Janis Kravis

Janis Kravis (October 20, 1935 – July 16, 2020) was a Latvian architect who established Toronto's first concept store, Karelia, in 1959. A combination café, studio, and retail store, Karelia was a hub for Toronto's mid-century creatives that introduced Marimekko textiles and contemporary Finnish designs to central Canada.

Karelia has been noted as “the city’s entry point for the anti-drab aesthetics of Scandinavian modernism.”

Career

Design Career and Recognition Kravis was an influential designer as well as an entrepreneurial importer and merchandiser of contemporary housewares and textiles. which became Scandinavian-inspired landmarks.

Three Small Rooms is recognized as Kravis’ biggest design achievement The commission included Kravis’ three legged chair which became part of the 2016 exhibition “True Nordic: How Scandinavia Influenced Design in Canada” at the Gardiner Museum in Toronto. Upon its demolition, the design community was dismayed that the site had not been given heritage status.

Kravis was an early proponent of sustainable design. Initiating the RAIC Interiors Committee and as a Founding member of the OAA Committee on the Environment, Kravis was a leader in steering the profession toward environmentally responsible design and sustainability in buildings.

In 2007, Kravis was awarded a lifetime achievement award at the 3rd Annual Toronto Regional Green Building Festival at Ontario Place which “celebrates the success of visionaries who recognized the importance of sustainable buildings and energy efficiency years ago, and have been working to make green building a reality today.”

Karelia (1959-1979) Karelia studio was established by Kravis in 1959. From the beginning it "facilitated the Marimekko brand’s early international growth and impact in Canada” — a brand which sparked an international revolution in post-WWII pattern and textile production.” Extending beyond the Toronto community, the studio was also instrumental in raising the awareness and appreciation of contemporary design nationally where he became familiar with Alvar Aalto and the Finnish design movement. At the time, he worked in the office of modernist architectural firm, John B. Parkin Associates, where he met the Finnish architect, Viljo Revell who, along with his associates, won the international competition to design the new Toronto city hall during the 1970s when Toronto wasn't a particularly design-savvy place. Beginning as the pioneering importer of Marimekko, Kravis moved Karelia to its first independent space in the thriving George Street Village.

Becoming a retail leader in the 60s and 70s, the trajectory of Karelia paralleled broader patterns of urban gentrification in the city. Outgrowing the George Street location, Kravis moved the shop to Lothian Mews which initiated the small-scale shopping explosion that defined the village of Yorkville in midtown Toronto.

In the 1960s, at the height of Scandinavian inflected cultural life in Toronto, Karelia moved to the Manulife Centre at Bloor and Bay Streets, and Kravis opened a second location in the newly invigorated St. Lawrence Market neighbourhood on Front Street East.

In 2013, The Textile Museum of Canada in Toronto held the exhibition “Marimekko with Love” which revisited objects from the Karelia archives and traveled to Victoria, B.C., and Seattle.