LINKS
1. Eurasia Review: Russia's cultural
2. Wall Street Journal: Interview with Phyllis Lambert
3. Calgary Herald:Heritage Restoration in Kabul
4. National Center for Preservation Technology and Training Launches Wiki for Preservation
5. Ottawa Citizen: Threat to Lansdowne Park Heritage Buildings
6. New York Times: New York City Architectural Boat Tour
7. No Mean City: In the Workshop
8. Toronto Star: RC Harris and the Langstaff Industrial Farm
9. Brantford Expositor: Perth writes to Brantford but too late to help
10. U of T Magazine: Protecting the View of Queen's Park
11. Toronto Star: Heritage at Risk in Toronto
12. Ottawa Citizen: Fight's on for Horticulture Building
13. Lisa Rochon: Phillip Beesley at the Venice Biennale
14. Globe and Mail: The Studio Building
15. Toronto Star: Ten Visions for Ontario Place
16. Toronto Star: Ontario Place Threatened
17. New York Times: Syracuse on the way back
18. Ottawa Citizen: Our industrial past, abandoned and forgotten
19. Owen Sound Sun Times: Alexandra school in Owen Sound will be demolished
20. Owen Sound Sun Times: Point Clark lighthouse tower closed
21. insideTORONTO.com: City looks to save heritage house owner wants to demolish
22. Toronto Star: End to Battle in the Beach
23. Toronto Star: The troubled future of history
24. Ottawa Citizen: Lansdowne-options for preserving architect Francis Sullivan's legacy
25. St. Thomas Times-Journal: Council set to strip Alma of heritage designation
26. Torontoist: Historicist--The Church on Cecil Street
27. Globe and Mail: Agha Khan Museum and Ismaili Worship Centre
28. St. Thomas Times-Journal: OMB and Alma
29. The Kitchener/Waterloo Record: Failing Grade for Heritage Protection
30. Kitchener Waterloo Record: Book Review New Book on Brantford Renewal
31. Toronto Star: Union Station Renovations
32. The Hill Times.ca: Mall next to Rideau Canal in Lansdowne Park
33. Subscribe to CCA Podcasts
34. Globe and Mail: Loss of China's Heritage
35. Blogto.com: Leaside Train Repair Shop
36. Canadian Press / Winnipeg Free Press: Masons battle harsh climate, massive stones in northern Manitoba fort restoration
37. Archinnovations: Architectural Magazine Online
1. Eurasia Review: Russia's cultural
To Support Gazprom, Putin 'Liquidates' Russia's Cultural Protection Agency
Just as he worked to disband Russia’s forest protection service, the consequences of which have now become all too obvious, Vladimir Putin is seeking the liquidation of the federal agency responsible for ensuring that Russian laws protecting historical and cultural monuments are observed, an action that may have equally far-reaching effects.
The proximate cause of this latest action, “Kommersant” suggested, was the opposition of Rosokhankultura, the agency’s Russian acronym, to the construction of the 403-meter Okhta Center for Gazprom in St. Petersburg, a project Putin supports but that most preservations argue would destroy the integrity of the North Capital’s landscape.
But beyond that, Putin’s latest move, just like his destruction of the forest protection service five years ago, reflects his desire to promote business development at any cost and to push out of the way experts and activists who raise questions about the impact of what he and the Russian powers that be want to do.
2. Wall Street Journal: Interview with Phyllis Lambert
Julia M. Klein
Joan of Architecture Speaks
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| from Wall Street Journal |
Early afternoon sunlight pours into the conservatory of Shaughnessy House, a restored Victorian mansion with Grecian columns, ornamented plaster ceilings and marble floors. A little table is set, quite elegantly, for tea. The mood is calm, tranquil, refined. Then Phyllis Lambert strides in—still, at 83, a powerful, blunt-spoken and somewhat intimidating presence.
Ms. Lambert, dubbed "Joan of Architecture" and "Citizen Lambert," has charted an uncompromising course in the cultural world. "I don't believe in compromise," she says. "I think it's a terrible word."
The daughter of Samuel Bronfman, who founded the Seagram's liquor empire, this Montreal native chairs the board of the Canadian Centre for Architecture—a museum she launched in 1979. She is also a leader in urban planning and preservation. But she first earned a place in architectural history when she handpicked Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, in collaboration with Philip Johnson, to design the Seagram Building (1958) in New York.
"What was important was the plaza. It changed the design of the city," recalls Ms. Lambert, who is writing a book titled "Building Seagram." She describes it as "a cultural history of architecture and art—the alliance between the two—in New York" between 1950 and 2000.
The outlines of the Seagram story are familiar to architectural cognoscenti: How, at just 27, Ms. Lambert overruled her father's choice and traveled the country asking famous architects who should design the headquarters building. How she settled on Mies because of his generous praise of Le Corbusier, her emotional reaction to his 860 Lake Shore Drive building in Chicago—and the way other architects defined themselves in terms of Mies's achievement.
But how, at that age and lacking any architectural credentials, did she summon the confidence to override her powerful father and take charge of such a massive undertaking?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704407804575425913319466780.html
3. Calgary Herald:Heritage Restoration in Kabul
Terry Glavin
Restoring Afghan hope through architecture of restoration
There are seven gates that lead inside the narrow and winding passageways of the Murad Khane, the 18th-century walled quarter of the old city of Kabul. It is hidden away within a hive of narrow streets and alleys bustling with fruit and vegetable sellers, blacksmiths, silversmiths and jewellers holding aloft glistening strands of lapis lazuli. There are naan bakers and gem cutters, potters and leathermakers, seamstresses, tailors, almond hawkers and spice merchants. There's one long and winding alleyway taken up entirely by pedlars selling caged songbirds.
Down the Murad Khane's busy flagstone passageways you will still find old, richly filigreed window frames, door screens and facades in the Nuristani and Kabuli styles. There are still "hammams," the old domed-roof bath houses, and relics of ornate Simgili plasterwork in walls that surround cool and quiet courtyards. Some of the old houses still tilt and groan against elaborately carved Kandankari veranda posts, and there are still faint echoes of the grand Mughal style in the great serai, the central gathering place.
Through winding corridors and up and down staircases I was led by Zabi Majidi, a 30-year-old Afghan architect, raised and schooled in Germany and Britain. Zabi is the youngest of Afghan journalist Mohammad Shah Majidi's five children. Kabul's old city was Mohammad Shah's boyhood neighbourhood, and Zabi grew up on its stories. Not for nothing was Kabul once called the Paris of the East. When Mohammad Shah came back shortly after the rout of the Taliban in 2001, he brought Zabi with him. He wept, because everything from his childhood was gone. "It was terrible for him," Zabi remembers.
