1. Where have I been?
Catherine Nasmith

Some of you may have been wondering if BHN is out of commission. Nope, just taking a summer hiatus. This issue clears out many of the items that have collected over the past couple of months.

Your editor has been firmly ensconced in my Windermere office drawing up plans for a lovely cottage for clients on Tobin's Island, and working at night on finishing up the guest cottage on our property. It is nearly finished now. We hope to rent it on a short term basis starting in 2011 when not in use for family. It's right across the street from the historic Windermere House hotel, near golf courses, swimming and all the roads a person might want to cycle on. (I'm getting to know them pretty well myself.) Photos of the little cottage can be found at:  http://gallery.me.com/cnasmith#100175

I'll be back in Toronto after Labour Day and will return to the normal schedule.

Hope you are having a terrific summer too.

Cathy

2. Is the Perfect the Enemy of the Good?
Catherine Nasmith

City of Toronto Draft Heritage Conservation District Policies

For several years planning staff at the City of Toronto have been pushing back requests for new Heritage Conservation Districts until clear, comprehesive policies on HCD’s could be developed. A draft document was put forward to the Toronto Preservation Board’s June 29th meeting, where it passed.

Congratulations are in order to Heritage Preservation Services staff for putting this together with all the other competing demands for their attention.

The document outlines the need for clearer policies, as well as outlining some standard requirements for the process and the resulting Studies and Plans. Further circulation, public meetings and request for public comments will be ongoing through the fall.

After the OMB decision on Port Dalhousie, permitting a 17 storey tower in a predominantly 2-3 storey Heritage Conservation District, no one can argue against the need to be clear and comprehensive in an HCD plan. But at the same time, as much of the burden for research and payment of the necessary consultants falls to the communities seeking protection, it is important for the City to do everything possible to provide guidance and support to the volunteers who devote countless hours doing the background research, and who are the eyes on the street once a District is enacted.

As a heritage consultant that has worked with several communities over the past few years, (Harbord Village, Annex, Riverdale) I fear that the requirements outlined will make the costs of undertaking the community consulting and developing the necessary documents unaffordable. It will no doubt cost considerably more in consulting time to meet the new requirements.

Adding illustrations of good examples to the policies would help everyone understand what is being asked of them.

One suggestion is for the City to now begin to develop as many of the standard pieces as possible so that there is more of a common template available. New York has city preservation standards. Toronto could do the same so that there is not the same need to re-invent the guidelines in every report. Another idea is to put the inventory process online so that all of the research being done is more easily available.

The HCD report can be found at :
http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2010/pb/agendas/2010-07-29-pb36-ai.htm (summary)
http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2010/pb/agendas/2010-07-29-pb36-ar.htm (details)

3. Death Notice: H. Allen Brooks
forwarded by Adam Sobolak

H. ALLEN BROOKS, 1925-2010
H. Allen Brooks, 84, died August 8, 2010 at Kendal at Hanover, the
continuing-care retirement community in New Hampshire where he had
resided since 2004.

Born November 6, 1925 in New Haven, Connecticut, Allen Brooks was
educated at Dartmouth College (B.A. 1950), Yale University (M.A.
1955), and Northwestern University (Ph.D. 1957). He had a long and
distinguished career as an architectural educator and author,
primarily at the University of Toronto, where he taught from 1958 to
1986.

He wrote seminal works on the architecture of Frank Lloyd
Wright and his contemporaries, coining the name "The Prairie School,"
and on the architecture of Le Corbusier. He travelled extensively
and served as a visiting professor at Dartmouth, Vassar, and the
Architectural Association in London. Among his many professional
affiliations, he was a fellow and past president of the Society of
Architectural Historians.

Allen Brooks will be buried in the family plot in Litchfield,
Connecticut. At his request, there will be no funeral, but
contributions may be made in his memory to the

Society ofArchitectural Historians,

1365 North Astor Street,

Chicago, IL 60610.
H. Allen Brooks Trust
Robert B. Rettig, Trustee
rbrettig@post.harvard.edu

4. Heritage Canada Foundation Releases 2010 Top Ten Endangered Places and Worst Losses Lists
Heritage Canada Press Release

OTTAWA, ON -- August 10, 2010 - The Heritage Canada Foundation (HCF) has released its Top Ten Endangered Places and Worst Losses Lists drawing attention to a total of 16 architectural and heritage sites in Canada either threatened with demolition or already lost.

