KITCHEN, John Macrae (1892-1955) of Ottawa, Ont. began his career as an architect for the City of Ottawa, but is best known for his role as a town planner and assistant to the eminent French city planner Jacques Greber. Born in Partick, Scotland he graduated from Royal Technical College in Glasgow and served an apprenticeship from 1907 to 1913 with Sturrock & Wilson, Architects, and with T.A. Millar in Glasgow. He came to Canada in 1914 and worked for the Munitions Board in Toronto until 1921 when he moved to Ottawa to take up the post of Supervising Architect for the City of Ottawa. He became associated with the Town Planning Commission and worked under Noulan Cauchon until 1935. After the death of Couchon he then became technical adviser to the Commission and in 1944 was appointed as chief assistant to the Paris-based town planner Jacques Greber who was preparing a new Master Plan for post-war development of the Capital region. Their work culminated in the publication of the Plan for the National Capital, 1950, a document which set forth many planning principles still adhered to today by the National Capital Commission. Kitchen died in Ottawa on 16 May 1955 (biography & port. Financial Post [Toronto], 22 Dec. 1945, 6; obituary in The Citizen [Ottawa], 16 May 1955, 16; R.A.I.C. Journal, xxxii, June 1955, 230).
OTTAWA, ONT., No. 6 Fire Hall, McKay Street at Vaughan Street, 1938 (Ottawa Journal, 19 Oct. 1938, 5).