Zabi worked for a while as a project architect in London and Shanghai, but it wasn't enough, so he went back to school to finish his thesis on urban redevelopment, and that's how he ended up back in Kabul, in 2007. When I met him, he was working for the Turquoise Mountain Foundation on an ambitious vision of restoring and rebuilding the Murad Khane. This is why he was so happy to show me around and explain to me what it was I was seeing.
There, the grand home of a long-forgotten khan. Here, the remains of several buildings demolished by the Taliban, their ancient timbers plundered for firewood during the Mujahedeen wars. There, at least 20 structures that collapsed during an earthquake in 2006. And here, from this rooftop, you can see the old king's place, and the famous brick bridge across the Kabul River. From just about any of the flat roofs of the Murad Khane you can also see the ugly concrete office and apartment blocks that steadily encroached upon the neighbourhood during the Soviet era. Over here, this will be a tea house once again, Zabi went on. And there, that will be a gallery.
The Turquoise Mountain Foundation is the brainchild of eccentric British soldier-diplomat Rory Stewart, author of The Places In Between, a chronicle of his journey across Afghanistan on foot in 2002. The foundation's big idea is that Afghan civilization, long buried in the ruins and the rubble of savagery, must be allowed to re-emerge from its hiding places. Civilization springs from the people themselves, and from the cities. Rebuild its wellspring, and civilization will flourish and triumph across the land. When you turn to Kabul for this, and to Kabulis themselves, you will find yourself in the old city.
photos: Turquoise Mountain Foundation http://www.turquoisemountain.org/index.php?pageid=95 http://www.calgaryherald.com/Terry+Glavin+Restoring+Afghan+hope+through+architecture+restoration/3348299/story.html#ixzz0wzGFla3H
4. National Center for Preservation Technology and Training Launches Wiki for Preservation
A wiki for preservation. This is a project of NCPTT, National Center for Preservation Technology and Training
http://preservapedia.org/Main_Page
5. Ottawa Citizen: Threat to Lansdowne Park Heritage Buildings
Mohammed Adam
Mum's word on Horticulture Building
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| The Aberdeen Pavilion/ Cattle Castle, photo Wayne Cuddington, Ottawa Citizen |
Ontario Culture Minister Michael Chan is closely monitoring the dispute over the Horticulture Building at Lansdowne Park, but he is refusing to tip his hand one way or the other while the province's heritage agency deals with the issue.
"The proposal for the redevelopment of Lansdowne Park is currently before the municipality. We are monitoring the situation. The Ontario Heritage Trust, an arms length agency of my Ministry, continues to engage the City of Ottawa on the matter," Chan said Thursday in a statement to the Citizen. "It would be premature to speculate on any future developments regarding this matter."
Under provincial heritage legislation, Chan can stop work on any culturally significant building if he thinks it could be damaged by any alteration or removal. The redevelopment plan for Lansdowne hasn't finalized what will happen to the 96-year-old Horticulture Building. Developers want to move it, while designers working on the site's more public uses want to leave it where it is; even then, it would likely have to be dismantled and then reconstructed in place after an underground parking garage is built.
Heritage Ottawa has written to Chan to ask him to stop any attempt to move the building. The Heritage Canada Foundation, a national heritage advocacy group created by the federal government, has said it would back a request to stop the removal if it becomes necessary. The foundation recently listed Lansdowne Park as one of the country's 10 most endangered heritage sites.
Lansdowne sits in the riding of Ottawa-Centre Liberal MPP Yasir Naqvi, and he says he wants the integrity of the heritage buildings on site maintained in accordance with provincial legislation.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/technology/word+Horticulture+Building/3392907/story.html
6. New York Times: New York City Architectural Boat Tour
Emily Berl
A Singular Perspective on the Urban Mosaic
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| from New York Times |
Up the Harlem River, past the saltwater marshes of Swindler Cove, beyond the Sherman Creek Nature Trail and the quaint gingerbread boathouse, the bucolic landscape gives way to a sinister hive, where the higher machine species are breeding for their eventual takeover of the earth.
That’s how it looks, anyway, as you glide past the dense stack of subway cars in the repair yard at 207th Street. I happened to be doing that aboard a beautiful wooden motor yacht, so while I contemplated the imminent subjugation of the human race, I also contemplated a glass of Champagne. Then the boat followed the river around to the left and we passed under the dramatic arch of a bridge, and all was forgotten. Including the Champagne.
It was two hours into one of the city’s newest delights: the Around Manhattan Official NYC Architectural Tour. The Chicago Architecture Foundation’s similar tour has been a popular attraction since 1983, but until now, this city’s closest equivalent was the Circle Line — a very distant second. What took the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects so long?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/nyregion/15critic.html?_r=1
7. No Mean City: In the Workshop
Interesting Review of an Interesting Gallery
Head into the office tower at Bloor and Bay, wind your way past Gap Kids and down into the concourse, open a heavy door labelled WORKShop and you will see this: a plywood desk by Frank Gehry. A 1960s fireman’s helmet from Hong Kong. An art installation that arranges cheap melamine bowls into a symbolic emperor’s gate. And, all around you, an installation of colourful glass vials dispensing luscious odours of pine.
This - the vials, not the other stuff – is Scentscapes, a new show at the one-of-a-kind gallery Workshop. ”Scent Squadron,” an installation by Toronto architects Khoury Levit Fong, plays with the ideas of the traditional Chinese garden. It builds on a design for a public garden now being constructed in Xi’an, China (by a team led by Rodolphe El-Khoury). Both are intriguing projects: they appeal to the fifth of our five senses, using smell in a deliberate and cleverly abstract way.
And this work wouldn’t be shown anywhere else in Toronto, other than perhaps the Architecture Gallery at Harbourfront. Few galleries make room for architecture, especially contemporary work, and that’s too bad; this sort of space helps start discussion about where the field is going, without any of the catcalls you get with a bold new building in construction.
Workshop provides a rough-and-ready venue for such discussion, thanks to Workshop head Larry Richards. His vision defines the place, and his sensibility is what brings in the Gehry desk (a relic rescued from the local offices of ad agency Chiat/Day), and the assorted pieces of Canadian and Chinese furniture around the edges of the room (see below).
In Toronto’s design world, Richards is a real character. He’s been influential: as the dean at U of T’s School of Architecture, he attracted top designers to teach and build on campus, including Morphosis, Behnisch, Frank Gehry, Stephen Teeple, Kohn Shnier and Diamond Schmitt.
