SALA extends condolences to the family and friends of Professor Emeritus John Gaitanakis, who passed away on November 22, 2025.
Gaitanakis joined the faculty of the School of Architecture in 1968, under the leadership of then-Director Henry Elder. He was fundamental in the establishment of enduring traditions at the School of Architecture and later SALA, particularly Study Abroad and Introductory Workshop.
Along with colleagues Abraham Rogatnick and Andrew Gruft, Gaitanakis led the School’s inaugural Study Abroad to Venice. In subsequent years, he would take students on the three-month program to his home city of Athens in 1973, 1979 and 1986, and Barcelona in 1990. He returned to Greece for a one-month Study Abroad in Karthaia in 1995. On each of these voyages, Gaitanakis insisted that the students’ work should leave an impact on the communities they visited that extended long past their time abroad. He also believed that experiencing the architecture of cities beyond Vancouver was essential to the school experience.
Gaitanakis was at the centre of another foundational School of Architecture experience – the first Introductory Workshop in 1968. In what came to be known as the “Mythic Workshop,” incoming students spent three weeks travelling by land and sea to communities throughout the Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island, and Washington State. While the 11 further workshops he was a part of between 1969 and 1990 were more concentrated in both location and duration, they all served to welcome generations of architecture students to the program with a spirit of collaboration and camaraderie.
After 27 years at the School of Architecture, Gaitanakis retired in 1995. His legacy continues through the John Gaitanakis Prize in Architecture, awarded annually to a graduating Master of Architecture student in recognition of an outstanding design project emphasizing ecological consideration in the urban environment.
On April 9, flags on the UBC Vancouver campus will be lowered in his memory.