Itinerary
Heritage MattersRead more articles about Buildings and architecture
How Doors Open Ontario activates the province’s communities
The Ontario Heritage Trust’s Doors Open Ontario program works with communities and partners to open the doors, gates and …
The case for craftsmanship
One of the greater pleasures of working in architectural conservation in Ontario is the opportunity it provides to work with …
Quiet on the set
Shaftesbury is the company behind the hit television series Murdoch Mysteries and Frankie Drake Mysteries, both of which air on …
The economic halo effect of sacred places: Measuring civic impact in an innovative new way
Nestled in the old city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Old St. George’s United Methodist Church is a “mother church” of the …
Case study: Brockville Railway Tunnel
Location: 1 Block House Island Road, Brockville
Owner: City of Brockville
Case study: Mudtown Station Brewery and Restaurant (Owen Sound)
Owner: City of Owen Sound
Partners: Kloeze Family (Mudtown Station Inc.)
Learning from the past
Heritage has always been at the heart of the University of Windsor’s ambitious plan to preserve the century-old Windsor …
Museums and heritage: Building livable communities through soft power
Museums and heritage are engines of urban redesign and revitalization. Lord Cultural Resources has worked in 450 cities …
Heritage buildings and the evolution of workspace
I work for Allied Properties – a leading owner, manager and developer of urban workspace in major Canadian cities. Allied’s …
Case study: Thunder Bay District Courthouse
Location: 277 Camelot Street, Thunder Bay
Owner: David Sun, Business owner/Investor
Heritage builds vibrant communities and cultural economies in Kingston
In 2010, the City of Kingston released its first Culture Plan – a document that shared a sustainable, authentic, longterm …
The economic value of heritage districts: How assessment growth in heritage conservation districts compares with non-designated areas in Hamilton
There are competing views about the value of heritage properties. On the one hand, there is a growing consensus on the esthetic …
Reside: When heritage preservation translates to affordable housing
Raising the Roof is a Canadian charity that provides national leadership in homelessness prevention through various …
Old places support a sound, sustainable and vibrant economy
In Why Old Places Matter, I wrote about the many reasons that old places help people flourish. Yet, I intentionally saved the …
Revitalizing communities – The power of conservation
Over the past few years, I’ve spoken and written extensively about value – exploring questions of what …
What was and what will be
The term symbolkirchen can roughly be translated as a “symbol bearing church.” Such churches point to living realities …
Ontario’s rich industrial history
Northern Ontario has unique structures, not familiar to many, spread out through small northern communities, reflecting its …
Christ Church, Her Majesty’s Chapel Royal of the Mohawk – Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory
During the American Revolution, the Mohawks were forced to flee their homeland in upper New York State. In 1784, after spending …
A story of two families
What a story the Macdonell-Williamson House and property can tell! Its location – with a commanding view overlooking the Ottawa …
Perspectives on a site: Artifacts, fragments and layers
When the Trust conserves a property as complex as Macdonell-Williamson House, we consider a variety of perspectives related to …
Understanding Macdonell-Williamson House through four artifacts
It is tempting, while admiring Macdonell-Williamson House’s centuries-old stone walls, Palladian grandeur and picturesque …
Engineering a solution: A structural perspective of Macdonell-Williamson House
The structural rehabilitation of Macdonell-Williamson House has provided a great opportunity for the engineers at Quinn Dressel …
One hundred years of entertainment
Birthdays are about celebration and, in the case of Toronto’s Elgin and Winter Garden theatres, a toast to 100 years of …
Partnering for conservation
The Ontario Heritage Trust has a number of conservation tools available to protect and preserve heritage throughout the …
Treading the boards
Performance venues command an important presence in Ontario communities. They tell us about the aspirations of the people who …
Second run: A new life for an Ontario theatre
Since the early 1970s, Magnus Theatre in Thunder Bay has made a commitment to urban renewal and the reuse and repurposing of …
Perspectives: The Elgin Theatre at 100
Looking back by Wayne Kelly
When theatre entrepreneur Marcus Loew brought Loew’s Theatrical …
Resources: Building communities: Heritage conservation districts
What's on the shelf
Full Frontal T.O. – Exploring Toronto’s Architectural …
Heritage conservation districts: The most popular tool in the heritage toolkit?