But more than that, he’s a fascinating figure. A courtly, softspoken fellow who’s taught at (and run) three schools of architecture; an activist for great design; sometime advisor to the rich and powerful; a connoisseur of high design with a sense of humour. At Workshop, where he’s found a canvas to express himself as a curator and designer. The gallery shows off objects, architecture and concepts at the intersection of Chinese and Western culture. Backing it is Hong Kong developer and fashion mogul Kin Yeung. Yeung’s fashion label, Blanc de Chine, has a similarly cross-cultural bent.
Yeung’s family also owns the tower, 80 Bloor West, which is why Workshop wound up in its odd location. You may have seen its display windows as you leave Bay subway station: It’s an old retail space, right next to the station’s most circuitous, least busy exit. That is an apt setting for Workshop, which as the name suggests is part business and part creative atelier. While they sell furniture and artwork, Yeung and Richards are also interested in spurring discussion. They’ve sponsored competitions (for a shoe storage tower) and a furniture installation by a student designer, James Lennox.
The first Workshop show, Ming Modern, included furniture inspired by Ming-period craftsmanship. And it also included wildly imaginative proposals from a graduate architecture class in which Richards had his students imagine how to renovate the tower in keeping with Daoist principles. (The tower was designed by Peter Carter, once part of Mies van der Rohe’s Chicago office, and it is itself a quirky remnant of halfway-Miesian Toronto late modernism).
Richards has plans to expand the gallery into a vacant space across the hall – which is massive and currently a trove of fascinating junk. Until then, take a few minutes to browse this modest space and check out the explorations and collections of a genuinely creative mind.
http://www.nomeancity.net/?p=864
Editor’s Note: I have been very curious about this space when I have gone through this station, but never been there when open. Thanks for the piece Alex.
8. Toronto Star: RC Harris and the Langstaff Industrial Farm
John Lorinc Blog
Old Torontos farm for minor offenders
On a warm day in June 1911, a delegation of City of Toronto officials piled into a car and drove 16 kilometres up Yonge Street to a 386-acre farm owned by James and William Russell, members of an old pioneer family. The group — which included Mayor Horatio Hocken and Alderman Tommy Church, who would succeed him — strolled across the pastures, pausing to admire a stream running across the land, located near Richmond Hill. A tumbledown colonial farmhouse stood nearby.
Their guide on this day was Toronto’s energetic properties commissioner, Roland Caldwell Harris, who had pressured the Russells into granting the city an option to buy the farm for $162 per acre. Harris’s plan was to establish an “Industrial Farm” where minor criminals could serve short sentences doing agricultural work, instead of rotting in the notoriously overcrowded Don Jail.
As Harris later told the Star, “We don’t want it called the jail farm or to have the name of the jail associated with it. The object of this place is to give the men who have fallen a chance to lift themselves up again — to show them that reclamation lies in their own hands. We seek to help — not to punish.”
http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/839793--old-toronto-s-farm-for-minor-offenders
9. Brantford Expositor: Perth writes to Brantford but too late to help
MICHAEL-ALLAN MARION
Letter from Perth council too little, too late
Perth may be a pretty, eastern Ontario community teeming with wonderful old buildings restored in splendour, but some city councillors says Brantford needs no lessons from that town about heritage.
The city clerk's office received a letter from Perth's CAO last week, along with the results of a resolution in which the town council unanimously requested that its counterpart in Brantford reconsider its controversial decision to demolish 40 "heritage" buildings on the south side of downtown Colborne Street.
Accompanying the resolution was a copy of an article in a heritage magazine critical of Brantford's move against a stretch of mainly pre-Confederation buildings, which Perth councillors had in front of them during their debate.
As it turned out, Perth councillors made their decision just before the demolition began, and the CAO's letter was sent when the wrecking ball had already started.
Still, Perth council's resolution is another ripple emanating from a momentous decision that captured national attention and condemnation in many quarters.
Mayor Mike Hancock said on the weekend it's too bad his counterparts in Perth couldn't follow him around on his daily business throughout the city, because they would hear how many Brantford residents really feel about the demolition.
http://brantfordexpositor.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2663975
10. U of T Magazine: Protecting the View of Queen's Park
Scott Anderson
Protecting the View
Should towers be visible behind Queen’s Park? An architecture grad fights to safeguard the view of Toronto’s most important heritage building.
Most Torontonians would probably agree that historic buildings such as Queen’s Park and Fort York are worth preserving. But what about views of those buildings? Should they be protected, too? Cathy Nasmith thinks so, and has been lobbying city officials for years to bring stricter safeguards into place.
It’s been a tough fight, and Nasmith (BArch 1978) recently lost an important battle. Over the last several months, she vocally opposed plans by the Four Seasons Hotel to construct a tower in Yorkville that’s half again as tall as its existing one. She says the skyscraper will be highly visible above Queen’s Park from University Avenue. And in her view, that’s architectural sacrilege.
“Queen’s Park is the seat of our democracy. It’s loaded with symbolic meaning. If a condo tower is visible behind it, then all of the symbolism of the grand approach up University Avenue to our democratic assembly becomes about the latest condo. It’s just not appropriate.”
Toronto architect Cathy Nasmith says the city’s official plan recognizes such views as important, but includes no provisions to protect them. In this particular case, however, she blames the province for not stepping in, since Queen’s Park’s importance extends far beyond the city. “It’s appalling to say that it’s up to the city to protect a building of this cultural significance,” she says. “The city’s ability to do that is really hampered if the province isn’t on board.”
A founding member of the Friends of Fort York and a key player in the group that brought Doors Open to Canada, Nasmith publishes Built Heritage News, an online newsletter about preservation in Ontario that she sends to several hundred people every two weeks.
http://www.magazine.utoronto.ca/blogs/protecting-the-view/
11. Toronto Star: Heritage at Risk in Toronto
Patty Winsa
Backlog puts heritage at risk
It’s little wonder the city recently allowed a historic cottage in the Beach to be torn down before efforts to protect it could get off the ground, preservation experts say.
The department that investigates whether a building should be historically designated, and therefore protected, is so understaffed it has a two-year backlog of requests.
Even urgent calls for heritage designation made by councillors, or because a historic building is at the centre of a development proposal, are being put on the back burner.
“The backlog is so enormous. There are so many buildings that should be designated that aren’t,” says Rebecca Carson, communications director for Heritage Toronto, which is partly funded by the city. “And it’s not because we don’t want them to be, or the city doesn’t want them to be. It’s because (city staff) can’t cope with the amount of submissions from community groups, the preservation panels, the residents.”
Earlier this year, Toronto East York Community Council asked for a staff report by June 22 on whether historic buildings on King St. W. across from Roy Thomson Hall should be designated. The response was put off until the end of July.
