Born in Québec in 1929, France Gagnon Pratte studies architecture and arts history at Laval University after obtaining her arts and philosophy baccalaureate. Graduating in 1981, she's elected in 1985 to the presidency of the Québec Council of Monuments and Historical Sites, an organism devoted to the preservation and valorization of Québec's cultural heritage. In 1986, France Gagnon Pratte takes charge of les Editions Continuité, and the journal of the same name. In 1995, she creates the Fondation québecoise du patrimoine ( Québec's cultural heritage foundation).
France Gagnon Pratte is the author of many books, most notably Country House For Montrealers : the architecture of E. and W.S. Maxwell, and pronounced several lectures on architecture and cultural heritage. In 1994, she donated the material used to write this book to McGill University, in order to preserve a picture of a part of Canadian architecture which was, at that time, demolished or renovated in another taste.
A member of the Order of Canada since 1999, France Gagnon Pratte has been the Québec commissary for the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, and is or was a member of the C.D. Howe Memorial Foundation, the Canadian Mediterranean Institute, the Canadiana fonds, the National Trust for Historic Preservation (United States), the Commission d'urbanisme et de conservation de la Ville de Québec. She also is Officière of the Ordre National du Québec since 2005.