page_title: Clifford Wiens
section_title: Administration Building, University of Saskatchewan (1987)
hierarchical_section_title: Clifford Wiens / Career / Wiens Johnstone Architects Ltd., 1979–1986 / Administration Building, University of Saskatchewan (1987)
caption_attribution_description: Eh, not my best... but I have nothing to show other then 2 pictures for my day out and about.&#160;:(
context_page_description: Clifford Donald Wiens was a Canadian architect, designer, and author.
  The first two-thirds of his professional career spanned forty years, a diverse body of architectural work found throughout Saskatchewan including designs for schools and hospitals, chapels and churches, motel and apartment buildings, private residences, buildings for corporations and health spas, dairy creameries in Regina and Saskatoon, and a Trans-Canada Highway campground. He completed over one hundred projects.
  During the early phase of his career in the 1960s and 1970s, influenced by his relationship with the group of abstract painters known as the Regina Five as well as his own background in industrial design, Wiens actively sought out new ideas and innovations in architecture, interested in developing a style responsive to the prairie landscape and history, developing a reputation for "inventive" architectural and structural details and "simple but strong forms".
  Wiens achieved his greatest prominence after Expo 67, winning three Massey Award medals, Canada's top award for architecture, more than any other Saskatchewan architect, and two National Design Council of Canada Awards.
context_section_description: In 1979, portions of the University of Saskatchewan's College Building were declared unsafe and it was decided to build a new building adjacent to the original structure for $6.6 million, a three-storey stone clad building containing 4,646 square metres of floor space, approximately the same office space as the College Building. Construction began in the fall of 1985 and was completed in October 1987.
  Exhibiting the architect's "trademark use" of simple tectonic forms and "original construction details", the building's exterior materials were in keeping with those of the College Building, primarily "greystone", which is characteristic of the campus, complemented by cut Tyndall stone, while precast concrete panels form a base for the exterior walls, and the double-glazed windows with aluminum frames. Painted exposed concrete, often accompanied by grey tile, is the primary element and "character-defining material" of the interior, including the columns (doors are either oak or painted steel, the latter also used for handrails and balustrades such as the one featured as part of the main stair.
  The building is roughly T-shaped in plan, connecting to the back of the College Building with a recessed entrance and lobby. The two buildings are directly linked on all three levels, with many interior spaces in the Administration Building defined by the enclosure of the exterior walls of the College Building. The entrance originally featured a triangular canopy, since removed during the 2005 expansion. The new office space is an open concept design with movable partition walls to provide flexibility of use. The open plan has allowed for its reconfiguration many times.
  Overall, the style is postmodern, featuring references in form, detail and materiality to the historical architecture of the campus, but simplified in its detail, for example: the front face of the building features a shallow bay with a gabled roof line, referencing similar details on the College Building and other collegiate gothic examples, and the exterior stone detailing references historical precedents in materiality and form, but is abstracted through the use of simplified ornamentation.
  Most of the College Building was closed after the completion of the Administration Building in 1987. Wiens was involved in its 2005 renovation, the architect having written one of the planning reports, describing the renovation process as akin to "replacing the bones in a chicken while keeping the chicken alive". The College Building was renamed the Peter MacKinnon Building, after the university president who resisted calls for it to be demolished.
  The Administration Building was expanded at the same time renovations were going on in the adjacent building, and features a new glass façade.
caption: The Peter MacKinnon Building (formerly College Building) in 2012.
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