Inderbir Singh Riar

Biography

Ph.D., Columbia University M.Arch, Columbia University B.A. (First-Class Honours), McGill University Inderbir Singh Riar is an architectural historian.  He explores ways in which architects and bureaucrats have imagined the modern metropolis as producing ideal citizenries.  This work has taken several forms including an extensive survey of Toulouse-Le Mirail, the consequential French ville nouvelle built in the 1960s; the project was done in collaboration with the Paris-based photographer Mark Lyon and supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.  Recent research includes a look at ideologies of “reconstruction” in West Germany and how cities were perceived as sites of democratic sentiment in the aftermath of war, occupation, and fascism.  A larger interest in postwar architecture culture also informs studies on Canadian modernism.  Riar is currently preparing a book (forthcoming 2018) on the vast intellectual program of Expo 67 and the manner in which architects engaged questions of civic identity and nation-state power.  In 2013, Riar was invited by The Japan Foundation to participate in the Japan-U.S. Curator Exchange Program.  In 2017, he joined the Board of Directors of the Diefenbunker, Canada’s Cold War Museum in Carp, Ontario.  Riar’s writings appear in books and journals, and he has lectured in universities worldwide.

Research Interest

Ideologies of “reconstruction” in West Germany and how cities were perceived as sites of democratic sentiment in the aftermath of war, occupation, and fascism.