The delay was blamed on “current staffing levels and a backlog of urgently required listings and designations.”
Heritage Preservation Services, the department that deals with applications to list or designate a property, is responsible for sending recommendations to city council. The staff of about 10 includes just one researcher, Carson said.
A building that gets a heritage designation is officially protected: An owner who wants to change it would need permission from preservation services. A building that is simply “listed” is more at risk: If an owner applies for a demolition permit, the listing gives the city 60 days to research and determine a building’s historic value.
Either category could have made a difference to the house at 204 Beech Ave., whose owners, Geoff and Melissa Teehan, plan to raze and build an accessible home. Melissa is quadriplegic and uses a wheelchair.
The Teehans made sure the house wasn’t protected before they purchased it. But after a neighbour complained about their plans, Councillor Sandra Bussin requested a fast-tracked heritage designation, which set off a very public fight between Bussin and the Teehans.
In the end, the couple received a permit to demolish the home’s turret in early June, weeks before preservation services was able to table its report, and Bussin rescinded her designation request. Less than two weeks later, the couple received permission to demolish the entire house.
Carson says there is nothing unusual about a city councillor fast-tracking a heritage designation. “That is the process the way it is now.”
But the battle over the house, she says, is “the most perfect example of what’s wrong with heritage in the city . . . that building probably should have been designated.”
Catherine Nasmith, a preservation architect and past chair of the Toronto Preservation Board, agrees. “Anybody looking at that (house) would say it’s an important house,” she says.
“But there are huge areas of the city that haven’t been surveyed,” says Nasmith. And because of that, “you end up in these eleventh-hour, horrible fights with people. And it’s just sad and it’s painful and not fun for anybody.
“And it doesn’t help because it creates this negative culture around heritage preservation, instead of people knowing in advance and celebrating what’s great in the city.”
Historic? Not officially
Some of Toronto’s most important buildings aren’t designated:
Mackenzie House: The city museum is listed, but not designated
Scarborough Museum: Also not designated
St. Michael’s Cathedral: Listed, but not designated
Campbell House: Listed, but not designated
Ontario Legislature: Not designated because of a loophole in the Ontario Heritage Act
King St. E. storefronts at King and Jarvis: The city’s oldest storefronts are listed, but not designated
Lambton House: Neither listed nor designated
Summerhill LCBO: The former North Toronto CPR station is not listed or designated
SOURCE: Heritage Toronto
Editor’s Note: I am not able to find a link to this article on the Toronto Star webpages.
12. Ottawa Citizen: Fight's on for Horticulture Building
Mohammed Adam
Heritage group asks minister to block proposed move
OTTAWA-The fate of the Horticulture Building, a major sticking point in the redevelopment of Lansdowne Park, could well be decided by the Ontario government.
Under provincial heritage legislation, the minister of culture can stop work on any culturally significant building if any alteration or removal is likely to damage it. That means Michael Chan, the Toronto-area MPP who is the minister of culture and tourism, may end up deciding the shape of the new development at Lansdowne.
Heritage Ottawa president David Flemming has already written to Chan about the Horticulture Building.
“Heritage Ottawa urges you, Sir, to stand firm on the word and spirit of the Ontario Heritage Act; to direct the Ontario Heritage Trust … to intercede with the City of Ottawa to convince the City to respect the basic heritage conservation principles,” Flemming wrote. “But if the City and OSEG cannot see the reason and do proceed with their plans as they now exist, we will urge you to exercise your ministerial authority as identified in the Ontario Heritage Act, and issue a stop order.”
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/travel/Fight+Horticulture+Building/3387637/story.html
13. Lisa Rochon: Phillip Beesley at the Venice Biennale
Lisa Rochon
A Canadian brings the light to Venice
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In his 1972 novel Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino described Zora as a city of unforgettable qualities. “The city which cannot be expunged from the mind is like an armature, a honeycomb in whose cells each of us can place the things he wants to remember.”
This depiction of the city as a vessel for powerful collective memories is one of the images that has made Calvino’s book a cult classic. You can read Calvino’s linked poems in it as meditative journeys into mystic fiction or as a straight-up tribute to Venice (the book’s narrator is the adventurer Marco Polo, who was Venetian). But, this time around, I’m most intrigued by the Italian writer’s reference to the lightness of a city’s design, like a honeycomb of cells.
A honeycomb of cells, both artificial and organic, dry and wet, is what Canadian architect Philip Beesley will unveil for Canada’s official entry for this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale, the most prestigious international event for contemporary architecture. His Hylozoic Ground is a reef of white fronds that will infiltrate the Canadian pavilion within the historic exhibition grounds (Venice’s Giardini Pubblici). It’s a highly speculative piece of artful architecture sweetened by its lightness. In a world made increasingly heavy by urban concrete, Beesley is floating some ideas of next-generation architecture with his diaphanous design, pointing ever so gently toward materials that are light, healing and can potentially renew themselves.
All is not lightness in Venice. A furor has erupted among German architects over whether or not to demolish the country’s Nazi-style pavilion in the Giardini. If the monstrous building is allowed to stand, decades after it was horribly Nazified in 1938, German artists and architects will be permanently punished for the heaviness of their country's past sins.
14. Globe and Mail: The Studio Building
Dave LeBlanc
Despite the heritage plaque, it's still a home
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| The Studio Building |
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| A Y Jackson in his studio, National Film Board |
A quilt of sunlight covers along the craggy reef as blobs of colourful fish zip by in military formation. A bold cuttlefish dances in time with the soothing orchestral soundtrack playing over the computer’s tiny speakers, which battle to be heard against the screech of the Yonge subway drifting in through an open window.
A foot away from the screen is an enormous, factory-like window, and, on the other side of the glass, a shiny new National Historic Site of Canada plaque, unveiled May 15, that celebrates the history of the Studio Building: “In 1913-1914, painter Lawren Harris and art patron Dr. James MacCallum financed the construction of the first purpose-built artists’ studios and residence in Canada. …”
Home to members of the Group of Seven, the Canadian Group of Painters and Harold Town of Painters Eleven, the Studio Building, in the Rosedale Ravine, looms large in the collective imagination of art aficionados. It’s a place where any artist, today, would love to set up an easel, breathe in the musty air and let brushstrokes begin.
National Film Board of CanadaA.Y. Jackson, member of the "Group of Seven" (1919-1933) paints in his studio, 1944.
