David Reich Scholarship for Architectural Technology

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Vanier College is pleased to announce the new David Reich Scholarship, created by the Reich family in memory of Vanier’s first Coordinator of the Architectural Technology Program.  Two prizes will be awarded to students in their final semester of the program, who have also demonstrated initiative, innovation, leadership and hard work. The Department of Architectural Technology coordinator(s) will select finalists; the family of David Reich will choose the winners.

The new scholarship was unveiled as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations of the Architectural Technology Department where more than 100 students, staff and guests helped mark the occasion.  David’s daughter Dahlia Reich and grand-nephew and current Architectural Technology student, Noah Reich, unveiled the scholarship.

Among the guests were teachers Iris Contougouris, who worked alongside David in the 1970s and 80s, retired teacher Peter Naylor and technician Frank Adamowicz as well as former student Bruce Penning from the original 1973 cohort.

David Reich was the original Coordinator of the Vanier College Architectural Technology program, starting in 1973.  He graduated from McGill University Architecture in 1950, and Concordia Engineering in 1976.  He taught at Vanier for several years, as well as Cégep du Vieux Montréal and Dawson College.  He was a natural-born instructor who took pride and joy in mentoring students.  David started his career designing residential projects, but soon identified a niche in industrial architecture and focused his efforts there, where he enjoyed tackling unique designing and engineering challenges.

David’s work took him to various parts of the world, including northern Quebec and Nigeria, and he racked up numerous honours in his career. In addition to being a masterful architect, engineer and teacher, David was also an arbitrator, writer, artist, innovator and entrepreneur.  In his 80s, he developed and patented a new style of handrails (customizable metal railings with detachable brackets) in between taking art, woodworking and math classes.  He was curious, gentle, pragmatic, unpretentious, irreverent, soft-spoken (although he spoke a lot) and had a tremendous sense of humour.