The Top Ten Endangered Places List, compiled from nominations received as well as from news items that HCF has been following and reporting on throughout the year includes:

. Canada's Lighthouses-Department of Fisheries and Oceans decision to declare virtually all its lighthouses surplus emasculates the new Heritage Lighthouse Protection Act

. Kitsilano Senior Secondary and Vancouver schools, Vancouver-Provincial seismic upgrade funding is being used to replace rather than upgrade historic schools-a seismic shakedown

. Calgary Brewing and Malting Co., Calgary-four of the site's oldest buildings threatened with demolition with no redevelopment plan in place

. Warehouse District, Winnipeg-unrivalled turn-of-the-century concentration of buildings succumbing to parking lots and megaprojects

. Views of Ontario Legislative Assembly Building, Queen's Park, Toronto-a massive precedent-setting condo tower project will erase iconic silhouette

. Lansdowne Park, Ottawa-massive redevelopment project incompatible with heritage of 142-year-old park-selling a public legacy short

. Porter/McKinley Block, Ridgetown, Ontario-a designated heritage landmark-a case of demolition by neglect

. Redpath Mansion, Montréal-last vestige of city's famed Square Mile is hovering on the brink of collapse

. "Company Houses" of Industrial Cape Breton, N.S.-the once prolific workers cottages are suffering from neglect, abandonment, and vandalism

. St. Philip's Anglican Church, Portugal Cove-St. Phillip's, NL-the 115-year-old "Church By The Sea" in need of salvation

Topping the Worst Losses List are the 41 predominantly mid-19th-century commercial buildings on Colborne Street in Brantford, Ontario, tragically demolished in the name of "urban renewal" which cast aside viable opportunities for their reuse and recycling.

Other examples of historic places needlessly destroyed by the wrecking ball in Ontario include Toronto's heritage-designated Downsview Hangars, and Hamilton's historic Century Theatre lost to unenforced property standards bylaws.

In Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan over a dozen historic buildings and hotels from the early 20th century were consigned to landfill to make way for a municipal sports complex.

Elsewhere on the Prairie, the Fleming Grain Elevator, the oldest remaining grain elevator on its original site in Canada, was tragically lost to fire, as was the Watson Lake Hotel, the oldest building in Watson Lake, Yukon.

Click Worst Losses for more information.

The Heritage Canada Foundation is a national, membership-based, non-profit organization with a mandate to promote the preservation of Canada's historic buildings and places.

For further information:
Carolyn Quinn, Director of Communications, cquinn@heritagecanada.org
Telephone: 613-237-1066 ext. 4; Cell: 613-797-7206

-30-

***********************************************************

5. Church in Picton Destroyed without Proper Permits
Sandy Latchford

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Picton, ON
August 11, 2010

Prince Edward County Heritage Church Destroyed without Proper Permits

August 11, 2010, Picton, Ontario

In a matter of moments, on a humid, wet Sunday morning, the west wall of the Methodist-Episcopal Church on the main street of Picton, Ontario, was reduced to a pile of rubble. Constructed in 1875, the gothic-revival church served as a welcoming gateway to the hustle and bustle of the downtown main street of this historic 4000-person town. Although the owners of the building had applied for and been granted a demolition permit by the local Council, they had not been granted the necessary public works permits for safety and had not erected suitable fencing around the site. Local officials immediately halted further work pending review by local engineers and an examination of the practices of the individual responsible for the demolition who, in the past, has been jailed and fined for similar negligence. The fate of the remaining structure is now in limbo.

Local Prince Edward County Councillor and mayoral candidate Sandy Latchford was incensed by the flagrant disregard for municipal procedures.

“I am outraged that on a Sunday morning, without all the necessary permits in place and without appropriate safety precautions to protect passers-by and adjoining property, demolition began on the Methodist-Episcopal Church on Picton Main Street. This appalling action demonstrates a blatant disregard for government process and for the County's heritage, and shows a total lack of respect for our citizens and religious groups.