“We don’t live and breathe for the building because we have a life,” says building owner James Mathias, 67, who also created the underwater film that just finished playing on the computer. “And I know some people who would love to get their hands on this building and they’d put their heart and soul into it.” Despite how it sounds, Mr. Mathias means no disrespect; he understands all too well the significance of the building he inherited when his adoptive father, artist Gordon MacNamara, passed away in 2006 at the age of 95 (Mr. MacNamara purchased the building from Lawren Harris in 1948).
Editor’s Note: The windows have been replaced from those installed by Eden Smith
15. Toronto Star: Ten Visions for Ontario Place
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/839920
16. Toronto Star: Ontario Place Threatened
Daniel Dale
Ontario Place: A fantastic Jaguar, and you run it into a ditch
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Editor’s Note: As part of an area survey of Garrison Common undertaken during the late 1980's it was recommended that Ontario Place be designated, along with many important structures in the CNE. The move was blocked by the local councillor Joe Pantalone who argued that governments, City and Province could make good decisions on their own properties. How wrong he was.
17. New York Times: Syracuse on the way back
Roberta Brandes Gratz
Rebirth of a City
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Rick Destito knew exactly what he was getting into when he bought a rundown, three-story Victorian house in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Syracuse. Built in the 1890s but left abandoned for years, the place was in serious disrepair: graffiti and mold stained the exterior, the windows were gone and the roof needed to be replaced. But under an innovative local housing program, he paid only a dollar for the place — plus another $60,000, and his own skilled labor, to make it suitable for his family, including a one-year old girl and a baby on the way.
For decades, people like Mr. Destito — young, skilled, motivated — were exactly the sort who left Rust Belt cities like Syracuse. But recently, in numbers not yet statistically measurable but clearly evident at the ground level, they’ve been coming back to the city, first as a trickle, and now by the hundreds. In some ways it’s a part of the natural ebb and flow of urban demographics. But it is also the result of a new attitude among the city’s leadership, one that admits the failure of the re-industrialization efforts of the last decades and instead invents ways to attract new types of residents and keep current ones from leaving. Call it urban renewal 2.0, gentrification on a citywide scale.
Mr. Destito, for example, grew up in nearby Rome, a small city at the foothills of the Adirondacks. He wanted a bigger city to settle in, so he traveled the country for three years, working in different places and observing what he found appealing in each one — places like Nashville, Denver and Atlanta, many of them “bustling with activity where you could be alone or with people, hang out in parks, ride a bike, find an arts community,” he said.
Eventually, he realized, why not Syracuse? Its low cost of living would let him work less and enjoy life more. Most important, it offered the chance to make a visible impact on a community, something that would be much harder to do in a bustling metropolis. “I saw the potential, the opportunity to recreate some of what it once had,” he said. “I saw interesting things happening and I wanted to be part of it.”
Mr. Destito moved to Syracuse eight years ago. Before buying his current home, he bought and renovated three two-family homes, one of which he still lives in while he works on the “dollar house.” Then, five years ago, he bought an old gear factory and began renting lofts to artists, musicians and entrepreneurs. “I didn’t realize that a real arts community existed here,” he said.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/rebirth-of-a-city/
Editor’s Note: This article has the best before and ever graphics I have ever seen, go take a look!
18. Ottawa Citizen: Our industrial past, abandoned and forgotten
Maria Cook
The few physical remains of our industrial past are neglected and crumbling. Who will take charge?
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| The fortress-like Booth Board Mill on Chaudière Island, owned by Domtar, is today occupied only by pigeons. Photograph by: Susan Riley, The Ottawa Citizen |
One summer day in 1972, as Bob Phillips drove over the Alexandra Bridge, he saw bulldozers, “like an army of determined ants,” flattening the E.B. Eddy pulp and paper plant that stood where the Canadian Museum of Civilization is now.
“When they began to nibble the foundations of the digester tower,” Phillips ran to a pay phone, reached National Capital Commission general manager Rod Clack and made “a breathless plea to save Hull’s irreplaceable archaeological heritage until we could sit down and think about it.”
Ten minutes later, the bulldozers stopped.
Phillips, an early advocate of heritage preservation in Ottawa who died in 2003, recounted the dramatic rescue in a 1987 Citizen article.
“The tower had earned its immortality as the most visible survivor of Hull’s golden days of international fame in high-tech,” Phillips wrote.
“This would be a genuine Canadian ruin, not a castle or a palace, but a new Canadian idea cast in limestone to tame the forests in the service of humankind.”
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Abandoned+forgotten/3360285/story.html
19. Owen Sound Sun Times: Alexandra school in Owen Sound will be demolished
DENIS LANGLOIS
City OKs plan calling for Alexandra's demolition
It now seems like a foregone conclusion -- Alexandra school in Owen Sound will be demolished.
City council has approved a site plan, submitted on behalf of the Bluewater District School Board, which proposes to turn the site where the 98-year-old original annex stands into a junior soccer field and playground.
Council's approval comes despite a heritage consultant's report that says the building is of historical value and a "rare example" of institutional architectural design from the early 20th century, pre-war period in Owen Sound.
Coun. Peter Lemon said it will be a "shame" to see Alexandra go at a time when historic schools are fast becoming a rarity in Owen Sound. The original wing of St. Mary's High School is also slated for demolition by the Bruce-Grey Catholic District School Board.
"I feel reuse and recycling are really, really important and just to demolish a building without really looking at a reuse is a waste of a resource," he said Tuesday in an interview.
But Coun. Deb Haswell, chairwoman of the city's heritage committee, said Alexandra is not historically significant enough to warrant council's intervention to save it.
"Not every building can or should be saved. And this is one of those buildings," she said.
City council approved a zoning change in April on a strip of land adjacent to the original Alexandra property to allow construction of a new 257-student school and a parking lot.
Construction is expected to begin this spring, with completion set for fall 2011. Once the new, single-storey school opens, the original Alexandra will be torn down.
The Ontario Heritage Act calls for the preservation of buildings with a rare or unique design or that have significant historical, cultural, community or associative value.
The Bluewater District School Board paid Robinson Heritage Consulting to complete a report on the cultural heritage value of the school.
It identified significant heritage attributes of the building, but did not provide a recommendation whether the property should be considered for heritage designation.
"The subject property has historical value or associative value as it has direct associations with the early development of the institution of public education in this area of Owen Sound," the report says.
It identified the separate entrances for boys and girls as one of the interesting attributes.
Council, instead, approved the recommendations of a board-hired architect to commemorate the school. They include building a small monument, using some original materials, near the original school and displaying original artifacts at the new school.
http://www.owensoundsuntimes.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2667558
20. Owen Sound Sun Times: Point Clark lighthouse tower closed
ELYSE DEWAR
Point Clark lighthouse tower closed
The Point Clark Lighthouse tower is falling apart.
