PRACK, Alvin Ronald (1911-1995), son of Frederick Prack, was born in Hamilton on 1 August 1911 and studied architecture at both McGill University and at the University of Toronto. He trained under his father and in 1936 he began his professional career in partnership with his father in the Hamilton firm of Prack & Prack (see list of works by this firm under Frederick Prack). He continued to practise there for the next thirty-five years. In 1972 the firm was renamed Prack Partners, and in 1979 the company moved to Calgary and became Wright & Dobell Architects Ltd. A.R. Prack served as president of the Ontario Association of Architects in 1954 and was nominated as a Fellow of the Royal Architectural Inst. of Canada in 1955. He died in Hamilton on 25 February 1995 (obit. Globe & Mail [Toronto], 27 Feb. 1995, C6; obit. Spectator [Hamilton], 28 Feb. 1995, B4; biog. and port. National Reference Book, xi, 1956, 430-2; inf. Alvin Prack, Burlington, Ont., correspondence 1983, 1984).
COMPETITIONS
DOMINION HOUSING ACT, National Competition, 1938. Over 300 designs from across Canada were submitted for a Low Cost House Design. Alvin Prack was one of ten finalists who received $250 for their effort. His design, No. 238, was illustrated and described in The Financial Post [Toronto], 19 Feb. 1938, 10, illus. An example of his design was later built in 1942 as The Kinsmen Model Home, located at 47 Kipling Road at Devon Place, Hamilton, and is still standing in 2024 (Spectator [Hamilton], 17 Aug. 1942, 11; and 26 Sept. 1942, 2, illus., and 9 Oct. 1942, 20, and 10 Dec. 1942, 7, descrip., inf. Robert Hamilton).