When the Ontario Heritage Act came into force in 1975, municipalities across the province suddenly had the authority to protect …
How districts change
Meadowvale Village – a once-small, rural village – is located on the Credit River at the north end of the City of Mississauga. …
Grassroots heritage: The stewards of New Edinburgh
Located in the City of Ottawa at the confluence of the Rideau and Ottawa rivers is the historical community of New Edinburgh. …
Heritage conservation people
Growing up in Port Hope fostered a belief that every community had an amazing main street. That ignorance was shaken when I …
The Goderich story: A lesson in survival
For the past 18 months, West Street in Goderich has been as much a construction site as it has a place of service and retail …
Off the wall
Storytelling takes inspiration from many sources. Traditionally, museums weave a narrative from real objects: a vase, a coat, a …
Keeping Ontario’s farm heritage alive
In our ever-expanding world, less arable land is available to grow the food we need to survive. As farms disappear across …
Heritage in the public realm: Everything old is new
Ontario is growing. As municipalities across the province expand, so too does the need to revitalize existing municipal …
Investing in preservation
It is an unfortunate reality that the preservation of our heritage remains the exception rather than the norm. What is a …
The roots of democracy: Ontario’s first parliament buildings
As the bicentennial of the War of 1812 approaches, excitement is building at the site of Ontario’s first parliament buildings …
Doris McCarthy’s Fool’s Paradise will inspire future generations of artists
With the passing of Doris McCarthy on November 25, 2010, the country lost a revered and talented artist, best known for her …
Into the Kawarthas
When visitors first enter Peterborough’s stately city hall, they should look down. Inspired by the City Beautiful Movement – …
Peterborough’s Living History Museum
Hutchison House holds a special place in the social history of Peterborough.
Local volunteers built the house in 1836 …
Recovering from disaster
On the afternoon of July 14, 2004, the skies opened up over the city of Peterborough. Throughout the day, evening and …
Exploring the Trent -Severn Waterway
Built over a period of 87 years, the Trent-Severn Waterway stretches 386 kilometres across the heartland of the province, …
Resources: Finding our place in Ontario’s history
On the shelf
Creating Memory, by John Warkentin
Becker Associates, 2010. Toronto has over …
Designations in bulk
Understanding Unionville, by Regan Hutcheson
A visit to Unionville is like a journey back in time. Located north of …
Leading by example
Ontario towns and cities have been designating properties under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act since the passage of the …
Cataloguing a community
The amalgamated municipality of Chatham-Kent includes a number of early settlements that encompass thousands of heritage …
What a difference a day makes
On March 11, 2009, Brampton City Council designated 17 individual properties under Part IV (Section 29) of the Ontario Heritage …
Tracking Olmsted in Ontario
An undiscovered legacy of work left by landscape architects Charles and Frederick Olmsted Jr. exists in fragments of landscape …
Maintaining a national treasure
Toronto’s Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre Centre is an inward-looking building of interior architecture. The exterior, by …
Walkerville: The heritage of a company town
Among the shrinking number of 19th-century company towns, Walkerville – part of the City of Windsor since 1935 – remains an …
Seeing better days
The St. Thomas Canadian Southern Railway station (CASO) occupies a prominent position on the city’s main street. Perhaps it is …
Exploring Ontario’s southern peninsula
As you roam the highways and waterways of Ontario’s southern peninsula, a tapestry of stories unravels. These stories speak …
The history of Chatham-Kent
Chatham-Kent’s rich cultural heritage began long before European settlement when large stockaded villages and Neutral Indians …
A legacy of support: Faith-based community
Reaching out to those in need has long been a part of Ontario’s religious tradition. Faith-based groups offering medical and …
Toronto’s synagogues: Keeping collective memories alive
Collective memory is cultural memory – what is remembered about an event by a social or cultural group that experienced it and …
Places of Worship resources
Publications
Churches: Explore the symbols, learn the language and discover the history, by Timothy …
Ontario’s postwar places of worship: Modernist designs evoke traditional styles
The years following the Second World War were characterized by a sense of renewal and optimism. Places of worship built in …
Adapting today’s places of worship
Adaptive reuse of religious buildings can simultaneously preserve significant heritage sites and benefit communities, but in …
Gothic traditions in Ontario churches
The importance of worship in 19th-century Ontario can be measured by the church buildings erected in the province during that …
From Hamilton, a municipal perspective
