Guide to North York Modern Architecture

Download the guide of North York Modern Architecture created by ERA Architects.

Analysis of the Federal Budget

Interested in what the Federal Budget looks like for Arts and Culture?

Read the Canadian Conference of the Arts Annual Analysis of the Federal Budget. Specific references are made to Heritage funding.

Check Out The London Heritage Council Website

The London Heritage Council Website features upcoming events, local news and links to interesting relevant articles and publications.

Heritage Trees

photo by Kayla Jonas

Heritage Toronto has posted an interesting article about heritage trees. The article outlines what distinguishes heritage trees from all other trees as well as the legislative framework and sources for further reading.

See the whole article here

Two Blogs to Follow

A Field Guide to Building Watching - Although this blog hasn't been updated recently it contains valuable information on building styles and uses local examples.

History to the People - This blog explores different ways of engaging the Canadian public in their history. It includes reviews of museums, special exhibits, documentaries and initiatives such as Doors Open.

Mennonite Heritage Protrait

Check out this interactive site about the Mennonite heritage and culture. The site features documents, photographs, videos and Wiki-style information pages.

www.mennoniteheritageportrait.ca

HRC Exlpores Norway

Landscape View Near Lillehammer

Robert exploring an old church

Typical Norwegian Farm Buildings

Below are pictures from Dr. Robert Shipley's trip to Norway where he met with researchers from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research, a similar organization to the HRC.

Article: Beach's Area House and Heritage

A recent article in the Toronto on a old home in the Beach's area highlights the importance of identifying heritage homes.

Read the whole article

Renewal Tackled in Three Cities

ReNew Canada magazine features an article which outline three different approaches to city renewal. The case studies include the City of Regina, the City of Brantford and Detroit.

Top 10 Preservation Oppurtunities

Picture from www.youngpreservationists.org/category/blog

The Young Preservationist Association of Pittsburgh took an interesting approach to making an endangered buildings list. They created their own list titled "Top 10 Preservation Opportunities".

According to the report "Since the list was first published, only three sites have been lost". The list has also created economic opportunities resulting in:

• $1.30 of private financing for every $1 of public investment was generated,
• 1,245 construction and trade related jobs created,
• production of 230 housing units resulted,
• $750,000 in additional annual wage tax revenue is yielded to state and local municipalities, and
  
• a total of 401 permanent employment positions were created.

Read the full report

Check out the Young Preservationists Association Website

Heritage Featured on Evergreen Brickworks Blog

Evergreen Brick Works in Toronto maintains a blog. Since the site is an historic brickworks, their blog has a specific heritage perspective.

Check out their heritage posts here.

Doors Open Hamilton: Studios at Hotel Hamilton

The Studios at Hotel Hamilton:

Originally built in 1887 as a commercial building and expanded in 1905 to a hotel for soldiers. The building has been revitalized to include 19 studios, a ground floor café, gallery and more. Historical elements that still remain from its colourful past include the hand-laid terrazzo floor and custom plaster ceiling in the ground floor café, exposed brick walls, original fire doors, and high ceilings.
Photos by Kayla Jonas

Learn more about the Studios at Hotel Hamilton

Stay tuned this week for other Doors Open Hamilton Buildings: MacMaster University Buildings.

Doors Open Hamilton: Stinson School

Stinson School:

Once upon a time schools were important-looking buildings, with baronial architecture, imposing stone walls, arched entrances and grand wooden interiors. Constructed in 1894, Hamilton's Stinson School is amongst the last of its kind. By good fortune the building has been designated historic and is now in the process of conversion into unique residential apartments.
Photos by Kayla Jonas

Learn more about the Stinson School
Follow the progress at the Stinson School Journal


Stay tuned this week for other Doors Open Hamilton Buildings: The Studios at Hamilton Hotel and MacMaster University Buildings.

Doors Open Hamilton: Review in Pictures

This past weekend was Doors Open Hamilton. This week we will be presenting some of the properties that were featured through pictures.

