Macleod and Berman

Biography

The firm of Macleod and Berman began in June of 1956 as the firm of Macleod & Reimer Architects. It’s founding partners were Macolm Donald Macleod and Norman Earl Reimer, both of whom graduated from the University of Manitoba School of Architecture in the late 1940s. The firm’s first office was located at 300 Main Street. Early projects included a modernist design for Shop-Easy supermarkets, one version of which was erected in Transcona as the Shop-Easy Food Fair in 1956. In 1958 the firm was also responsible for the planning of a modern-looking structure for Globelite Batteries Limited in St. James near the intersection of Wellington Avenue and Madison Street. That same year Macleod & Reimer designed the Toronto-Dominion Bank in Steinbach, Manitoba, the hometown of Norman Reimer. In June of 1962 Macleod and Reimer were joined by a new partner, Bruce Webster, an electrical engineer who was also educated at the University of Manitoba; they also moved their offices to a new space located on Lombard Avenue. That same year the firm conceived the plans for the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer (59 Academy Road) a brick, glass and Tyndall limestone structure dominated by the tall A-frame of the church’s chapel. In 1963 the firm completed two and began one major project: the Winnipeg offices of Credit Foncier Franco-Canadien at 286 Smith Street and the Kinsmen Centre for the Handicapped at 825 Sherbrook Street – which similarly feature an angular treatment of the façade – and the University of Manitoba Glenlea agricultural research facility, a large multi-building complex in rural Manitoba. In 1965 founding partner Norman Reimer departed the firm, replaced the following year Alexander Berman, a 1947 classmate of Macleod, forming the firm of Macleod, Webster and Berman. As of that year the firm had their offices at 437 Assiniboine Avenue. Bruce Webster left the firm during this period.