“Apart from the destruction of a magnificent 135-year-old main-street edifice that in many ways exemplifies the historic character of Picton and of our county, I am greatly concerned that Council allowed this to happen. We had the opportunity to allow 30 days to pursue the historic designation of the property as architecturally significant and could have possibly saved it. Unfortunately, I was outvoted.”

Latchford is a vociferous advocate for the preservation of Prince Edward County’s culture and heritage and has placed them high on her election platform. Indeed, the proximity of the County, as it is called, to Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto has attracted developers and speculators whose views and motivation are at odds with those of local inhabitants wishing to preserve the architectural richness of the past. Says Latchfrod, ”I am not anti-development provided it is not contemptuous our residents and is not spawned by greed and disrespect for the character of the County.

“When will we stop abdicating our responsibility for the stewardship of the County’s culture and heritage? What will it take to stop the seemingly wholesale destruction of the historic churches, houses, farms and factories that illustrate the rich diversity of the County’s architectural and cultural past? It is time for members of the community to take a stand on this important issue.”

Armed with recent tourist board statistics, Latchford continued, “A large percentage of the visitors to the County, particularly to Picton, come here to see examples of buildings that exist nowhere else. At the rate we are going, in the name of alleged ‘progress’, there will be little character left to attract them or anyone else to Prince Edward County: our built and natural heritage as well as our rural character will be gone forever, and our fragile local economy will be the worse for it.

“I am saddened that we have lost this beautiful church, and incredibly angered by the thoughtlessness and lack of vision of those who let it happen.”

-30-

For further information please contact :
Sandy Latchford
613 961 7920
sandral@unb.ca

6. Heritage Toronto: New Executive Director
text from THA newsletter

Karen Carter is the new Executive Director at Heritage Toronto, who joined the team on July 19. Karen has an extensive background working in a variety of arts and education settings in Toronto. She has worked as a cultural consultant for the Department of Canadian Heritage and her most recent role was with the City of Toronto, Culture as Museum Administrator for the Toronto Museum Project. In this capacity she has recently completed the Toronto Museum Project website. 

Peggy Mooney, the former Executive Director, has returned to the Ontario Ministry of Finance as Assistant Deputy Minister of the Broader Public Sector Supply Chain Secretariat. We will miss her, but extend our very best wishes for success in her new position.

7. Canadian Built Heritage Research Inventory now avaiable online
Lindsay Benjamin

The University of Waterloos Heritage Resources Centre has developed the Canadian Built Heritage Research Inventory. It is a "work-in-progress" database highlighting research on built heritage in Canada. The site is searchable, interactive and flexible. The public is invited to contribute annotations or commentaries on the titles found and are encouraged to make suggestions about new information that should be on the inventory.

The inventory is growing, and to date includes roughly 1500 titles from a broad range of sources in both French and English. However, the Heritage Resources Centre is looking to broaden the scope of resources in the inventory. New titles and annotations received from users will be added to the database and can be emailed to hrcinfo@uwaterloo.ca.

Searches can be made by author, title, keyword, reference type or all fields. Reference types include books, conference proceedings, dissertations, laws, journal articles, magazine articles, newspaper articles, and web pages.

The database is available online at: http://fesdevtest.uwaterloo.ca/hrcresearch/index.php

While currently there are non-Canadian titles included the eventual goal is for this site to provide primarily Canadian sources that are not easily found on other databases such as the US National Trust for Historic Preservation, or the Getty Institute.

The work so far is a result of a combined effort involving several players. The Heritage Canada Foundation (HCF) has been a forum over many years for discussions on education in heritage. Since its 2007 Conference in Edmonton the HCF has sponsored a Roundtable on heritage education. There has been an ongoing effort to coordinate heritage education activity across the country. The University of Waterloo's Heritage Resource Centre took on the responsibility of assembling this research database. In this effort the HRC has been supported by funding from the Canadian Forum for Public Research on Heritage a SSHRC Strategic Cluster Project administered by l'Institut du patrimoin, University of Quebec at Montreal.

8. Heritage Toronto announces 2010 Summer Program of Free Walking Tours
Heritage Toronto

In 2010, Heritage Toronto is celebrating its 16th year of free historic walking tours. Held most weekends until October, Heritage Toronto Walks are a great way for residents and visitors alike to discover the people, places, events and stories of our city.