Parks Canada has prohibited anyone from going in or near it after engineers deemed it unsafe due to falling rocks.
Huron-Kinloss parks and recreation director Mike Fair said the interior steel support beams need to be replaced as well.
He informed council at a meeting July 5 that the tower will have to be closed because Parks Canada engineers had found rocks outside a fenced area during an assessment of the structure in April.
Initially Parks Canada wanted to close the entire site, including the museum and the lightkeeper's cottage next to the tower.
"They are now only closing the tower and the museum will remain open," said Fair.
The Point Clark Lighthouse is 151 years old and has never had anything replaced inside or out.
Despite the assessed damage, Parks Canada will fix the problem and Fair said he hopes the tower will be reopened next summer.
Using Accelerated Infrastructure Project (AIP) funding from Canada's Economic Action Plan, Parks Canada announced it will commission a conditional assessment of the lighthouse.
Fair said Parks Canada was given $495,000 in AIP funding to fix the problems, but thinks they may need a little more.
He said this is a federal issue and it isn't up to the municipality to fund repair expenses.
Parks Canada said in a news release they are going to provide safe access to the lightkeeper's house.
Parks Canada engineers are looking for contractors to do the repairs, which are expected to start in the fall.
Work will come to a halt over the winter and will pick up again in the spring with hopes of having it ready for the tourism season.
http://www.owensoundsuntimes.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2669489
21. insideTORONTO.com: City looks to save heritage house owner wants to demolish
LISA QUEEN
It was designed and occupied until 1933 by notable architect Forsey Page, who helped design many homes in Lawrence Park.
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| City looks to save heritage house owner wants to demolish. The owner of 79 Dawlish, near Lawrence Ave. and Mt. Pleasant Rd., wants to demolish the home, while the city wants it declared a heritage site. Staff Photo/MARY GAUDET |
North York councillors want a house in Lawrence Park to be saved as a heritage property against the wishes of the owners who are looking to demolish the home. Councillors voted at the Tuesday, June 22 meeting of North York Community Council to have 79 Dawlish Ave., southwest of Lawrence Avenue and Mount Pleasant Road, included on the city's inventory of heritage properties. The decision, which would restrict alterations to the property, must still be approved by city council at its July 6 and 7 meeting. Don Valley West Councillor Cliff Jenkins urged councillors to include the home on the inventory. "This is truly a heritage property. It has terrific heritage value," he said. "This truly is a treasure in Lawrence Park." Jenkins pointed to the house's steeply-pitch roof and pointed dormers evoking French-Canadian architectural styles, adding it has a distinctive and much-admired presence in the neighbourhood.
22. Toronto Star: End to Battle in the Beach
Danielle Dale
Couple wins battle to demolish Beach house
Couple wins battle to demolish Beach house
Geoff and Melissa Teehan to begin building accessible dream home by
Geoff and Melissa Teehan plan to demolish their century-old house on Beech Ave. and replace it with a modern one designed with Melissa's disabilities in mind.
Geoff and Melissa Teehan plan to demolish their century-old house on Beech Ave. and replace it with a modern one designed with Melissa's disabilities in mind.
After a fierce public battle, a Beach couple has won the right to demolish a century-old Beech Ave. house Councillor Sandra Bussin, some neighbours and a former resident sought to preserve as a historic property.
Geoff and Melissa Teehan, a quadriplegic who uses a wheelchair, bought the quirky house with the intention of tearing it down to build a modernist dream home designed around Melissa’s needs. The woman who lives across the street, Elizabeth Brown, objected, saying the house was essential to the look of the neighbourhood and had heritage merit.
Bussin sided with Brown, several other Beech Ave. residents and an ex-resident who now lives in Germany. After obtaining a favourable opinion from a respected architect, she asked the city to consider including the house on its roster of historic structures. But she withdrew her objection to the Teehans’ plans after they received a permit for the demolition of the house’s signature turret and other distinctive attributes, saying that approval rendered her concerns moot.
On Wednesday, the Teehans received permission to raze the whole house and to build a new house. Geoff Teehan said the demolition would happen soon — he declined to say exactly when — and that construction would begin before September.
Melissa Teehan said she was pleased she and Geoff can now move on with their lives; the battle, she said, was “a huge headache, all-encompassing.” Geoff said he was relieved but not ready to celebrate.
“I don’t think we’re really going to feel like we’re out of the woods until that house is down,” he said. “I think this process has proven that just about anything can happen. We’re not popping the bubbly just yet.”
Bussin said there was a “sad lament in the neighbourhood” about the potential loss of the house. She called on the Teehans to “do the right thing” and build a new home that incorporates the unique elements of the old.
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/828121--couple-wins-battle-to-demolish-beach-house
23. Toronto Star: The troubled future of history
Christopher Hume
Until we learn to save the past from the present, the future of heritage will remain threatened. Recent examples include the mindless act of civic self-mutilation now unfolding in Brantford, a city whose vandalizing council voted to wreck three blocks of 19th century buildings on a main street. There can be no excuse for such wanton destruction, especially when self-inflicted. In Toronto, the owners of a unique early 20th century Queen Anne cottage in the Beach are hell-bent on tearing it down, despite its obvious architectural merit. Again, there is no excuse for such flagrant disregard. Last week, the city issued a building permit, which means a demolition permit is only a matter of time. In both cases, the structures should have been designated, though even that wouldnt have provided the kind of protection many heritage properties need.
http://www.thestar.com/printarticle/826524
24. Ottawa Citizen: Lansdowne-options for preserving architect Francis Sullivan's legacy
Don Butler: forwarded by Joan Bard Miller
Heritage issues rising in Lansdowne quagmire
Heritage issues rising in Lansdowne quagmire
Some of its charms aren't readily apparent, but history may yet play a strong role in shaping this park's future, Don Butler reports.
Be honest. When you think of Lansdowne Park, is "priceless heritage" the first image that leaps to mind? Most of us are likelier to conjure up a giant parking lot interrupted by a handful of crumbling, vacant buildings. Heritage and Lansdowne can seem like an oxymoron. A fine mess, perhaps.
Yet as council lurches toward its June 28 vote on Lansdowne redevelopment, heritage has muscled its way onto the agenda.
There's even a chance heritage concerns could reshape the plan.
In a sense, they already have. An artificial island in the adjacent Rideau Canal was dropped from the winning design for Lansdowne's urban park in part because of fears about the canal's status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Proposals to create a canal inlet were stillborn for the same reason.
Moreover, Heritage Ottawa questions whether building a footbridge over the canal from the park to Old Ottawa East -- an idea that has been put on hold but remains very much alive -- would pass the test of UNESCO's heritage designation.