Places of worship are often stunning buildings, constructed in forms and styles that have existed for thousands of years around …
The music of worship
Goethe said that “architecture is frozen music,” but why did he say this? Was it because Christian church interiors, with their …
Art in the church and the church in art: Work of the Group of Seven
Talented and renowned artists have long been commissioned to decorate the interiors of places of worship, where they often turn …
Form and function: The impact of liturgy, symbolism and use on design
During the 19th century, the location, physical condition and stylistic merit of churches were publicly discussed as reliable …
Enduring stewardship preserves a treasured heritage church
Located just east of Beaverton, the Old Stone Church, built in 1840 by a predominantly Scottish congregation, is a simple but …
The changing face of worship
The architectural style, massing, materials and date stones of a place of worship offer clues about the congregation’s history …
Religious freedom in the promised land
Eli Johnson toiled on plantations in Virginia, Mississippi and Kentucky before making his bid for freedom in the “promised …
Places of worship in Ontario’s rural cultural landscape
The cultural landscapes of rural southern Ontario contain a variety of heritage resources – land patterns and uses, built forms …
Churches of “New Ontario”
In the middle of the 19th century, northern Ontario remained much as it had been under the French regime – a region of Catholic …
Ontario’s rich religious heritage
From the First People who for thousands of years conducted religious and cultural ceremonies at places they believed held …
Christ Church and the Queen Anne Silver
Located in Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory on the Bay of Quinte, Christ Church houses a silver communion service dating to 1712. …
Sacred landscapes in Ontario’s communities
While places of worship are a visible aspect of Ontario’s heritage, they are part of wider cultural landscapes that can include …
Launching the Places of Worship Inventory
Survey, documentation and research – these are the first steps in the conservation process. How can decisions be made about our …
Adventures in light and colour
Light is a fundamental aspect of all architecture, especially places of worship. Light has always been considered a …
The challenge of change in the Catholic Diocese of Pembroke
In May 2006, the Catholic parish of Ste Bernadette in the small northern Ontario community of Bonfield celebrated the 100th …
The challenges of ownership
Historic places of worship may possess cultural heritage values that engender public support for their preservation, but these …
Subsidizing demolition
In nature, there is no such thing as waste. Nature operates in an endless web of interconnected cycles of use, transformation …
Heritage in harmony: The integration of natural and cultural landscapes
Approximately 11,000 years of human culture are recorded in Ontario’s landscapes. Most existing natural landscapes in Ontario …
The sustainability of place
Located on the Lake Huron shore at the mouth of the Maitland River, Goderich is known as “Canada’s Prettiest Town.” It is …
Rebirth of the Wychwood Barns
The Artscape Wychwood Barns – near St. Clair Avenue West and Bathurst Street in Toronto – were created when five historic …
Discarding the past
When an old building is torn down, we lose more than just the structure. We lose a bit of our past.
The foundation …
Heritage off the 401
Highway 401, stretching from Windsor to the Quebec border, is one of the busiest highways in North America. Anyone who has …
Building on the past
Eastern Ontario offers an array of impressive historic houses. Some of these houses – owned and operated by the Ontario …
La nouvelle St. Brigid
L’église catholique St. Brigid d’Ottawa est entrée dans une nouvelle ère. Depuis presque 120 ans, elle se dresse au cœur d’un …
From mill to museum
The big oak door of the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum in Almonte in eastern Ontario swings silently open as it has done for …
Ontario's eastern treasures
Inhabited by Aboriginal Peoples for 7,000 years, present-day eastern Ontario is rich with heritage. The area gradually …
The Rockwood story
Behind the stately façade of Kingston’s Rockwood Villa lies the history of mental health services in Ontario. Built in 1842 as …
The character of adaptive reuse
In his 1947 essay titled “The Past in the Future,” architectural historian John Summerson (1904-92) offered this description of …
Second chances for Peterborough’s priceless heritage
One of the greatest challenges to creating a healthy downtown is getting people to live there. While Peterborough’s historic …
The heritage of faith – Ontario’s places of worship
In 2006, the Ontario Heritage Trust began compiling an inventory of significant pre-1982 purpose-built places of worship …
Kingston’s heritage: Time and again
The City of Kingston sits at a strategic location, halfway between Montreal and Toronto, where Lake Ontario meets the western …
Alma College remembered
By mid-afternoon on Wednesday, May 28, 2008, Alma College in St. Thomas was reduced to a smouldering ruin.