Eight new walks that are part of the schedule this summer include The Trees of Queens Park, William Lyon Mackenzie: Toronto's First Mayor and Faces on Places: Toronto's Architectural Sculpture.

Heritage Toronto Walks is a true community project. The tours are researched, designed and led by local historians, groups and professionals from across the city, who volunteer their time and energy. Walks are free and no reservations are required in order to attend.

This years July to October schedule includes tours of:

§ Saturday, July 24  10:30 AM: Canadas Candy King Lived Here (NEW)
§ Sunday, July 25  1:00 PM: Cabbagetown People: More Remarkable Lives (NEW)
§ Wednesday, July 28  7:00 PM: The Exhibition Grounds
§ Saturday, August 7  1:30 PM: Cabbagetown  South
§ Sunday, August 8  1:30 PM: Baby Point: 10,000 Years of History
§ Saturday, August 14  10:00 AM: The Trees of Queen's Park (NEW)
§ Saturday, August 14  1:30 PM: William Lyon Mackenzie: Toronto's First Mayor (NEW)
§ Sunday, August 15  1:30 PM: The Howards of High Park
§ Saturday, August 21  11:00 AM: The Royal Alexandra Theatre and its Neighbourhood
§ Sunday, August 22  1:30 PM: Faces on Places: Toronto's Architectural Sculpture (NEW)
§ Saturday, August 28 - 1:30 PM: The Natural Heritage of the Scarborough Bluffs (NEW)
§ Sunday, August 29  11:00 AM: The Danforth
§ Saturday, September 11  1:30 PM: Marlborough to Summerhill
§ Sunday, September 12  10:00 AM: Old Town (NEW)
§ Sunday, September 19  1:00 PM: Fort York and the Garrison Commons: Urban Development, Battlefields, Graves and Condos
§ Saturday, September 25  10:30 AM: Toronto Botanical Garden and Edwards Gardens (NEW)
§ Sunday, September 26  11:00 AM: Yorkville
§ Saturday, October 2  10:30 AM: Library to Library in Riverdale (NEW)

For full descriptions of Heritage Toronto Walks, please visit www.heritagetoronto.org or call the Heritage Toronto Information Line at 416 338-3886.

The Heritage Toronto Walks Program is generously supported by TD Canada Trust and TD Friends of the Environment Foundation.

9. Heritage Toronto Introduces Partner Membership for Community Organizations and Private Sector Groups
Heritage Toronto

Help us tell Toronto's stories and preserve our shared history by joining a growing number of Heritage Toronto partners.

Becoming involved as an HT Partner Member means that you will be joining an expanding community who cares about building a vibrant city, while aligning yourself with heritage conservation principles.

Partners of Heritage Toronto come from a wide range of sectors including design and development, financial services, arts and culture, labour, BIA's, government, and the media.

New Levels, Rates and Benefits For Community Groups

Heritage Community Partner - $100

(applies to non-profit groups only and is meant to be for the organization - not for group membership)
- 1 ticket to HT Awards Program (event and lecture only)
- Special member listing in HT Awards souvenir program
- Heritage Toronto website listing on supporter pages with hotlink
- Heritage Toronto's monthly e-newsletter
- Access to members' only events at some of Toronto's unique heritage sites (max 2 spots per group - pre-registration is required and is on a first-come, first-serve basis)
- Early copies of Heritage Toronto Walks schedules
- Invitations to Heritage Toronto plaque presentations
- Free copy of Toronto Architecture: A Description of Styles
- One 2-for-1 admission ticket for the Hockey Hall of Fame
- 20% discount for subscription to Canada's History magazine

For Private Sector Companies

Heritage Awareness Builder - $250 (tax receipt provided for additional donation)

- 2 tickets to HT Awards Program (event and lecture only)
- Special listing in HT Awards souvenir program and listing on HTA webpage
- Heritage Toronto website listing on supporter pages with hotlink
- Heritage Toronto's monthly e-newsletter
- Access to members' only events at some of Toronto's unique heritage sites (max 2 spots per organization and as with individual members, pre-registration is required and is on a first-come, first-serve basis)
- Early copies of Heritage Toronto Walks schedules
- Invitations to Heritage Toronto plaque presentations
- Free copy of Toronto Architecture: A Description of Styles
- One 2-for-1 admission ticket for the Hockey Hall of Fame
- 20% discount for subscription to Canada's History magazine