Notwithstanding its degraded appearance, there are real heritage issues inside the park as well. Real enough that the city hired John Stewart, of Commonwealth Historic Resource Management Ltd., as a heritage consultant for the project.
The one that's emerged most forcefully is the proposal to relocate and restore the 1914 Horticulture Building, one of two designated heritage structures. It now sits just west of Lansdowne's heritage jewel, the Aberdeen Pavilion, a National Historic Site.
Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group, the city's private-sector partner in the Lansdowne redevelopment, wants it moved just east of Aberdeen to clear space for a proposed commercial zone.
The Ontario Heritage Trust (OHT) says the Horticulture Building, which it calls a "rare and important" property, should be incorporated into the design "in situ and in toto." Moving the building would "flout heritage principles," says Heritage Ottawa. Several of the landscape architecture firms in the urban park design competition agree.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/travel/Heritage+issues+rising+Lansdowne+quagmire/3177958/story.html
25. St. Thomas Times-Journal: Council set to strip Alma of heritage designation
IAN MCCALLUM
Two years after Alma College was torched, the city is moving in for the kill. When it sits Monday, council will consider a report from city clerkWendell Gravesthat calls for repealing the heritage designation on the Moore Street property, in place since 1994. In December of that year, the property and all key buildings were designated under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act. The historical significance of the site was also recognized through a provincial plaque, which recently went missing. This is all possible because in 2007 the city cut a deal with Alma Heritage Estates, owners of the former school for girls since 1998, which allowed the Zubick family of London, Ont., to demolish most of the college. Under terms of that agreement, the designation bylaw would be repealed and most of the main building, except for a small portion of the facade and belfry tower, would be demolished. It is easy to argue Alma College, opened in 1881, had in fact already been irreparably damaged through neglect on the part of the owners. And, it must be stressed, the city was equally negligent.
http://www.stthomastimesjournal.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2631588
26. Torontoist: Historicist--The Church on Cecil Street
Kevin Plummer
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| photo Kevin Plummer, from the Torontoist website |
Spadina doesn't change, but is always changing. If you compare the present-day streetscape with the archival record—or the images in Rosemary Donegan's Spadina Avenue (Douglas & McIntyre, 1985)—you notice that many of the early buildings remain. But the neighbourhood has evolved, reshaped by an influx of Jewish, then Chinese, immigrants. Occupants changed, each adapting their buildings to new uses, burying the past beneath renovations or a new coat of paint.
Rarely are the layers of the neighbourhood's social and cultural history visible, unless, for example, a Chinatown establishment's renovation uncovers a former Jewish shopkeeper's original signage. But tucked on Cecil Street, a side street south of College, beside a community centre's front door, a fading cornerstone carved with Hebrew lettering sits right beside Chinese-language placards advertising the centre's services for current residents. It's a strange juxtaposition that hints at the building's past lives. Built for the Church of Christ (Disciples) in 1891, the building has been a synagogue, Chinese Catholic Centre, headquarters for a gay rights group, and a community centre.
http://torontoist.com/2010/06/historicist_the_church_on_cecil_street.php#more
Editor’s Note: This is a remarkable piece of research on a building I look out my window at every day. Plummer is going to write a weekly piece, hope to include some of them in future, but keep an eye out yourself.
27. Globe and Mail: Agha Khan Museum and Ismaili Worship Centre
Lisa Rochon
Complex backed by Aga Khan will bring new life to urban neighbourhoods
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After more than a decade in planning and design, a suite of culturally invigorating projects initiated and financed by the Aga Khan are breaking ground in north Toronto.
Two buildings, the Aga Khan Museum and an Ismaili worship centre, will be knit together by an all-season park featuring allées of birch and ginkgo trees and infinity pools made of black granite, designed in the spirit of the Islamic chahar bagh, a formal garden.
The most public of the buildings on the 6.8-hectare site is the museum, designed by the acclaimed Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki in collaboration with the Toronto firm Moriyama & Teshima Architects. Mr. Maki, an éminence grise of sublime, minimal modernism, has designed a reference library and exhibition spaces for Islamic art – handwoven carpets, a 16th-century portrait of Sultan Selim from Turkey, and a 17th-century emerald green bottle from Iran, among hundreds of historic objects. Mr. Maki’s architecture owes nothing to the school of Toronto new modernism, with its gentle exuberance and wood-warm interiors. Rather, his aesthetic favours a highly machined precision. A museum courtyard and an auditorium with a faceted roof structure should afford a subtle play of light.
The Ismaili Centre, designed by renowned Mumbai-based architect Charles Correa, is clad in French limestone and features a double glass roof (sort of what was promised by the Royal Ontario Museum and never delivered by Daniel Libeskind).
“This one is quite an amazing technological achievement,” said Daniel Teramura of Moriyama & Teshima, the partner in charge of the Ismaili Centre. “Charles Correa had this vision of the glass roof. The challenge was to make it work on a technical level.”
Working closely with Toronto-based structural engineers Halcrow Yolles, the architects designed a dome with a high-performance glass fritted to deflect the hot sun. A second interior layer of glass is translucent, allowing visitors to discern a pattern of shadows cast by a steel truss that holds up the roof. On a wedge facing east toward Mecca, the glass is clear so the sky can be seen.
28. St. Thomas Times-Journal: OMB and Alma
Eric Bunnell
OMB rejects order review
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Alma College, or at least a replica front, may rise from the ashes of the landmark St. Thomas building.
For now.
Alma Heritage Estates has been turned down in its application to the Ontario Municipal Board for a review of an OMB decision requiring the company to rebuild the front of the former Alma College in any redevelopment of the property.
But in a decision last week, OMB member Steven Stefanko says it's only because the company's application didn't meet the board's very specific rules for requests for re-examination of its decisions.
And he encouraged Alma Heritage Estates to proceed:
"My decision . . . does not prevent the applicant from now proceeding with a specific request to the board . . . (and) I would invite the applicant to do so."
In an OMB-sanctioned deal two years ago for a demolition permit, Alma and the city had agreed that the college's signature tower would be preserved and the historic building's facade, reproduced.
But the company argued in a hearing last month that following a 2008 arson fire which destroyed the landmark, the OMB decision no longer was valid.
Stefanko said he didn't have authority to make a ruling on the highly-technical application. But with the fire, he acknowledged the OMB does need to update its order.
http://www.stthomastimesjournal.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2546368
29. The Kitchener/Waterloo Record: Failing Grade for Heritage Protection
John Arndt
An attack on heritage?
