Robin Ward was born in Glasgow in 1950, studied graphic design at the Glasgow School of Art, drew and wrote about Victorian buildings for the Glasgow Herald, and published three books on the buildings of Glasgow and Edinburgh. In 1988, after working for the BBC in London, he and his wife settled in Vancouver which he first visited in 1972.

For over ten years, he contributed a weekly column to the Vancouver Sun, for which he was architecture critic, and worked as an artist, writer, photographer and book designer.

Ward has been author and illustrator for numerous important books about Vancouver, as well as co-author and photographer of Exploring Vancouver. He has won two City of Vancouver Heritage Awards and a Heritage Canada Achievement Award. Exploring Vancouver was reissued in 2012 and shortlisted for the Bill Duthie Booksellers' Choice Award presented to the originating publisher and author(s) of the best book in terms of public appeal, initiative, design, production and content. It was also nominated for the City of Vancouver Book Award when it was reissued.

A fifth edition of Exploring Vancouver: Ten Tours of the City and its Buildings (Harbour $29.95) was released in 2023, bringing the city's architectural and social story up to date. Co-authored with Harold Kalman, Ward also did the photography and designed the book. Contains more than 400 entries that highlights Metro Vancouver's significant buildings from all eras. For the first time in the series, this edition includes the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh peoples' role in the narrative, including information on several local projects shaped by these First Nations.

Review of the author's work by BC Studies:
Echoes of Empire: Victoria and Its Remarkable Buildings

BOOKS:

Robin Ward's Vancouver (Harbour, 1990)
Robin Ward's Heritage West Coast (Harbour, 1993)
Exploring Vancouver; The Essential Architectural Guide, co-author, photographer and designer (UBC, 1993)
Echoes of Empire: Victoria and Its Remarkable Buildings (Harbour, 1996)
Exploring Vancouver: The Architectural Guide, co-author (Douglas & McIntyre, 2012)
Exploring Bangkok: An Architectural and Historical Guidebook (Li-Zenn Publishing, 2014)
Exploring Glasgow: The Architectural Guide (Birlinn Limited publishers, 2017)
Exploring Edinburgh: Six Tours of the City and its Architecture (Luath Press, 2021) 9781913025571
Exploring Vancouver: Ten Tours of the City and its Buildings (Fifth Edition, Harbour Publishing, 2023) $29.95 9781990776274. Co-author (with Harold Kalman), photographer and designer.

[BCBW 2023] "Art" "Photography" "Architecture"