Conservation Partner - $500 (tax receipt provided for additional donation)

- 1 ticket to HT Awards Program - includes Mayor's Reception
- Small business card size ad in HT Awards souvenir program and listing on webpage
- Heritage Toronto website listing in supporter pages with hotlink
- Heritage Toronto's monthly e-newsletter
- A certificate of Partner Membership
- Access to members' only events at some of Toronto's unique heritage sites (max 2
spots per organization - pre-registration is required and is on a first-come, first-serve basis)
- Early copies of Heritage Toronto Walks schedules
- Invitations to Heritage Toronto plaque presentations
- Free copy of Toronto Architecture: A Description of Styles
- Two 2-for-1 admission tickets for the Hockey Hall of Fame
- 20% discount for subscription to Canada's History magazine

City Builder - $1,000 (tax receipt provided for additional donation)

- 2 tickets to HT Awards - including Mayor's Reception
- Large business card size ad in the HT Awards souvenir program and listing on webpage
- Heritage Toronto website listing on supporter pages with hotlink
- A certificate of Partner Membership
- Heritage Toronto's monthly e-newsletter
- Access to members' only events at some of Toronto's unique heritage sites (max 2
spots per group - pre-registration is required and is on a first-come, first-serve basis)
- Early copies of Heritage Toronto Walks schedules
- Invitations to Heritage Toronto plaque presentations
- Free copy of Toronto Architecture: A Description of Styles
- Opportunity to have a HT speaker to present at your workplace, or a special private
tour. (Topics range from The History of Commemoration, History of Toronto
Architecture, Toronto's Railway Heritage)
- Two 2-for-1 admission tickets for the Hockey Hall of Fame
- 20% discount for subscription to Canada's History magazine

Please call 416.338.0682 to enrol in Heritage Toronto's Partner Membership program, email kadlard@toronto.ca or visit http://www.heritagetoronto.org/get-involved/support/membership for a downloadable form.

Thank you for your support!

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.

Click here for Link

11. Torontoist: Historicist--The Church on Cecil Street
Kevin Plummer

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.

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.

Click here for Link

12. 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.

Click here for Link

13. Toronto Star: Ten Visions for Ontario Place

Click here for Link

14. 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.”

Click here for Link

15. Toronto Star: Ontario Place Threatened
Daniel Dale

Ontario Place: A fantastic Jaguar, and you run it into a ditch

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.

Click here for Link

16. 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.

Click here for Link

17. 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.

Click here for Link

18. 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.

Click here for Link

19. 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.

Click here for Link

20. 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.

Click here for Link

21. Ottawa Citizen: Threat to Lansdowne Park Heritage Buildings
Mohammed Adam

Mum's word on Horticulture Building

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.

Click here for Link

22. 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?

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.”

Click here for Link

23. 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.

Click here for Link

24. 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.”

Click here for Link

25. 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.

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.

Click here for Link

26. 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.

Click here for Link

27. 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.

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.

Click here for Link

28. Globe and Mail: Agha Khan Museum and Ismaili Worship Centre
Lisa Rochon

Complex backed by Aga Khan will bring new life to urban neighbourhoods

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.

Click here for Link

29. Globe and Mail: The Studio Building
Dave LeBlanc

Despite the heritage plaque, it's still a home

The Studio Building

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

Click here for Link

30. 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

Click here for Link

31. Lisa Rochon: Phillip Beesley at the Venice Biennale
Lisa Rochon

A Canadian brings the light to Venice

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.

Click here for Link

32. 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://www.ncptt.nps.gov/

Click here for Link

33. New York Times: New York City Architectural Boat Tour
Emily Berl

A Singular Perspective on the Urban Mosaic

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?

Click here for Link

34. New York Times: Syracuse on the way back
Roberta Brandes Gratz

Rebirth of a City

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.

Editor's Note:
This article has the best before and ever graphics I have ever seen, go take a look!

Click here for Link