In the last few weeks there have been several comments in the press concerning the issue of property rights. This criticism and the recent decision of Kitchener city council to exclude properties from the Municipal Heritage Register appear to undermine the efforts of Heritage Kitchener, and the citys heritage planning staff. Whether a property has heritage value is something that is neither optional nor dependent on the whims of the owner. A property either has heritage value or it doesnt, depending on the criteria outlined by the Ontario Heritage Act, which municipal councils apply on the advice of their heritage committees. Property may be sold and change ownership, but its value remains.
Recent case law in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice (Tremblay vs. Lakeshore) clearly states that municipal councils have the responsibility to protect heritage property even without consent of the owner. Although the issue of the infringement of property rights is complex, a property owner does not have complete control over what he can and cannot do with his property. There are many controls, such as zoning and building codes, property standards and the like, which are in place to protect the stability of neighbourhoods. The protection of built heritage for the good of all is another component.
http://news.therecord.com/opinions/lettertotheeditor/article/675558
30. Kitchener Waterloo Record: Book Review New Book on Brantford Renewal
Bob Gordon
How Brantford turned itself around: A University comes downtown book cover
Reinventing Brantford: A University Comes Downtown
In the late 19-century, Brantford was a larger city than Hamilton. It was the world’s leading community for the manufacturing of farm equipment and renowned worldwide for the stoves, bicycles and other goods produced by local firms.
A century later, the manufacturing sector had almost vanished and Brantford was best known for having the “worst downtown in Canada.”
Attempts at recovery only seemed to worsen the situation. The construction of a $24-million telecommunications museum failed miserably: No funds had been allocated for exhibits as it was presumed that telecommunication giants such as Nortel and Bell would donate them — a fantasy that an economic recession shattered.
(Dundurn Press, 304 pages, $30 softcover)
http://news.therecord.com/life/books/article/664576
Editor’s Note: Students downtown....on foot....on bicycles......just the people to support new businesses on a revived Colborne Street if given the chance.....
31. Toronto Star: Union Station Renovations
Paul Moloney
Union Station's big reno: Grin while you bear it
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| Toronto Star Photo |
Union Station users should brace for a long haul as the $640 million renovation of the historic transportation hub gets going in spring. The work, including excavating a large new lower level to house shops and restaurants, will take until 2015.
Though it's a big project, it's not overly complex, said Graham Brown, president of Carillion Construction Inc., whose Vanbots division was named Tuesday as general contractor.
"Probably the biggest challenge ... is dealing with the 65 million people a year that come through this concourse, and making sure that life goes on as well as it has to date, during the period of construction."
Commuters will encounter lots of construction hoarding, Brown said. "We'll make that hoarding attractive, we'll try and make it amusing in places so people bear with us during construction."
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/ttc/article/733345--union-station-s-big-reno-grin-while-you-bear-it
32. The Hill Times.ca: Mall next to Rideau Canal in Lansdowne Park
Tom Korski, forwarded by Diana Crosbie
If anyone could slap a mall next to a World Heritage Site, it's Ottawa City Council
If anyone could slap a mall next to a World Heritage Site, it's Ottawa City Council
In promoting his mall, Roger Greenberg was afforded deferential treatment I have not seen in any other city. No other developer was invited to negotiate. No other proposal for Lansdowne Park was considered.
OTTAWA—It was a little municipal tragedy, scarcely worth a mention in the out-of-town dailies. All at stake was 37 acres and 140 years of history. But it provoked sadness and anger—less than a fifth of people surveyed supported it—and reminded everyone how government runs when there is no official opposition, no wide-awake Parliamentary Press Gallery, no public accounts committee armed with powers of subpoena.
http://www.thehilltimes.ca/page/view/korski-11-23-2009
Editor’s Note: To get the rest of the article you will have to purchase it from The Hill Times....
Several interesting Lectures are available free of charge on I Tunes
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34. Globe and Mail: Loss of China's Heritage
Carolynne Wheeler
Architectural gold rush washing away heritage
BEIJING — Special to The Globe and Mail Published on Tuesday, Oct. 06, 2009 12:00AM EDT Last updated on Thursday, Oct. 08, 2009 2:48AM EDT
It was the party to which China was inviting the world, and it spared no effort in ensuring its facilities were up to the task.
Last year's Olympics in Beijing left the city with some striking - some would say strikingly awful - buildings as mementos. The National Stadium, popularly known as the Bird's Nest, designed by Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron with assistance from famed Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, now sits largely empty, though it remains a pilgrimage site for Chinese tourists. The grounds of the graceful National Centre for the Performing Arts, also known as the Egg - or the Turtle's Egg to the derogatory - designed by French architect Paul Andreu, is now a popular place for a stroll on a warm evening.
The design fever that gripped the city before the Olympics also brought unique architectural monuments such as the Rem Koolhaas-designed CCTV tower - nicknamed "The Pants" for its two asymmetrical towers linked at the top by a walkway - and boutique hotel the Opposite House, adjoining an embassy district in Sanlitun. The hotel's Japanese architect, Kengo Kuma, gave it a stunning exterior of multi-hued emerald glass and an interior that includes sweeping ceilings and gallery space.
35. Blogto.com: Leaside Train Repair Shop
Exploring the Wrong Side of the Tracks at the Leaside Locomotive Shop
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| from Blog TO |
In 1919, the Canadian Northern Railway opened its locomotive house and repair shop in what would develop into Toronto's Leaside neighbourhood. With the increasing importance of the rails in the latter part of the 19th century, the Leaside Junction (as it was known then) gained increasing importance, and grew from that point.
36. Canadian Press / Winnipeg Free Press: Masons battle harsh climate, massive stones in northern Manitoba fort restoration
Steve Lambert
For something that was supposed to be destroyed by the invading French military 227 years ago, and abandoned for most of the time since, the Prince of Wales Fort in northern Manitoba has proven remarkably resilient. But even the sturdiest structures eventually need a little TLC, so Parks Canada is in the midst of a 10-year, $5-million effort to stabilize the massive stone walls of the fort, which once served as an icy militarized outpost of the fur trade in the northwest. It's a mammoth undertaking. The walls of the fort run about one kilometre in length. They are made up of huge stones that weigh up to 2,700 kilometres each, stacked six metres high and a whopping 12 metres thick. Complicating matters is the fact that the repair work can only be done during the two-month period when the area near Churchill is frost-free, to prevent new mortar from freezing as its sets.
37. Archinnovations: Architectural Magazine Online
Interesting Site, with a Newsletter you can Subscribe to
Very interesting projects on line, the heritage buildings of tomorrow. Some a bit too clever for their own good, but still a great site for archifans and architects alike.
http://www.archinnovations.com
