Siamak Hariri

Siamak Hariri, OAA, AAA, AIBC, FRAIC, RCA, Intl.

Assoc.

AIA (born 1958) is a Canadian architect and a founding partner of Hariri Pontarini Architects, a full-service architectural and interior design practice based in Toronto, Canada.

Born in Bonn, Germany, Hariri was educated at the University of Waterloo (BES, '79) and Yale University (M.Arch, '85).

Upon graduation, he worked at firms in New York and Toronto before founding Hariri Pontarini Architects with David Pontarini in 1994.

Hariri holds "deep respect for the transformative potential of architecture and specializes in designing works of enduring value" for private and public clients including the Art Gallery of Ontario, Royal Ontario Museum, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, and St. Michael's Hospital.

Hariri is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, sits on the board of the Design Exchange, and has sat on the advisory board of the Royal Ontario Museum's Contemporary Culture (formerly the Institute for Contemporary Culture) and the Toronto Community Foundation.

The Governor General's Medal-winning Schulich School of Business for York University was completed in 2003 in joint venture with Robbie/Young + Wright Architects.

The 340,000 square foot building, which spans a full city block, integrates an educational facility with luxury residential dwellings in a corporate learning complex.

An early example of Hariri's high attention to detail and craftsmanship, the project was the first time the firm used a custom curtain wall system designed in collaboration with the manufacturer.

He served as a member of Waterfront Toronto's Design Review Panel from 2005 until 2010.

Hariri has also taught studios at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design at the University of Toronto.

He has been a lecturer, guest critic, and jury member for organizations across North America and Europe.

He lives in Toronto with his wife, artist Sasha Rogers, and their three children.

In his TED Talk entitled How do you build a sacred space, Hariri shared that the inspiration behind his practice stems from the emotional response that architecture can create: "The school of architecture that I studied at some 30 years ago happened to be across the street from the wonderful art gallery designed by the great architect Louis Kahn. I love the building, and I used to visit it quite often. One day, I saw the security guard run his hand across the concrete wall. And it was the way he did it, the expression on his face—something touched me. I could see that the security guard was moved by the building and that architecture has that capacity to move you. I could see it, and I remember thinking, 'Wow. How does architecture do that?' At school, I was learning to design, but here—here was a reaction of the heart. And it touched me to the core.

You know, you aspire for beauty, for sensuousness, for atmosphere, the emotional response.

That's the realm of the ineffable and the immeasurable.

And that's what you live for: a chance to try."

Over the past three decades, Hariri has established a reputation as a "sculptor working in architecture."

His work reflects a commitment to the essentials of architecture, and to every project he brings "a profound interest in light, form, site, material, and craft."

His process begins with hand-sketching to establish the initial conceptual design for a project, which is then refined and developed in an iterative process of additional sketching, physical model studies, and digital renderings.

Hariri's portfolio has been honored with over 60 national and international design awards, including three Governor General's Medals in Architecture.

In 2009, Hariri's design won an international competition as the new home of the Ivey Business School at Western University.

The design concept for the building emulates a geode.

The research-based design process involved workshops and a survey of top business schools, with careful attention paid to the design of the case study classrooms and breakout rooms essential to Ivey's case method of learning.

With founding partner, David Pontarini, the firm received the 2013 Royal Architectural Institute of Canada's Architectural Firm Award.

In 2014, Hariri was named a Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada.

In 2016, Hariri presented a TED Talk about the Bahá'í Temple of South America that has since garnered over 1.4 million views.

The Globe and Mail listed Hariri as one of Canada's most remarkable artists.

One of Hariri's earliest commissions, the Canadian headquarters of McKinsey & Company, received a City of Toronto heritage designation just five years after completion.

Located at Victoria University in the University of Toronto's campus, the building harmonizes campus planning traditions with innovative office design to establish a culture of collaboration and excellence.

The design reimagines the conventional office structure by implementing a new planning model called "The Hive," a dynamic, three-storey gathering space that blends light, form, and material.

The project has been recognized with several awards including the 2016 Chicago Athenaeum International Architecture Award, 2016 American Institute of Architects' Educational Facility Design Award of Excellence, and the 2016 Ontario Association of Architects' Lieutenant Governor of Ontario's Award for Design Excellence in Architecture.

Hariri was the Partner-in-Charge and lead designer of the acclaimed Bahá'í Temple of South America in Santiago, Chile.

Completed in 2016, it is the last of eight continental temples commissioned by the Bahá'í community.

Hariri's design was selected through an international design competition with 180 entries from 80 countries.

The project is celebrated for its complex design and construction as well as innovations in structure, material, and technology.

Following the completion of the temple, Birkhäuser published Embodied Light - Bahá'í Temple of South America, a book that highlights the technological innovation and architectural excellence of the project spanning its 14-year journey.

For his contributions to architecture in Canada and abroad, Hariri received an honorary Doctor of Architecture from Ryerson University in 2017.

In 2019, the Temple was the first project by a Canadian firm to win the RAIC International Prize—a biennial award that recognizes a single work of architecture that creates lasting transformation within its societal context.