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Robert Mellin

Title: 
Retired Professor
Academic title(s): 

CM, ONL, PhD (U Penn), hon DLitt (Memorial), MSc (U Penn), MArch (McGill), MSc Arch (Penn State), BArch (Penn State)
NLAA, FRAIC, RCA

Robert Mellin
Contact Information
Phone: 
514-398-6719
Email address: 
robert.mellin [at] mcgill.ca
Office: 
Macdonald-Harrington Building Room 313
Awards, honours, and fellowships: 
  • 1997: Southcott Award (Harold Dwyer House, Tilting)
  • 1997: Southcott Award (Lane House, Tilting)
  • 1999: Southcott Award (F.P.U. Premises, Seldom, Fogo Island)
  • 2002: Southcott Award (Restoration of 113 Bond Street, St. John’s)
  • 2003: Southcott Award (Rowe House addition, St. John’s)
  • 2004: Winterset Literary Award (first place: for Tilting)
  • 2005: Manning Award (Dwyer Premises restoration, Tilting)
  • 2005: Southcott Award (Dwyer house restoration, Kelley’s Island, Tilting)
  • 2006: Paul E. Buchanan Award for interpretation and heritage conservation (Vernacular Architecture Forum)
  • 2007: Southcott Award (Brett House, Joe Batt's Arm, Fogo Island)
  • 2009: Southcott Award (Old Post Office, Tilting, Fogo Island)
  • 2012: Southcott Award for “Design in Context” (Hood Residence, Middle Arm, NL)
  • 2015: Newfoundland and Labrador Lieutenant Governor’s Awards of Excellence in Architecture Award of Merit for the architectural design of the Texmo-Storey Residence in St. Philip’s, Newfoundland
  • 2016: Southcott Award for “Design in Context" (Ballyhack Treehouse Residence, Middle Arm, NL)
  • 2017: City of St. John’s Built Heritage Award (38 Hayward Avenue, Georgestown, St. John’s, NL)

 

Biography: 

Robert Mellin has been a registered architect since 1978. In 2002 he was elected to the R.C.A. (Royal Canadian Academy), and he was elected to Fellowship in the RAIC in 2009. He has received ten Southcott Awards for his heritage conservation projects in Newfoundland, and in 2005 he received a Manning Award from the Historic Sites Association of Newfoundland and Labrador. In 2006 he received the Paul E. Buchanan Award for excellence in fieldwork and interpretation from the Vernacular Architecture Forum. He is past-Chair of the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador. His book Tilting: House Launching, Slide Hauling, Potato Trenching and Other Tales from a Newfoundland Fishing Village was published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2003 and it won the Winterset Literary Award. His chapter on the Ludlow premises in Joe Batt's Arm, Fogo Island, Newfoundland appears in the anthology Despite This Loss: Essays on Culture, Memory, and Identity in Newfoundland and Labrador (St. John's: ISER, 2010). In 2011, Professor Mellin’s book Newfoundland Modern: Architecture in the Smallwood Years, 1949-1972, was published as part of the McGill Queen’s/Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation Studies in Art History series. In 2013 and 2015, with Professors Ricardo Castro and Carlos Rueda, he co-authored Syndetic Modernism, Volumes I and II, a new book series published by Piloto University in Bogota, Colombia, in English and Spanish. In 2015, his book Winter in Tilting was published by Pedlar Press (St. John’s, Newfoundland). In 2015 and 2017 he received Lt. Governor’s awards for his architectural design work in Newfoundland. Robert Mellin was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2014, and in 2015 he received a doctorate (honoris causa DLitt) from Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador. In 2018, he was appointed to the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador.

 

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