A longtime professor and director at the School of Landscape Architecture of the Université de Montréal, landscape architect and architect Ron Williams graduated from McGill University in architecture (1964) and the Sorbonne (Diplôme de civilisation française, 1965). During the late 1960s and 1970s, he worked in Montreal with John Schreiber, architect and landscape architect, as an employee and a partner. From 1970 to 1972, he studied landscape architecture at the University of California, Berkeley (MLA).
In 1987, he co-founded the Montreal landscape architecture/ urban design firm WAA (Williams, Asselin, Ackaoui and associates) along with partners Vincent Asselin, Malaka Ackaoui, and Sachi Williams. He participated in many of WAA’s award-winning projects including the Montreal Beach Park on Ile Notre-Dame; the Biodôme de Montréal; and the Jardin de l’Espace Saint-Roch and the rehabilitation of avenue Honoré-Mercier in Quebec City.
Mr. Williams is a Fellow of the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects (CSLA) and of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC), and won the Lifetime Achievement Award of the CSLA in 2007. His book Landscape Architecture in Canada was published in 2014 by McGill-Queen’s University Press and the Presses de l’Université de Montréal in English and French versions. Following its publication, he embarked on a nation-wide lecture tour sponsored by the CSLA. He continues to lecture regularly at colleges, garden clubs, historical societies and universities across Canada, and in the United States and China. In July 2018, Mr. Williams was appointed to membership in the Order of Canada.