Today's building is Auchmar. According to the Doors Open Guidebook:

"The last surviving country estate on Hamilton Mountain was built for the Honourable Isaac Buchanan Scotsman, entrepreneur, civic leader, politician and legendary public figure in Canada. Enjoy this rare opportunity to view the main floor of the Gothic Revival manor house and the walled and landscaped grounds that surround it. Auchmar is a significant cultural landscape under threat. "

Photos by Kayla Jonas

Find out more about Auchmar

Stay tuned this week for other Doors Open Hamilton Buildings: Stinson School, The Studios at Hamilton Hotel and MacMaster University Buildings.

Following Heritage on Twitter

Twitter is a network of people that post information in 140 characters, thus keeping information short and sweet.

The Heritage Resources Centre is now on Twitter! Click here to follow our tweets.


Here are some other people and organizations to follow on twitter to keep updated on your heritage news:

Local Heritage People and Organizations

Lauren Archer - Young heritage professional who regularly posts about heritage issues and events in Ontario.

Heritage Toronto - The heritage organization that advocates and promotes heritage in the City of Toronto. They post regarding heritage issues and events in Toronto.

The Architectural Conservancy of Ontario - the province wide advocacy organization tweets about critical heritage issues, links to interesting articles and ways to get involved with heritage.

Follow a Museum Day on Twitter- According the the blurb " ... most museums on Twitter struggle to attract more then 500 followers. I started to think about how we can draw attention to the museums on Twitter, and get more people to consider following a museum" This year was the first event and reportedly hundreds of people signed up to follow a museum.

You can still follow a museum by checking out the directory list of museums in Canada.

REEP House- An environmental organization that is based in Waterloo, which is converting two historic home into environmental showcases

Other Heritage Organizations

OldHouseWeb- a twitter feed and blog that links to how to articles, heritage news and interesting ideas to think about

HistoricGreen- posting about linking heritage with greening the environment

Innovative Program to Encourage Adaptive Reuse in Pheniox

The City of Pheonix has an innovative way to encourage adaptive reuse of buildings. They have created a special office within their Development Services Department to ease the process of adaptivley reusing buildings. According to the article:

The program streamlined processes, focusing on eliminating certain rules or codes to make it cheaper and simpler to renovate and reuse older buildings, according to Mark Leonard, director of the development department. And entrepreneurs also are allowed to use the building codes that were in place when the structure was built, as long as safety isn't compromised.

Read the whole article

Jane's Walks - May 1 and 2nd

According to the website:

What is Jane's Walk? Jane's Walk is a festival of free neighbourhood walking tours given by locals who care passionately about where they live, work and play. Jane's Walk is a pedestrian-focused event that improves urban literacy by offering insights into local history, planning, design, and civic engagement through the simple act of walking and observing. Jane's Walk began in May, 2007 in Toronto, and quickly expanded to New York City. In 2008, it was held in ten Canadian cities: Charlottetown, Halifax, Ottawa, Toronto, Guelph, London (ON), Thornbury-Clarksburg (ON), Winnipeg, Calgary, and Vancouver. Over 6000 people across Canada took part in Jane's Walk 2008.

See a full list of events in Ontario

Before and After: Train Station Photos

Photo Source

This article with before and after train station photos from the US show the grand stations and what exists there today.

Article and Pictures of Advertisements on Buildings

The Guardian (UK) has an article on historic advertisements on buildings.

Here are some Ontario examples from New Hamburg:

Photos by Kayla Jonas 2009

Green Building Links: ACO Newsletter

Lloyd Alter, President of the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario wrote in this week's newsletter about green building and green practices, directing readers to two related websites:

While Catherine was holding the fort in Toronto last week, I was in Phoenix at the Greenbuild convention, where I met and interviewed one of my heroes, architect Steve Mouzon. He recently reprized an earlier post he did on the 10 top things you should do to go green if you are talking about heritage buildings. I loved number nine: Don't Succumb to the Myth of No Maintenance: "Maybe it's vinyl siding, or aluminum soffits. It doesn't really matter, because here's what actually happens: When it fails, and it doesn't matter how it fails... maybe someone got the grill too close and melted the vinyl, or maybe the puppy gnawed on it... but when it fails, then you can't patch it and paint it, because it doesn't match. So you've gotta tear it all of and cart it off to the landfill, and then you must replace it all. So when so-called no-maintenance materials fail, they fail catastrophically." Read all ten at the Original Green

If you would like to subscribe to the Architectural Conservancy's Newsletter click here.