s Paul H. Cocker Gallery in the Department of Architectural Science. 

Through images, artifacts, and videos, the exhibition will present the achievements and built works of several women architects and designers, including Blumberg and McKenna. 

A Member of the Order of Canada for her “commitment to creating spaces that foster a sense of community,” Blumberg has designed many of KPMB’s noteworthy and award-winning projects. 

Her portfolio includes the Remai Modern Art Gallery in Saskatchewan; the Julis Romo Rabinowitz and Louis A. Simpson International Building at Princeton University; Toronto’s Fort York Public Library; prototypical housing for the northern Indigenous community of Fort Severn; and the recently completed Harrison McCain Pavilion for Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton, New Brunswick – named one of the best architecture projects in 2023 by Italy’s Domus. 

Blumberg initiated the formation of BEAT (Building Equality in Architecture Toronto), a grassroots initiative to promote equality for women in the profession, and is passionate about empowering the next generation of architects and designers. She was instrumental in creating the firm’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) initiative. 

An advocate for using design to positively impact the urban and natural environment, McKenna is known for innovative projects that inspire the institutional, academic, and cultural communities for which they are designed. 

In 2012, she was named an Officer of the Order of Canada for creating “architecture that enriches the public experience,” and in 2021, she became the first woman to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Design Futures Council. 

Her portfolio includes The Brearley School, an all-girls school in Manhattan; the Center for Computing & Data Sciences at Boston University, the largest, sustainable, operational fossil fuel-free building in Boston; Toronto’s historic Massey Hall; and the Royal Conservatory TELUS Centre for Performance and Learning and its iconic Koerner Hall, which has garnered numerous awards including a Governor General’s Medal in Architecture. 

McKenna sits on the International Advisory Board for the McEwen School of Architecture at Laurentian University, where the firm also funds a bursary for Indigenous students pursuing post-secondary education in architecture and related design fields. 

Currently, she is working on a series of community-building housing projects for Kindred Works, the expansion of Arts Commons in Calgary, and a new building for the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University and Yale Repertory Theatre. 

Read more about Blumberg and McKenna’s experience founding the firm and working in the built environment here. 

Learn more about the exhibition here.