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CARLISLE, Phyllis Cook (Phyllis Willson Cook)

Born
Toronto, Ontario, 1912
Died
Toronto, Ontario, 1954
Biography synopsis
Upon graduation with a B.Arch., Honours from the University of Toronto in 1935, Phyllis Cook Carlisle (nee Phyllis Willson Cook) is noted as the first woman to win the annual student competition supported by the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC). Her Gold Medal award winning design for “An Embassy in the Capital City of a Country in the Temperate Zone” was published in the Journal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada in March 1934. She also held the distinction of having the first article written by a female architectural graduate to appear in the Journal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada in December 1935. On the topic of kitchens, the article was transcribed from her radio broadcast sponsored by the Toronto Chapter of the Ontario Association of Architects. Her additional student awards included the Toronto Brick Company Award, the Architectural Guild Bronze Medal, and the Darling and Pearson prize. Following her graduation and two years of employment in the Interior Decorating Department of Eaton’s Department Store in Toronto, Carlisle, set out to work independently. She gave a series of CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) radio broadcasts on the renovation and decoration of the various rooms in houses (c.1945). Carlisle's private residential designs included the T.G. Fogden residence, Port Credit, Ontario; Toronto projects included the Collins residence, Robb residence, and Carlisle residence, as well as three summer cabins on Lake Mississauga, Ontario. She also designed kitchens for Formica. Phyllis Cook Carlisle died at the age of forty-two. (I. Puchalski)
Media used
Architecture
Education
University of Toronto, 1930 - 1935
File & Archive locations
Virginia Tech, VA - International Archive of Women in Architecture
Canadian Women Artists History Initiative Documentation Centre, QC
University of Toronto, ON - Archives and Records Management Services
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Writings about
"Awards in RAIC Student Competitions." Journal, Royal Architectural Institute of Canada 11.3 (March 1934): 39
"Girl Architect Awarded Institute's Gold Medal: Phyllis Willson Cook Gets Medal for "Embassy Group." Star (Toronto) 19 May 1934
"Mrs. F. K. Carlisle: Given Awards in Architecture." Globe & Mail 22 Oct. 1954: 4
"R.A.I. Gold Medallists." Telegram (Toronto) 27 Feb. 1934
Adams, Annmarie. "Building Barriers: Images of Women in Canada's Architectural Press, 1924-73 (Journal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada)." Resources for Feminist Research 23.3 (Fall 1994): 11-23
Adams, Annmarie & Peta Tancred. 'Designing Women': Gender and the Architectural Profession Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000
Grierson, Joan and the For the Record Committee, eds. For the Record: The First Women in Canadian Architecture Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2008
Simmins, Geoffrey. Ontario Association of Architects: a Centennial History, 1889-1989. Toronto: Ontario Association of Architects, 1989
University of Toronto. For the Record: Ontario Women Graduates in Architecture, 1920-1960. Exhibition. 1986
Virginia Tech. "IAWA Database Information for Phyllis Carlisle Cook." International Archive of Women in Architecture Nov 2003
http://lumiere.lib.vt.edu/iawa_db/view_all.php3?person_pk=179&table=all

Writings by
Cook, Phyllis Willson. "The Modern Kitchen." Journal, Royal Architectural Institute of Canada 12.12 (Dec.1935): 205

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