Macleans

The modest new Canadian War Museum goes against the trend toward spectacular projects. Raymond Moriyama, at 75 one of Canada's most revered architects, is picking his way around construction materials inside what might be his crowning achievement: the Canadian War Museum. He scans the main lobby's low-slung, undulating ceiling with a satisfied smile. "It's meant to feel like clouds," he says. And it does -- cloud cover pressing down over a stretch of land, maybe even a battlefield. The effect is nothing like the airy, vaulting quality typical of entry areas to grand public buildings. This space is designed to put visitors in a reflective mood. They're supposed to be thinking about war, after all.