The loss of …
Understanding adaptive reuse
In our efforts to conserve heritage properties, finding a use can be our greatest challenge and our greatest opportunity. An …
A renaissance of northern heritage
After railway development connected this once-isolated area to the rest of the province at the end of the 19th century, the …
Adventurous workers wanted for remote locations – Housing provided
The exploration, settlement and development of northern Ontario were motivated by the exploitation of the region’s natural …
Northern icons
The towering McIntyre Mine Headframe in Timmins. The Clergue Block House and Powder Magazine in Sault Ste Marie. St. Francis of …
The historical Cobalt Mining District – A community resource
At the turn of the 20th century, Cobalt was a small and isolated lumber camp. In August 1903, two lumbermen – James McKinley …
Friends of the Trust
Throughout its 40 years, the Ontario Heritage Trust has developed strong partnerships with local communities. Among these …
Raising the curtain: How the Winter Garden Theatre was rediscovered
In December 1913, Loew’s Yonge Street Theatre – the Canadian flagship of the mighty Loew’s empire – opened in Toronto. Two …
The past empowered
The buildings, structures and landscapes that comprise our cultural heritage are products of the intricate interplay between …
Have you seen this building?
In November 2007, the Sir Aemilius Irving House in Hamilton was demolished by its owner to make way for a new building. …
Enoch Turner Schoolhouse – a citizen’s legacy
When the province of Ontario introduced the 1847 Common Schools Act, municipalities were given the power to introduce taxes to …
Counting our blessings
Built in Glengarry in 1821, St. Raphael’s Church was one of Ontario’s earliest Roman Catholic churches. Constructed under the …
Building assets
Which is more sustainable – an artificial or live Christmas tree? This is an environmentalist’s conundrum, and it illustrates …
The guiding principles of sustainable architecture
In the late 1990s, the Ontario Ministry of Culture introduced Eight Guiding Principles in the Conservation of Built Heritage …
Inside Sheppard’s Bush
Charles Sheppard (1876-1967) moved to the Town of Aurora in 1921, after making his fortune in the Simcoe County lumber …
Evergreen Brick Works: Rethinking space
Evergreen – a national charity – builds the relationship between nature, culture and community in urban spaces. With its …
Discovering the City Beautiful
On July 25, 2007, the Ontario Heritage Trust and the Town of Kapuskasing unveiled a provincial plaque to commemorate the town …
Fact or fiction: Demystifying the myths around going green – Moving toward a more sustainable architecture
Sustainable: able to be maintained at a certain rate or level . . . conserving an ecological balance by …
Sustainability for old buildings: A developer’s perspective
Adaptive reuse provides a sound and sustainable approach to the renewal of our urban fabric, as illustrated by the conversion …
In praise of older windows
Façade: a word of double-edged meaning. Architecturally, it refers to the face of a building. In literature, …
Building on our successes
The Ontario Heritage Trust’s heritage conservation easements conserve some of Ontario’s most significant heritage sites. Good …
The story of Barnum House
Barnum House, on the north side of Highway 2 (Danforth Road), west of Grafton is historically significant for its association …
The R’s of conservation
An earlier generation spoke of the three R’s as “Reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic.” They were the fundamentals of education in …
Battlefield House Museum and Park – A pioneer in the history of preservation
Nestled under the Niagara Escarpment and situated in a park connected to the Bruce Trail, Battlefield House Museum National …
Leading the way in municipal heritage planning
What’s happening in your community?
With significant amendments to the Ontario Heritage Act in April 2005 and a …
Exploring Country Heritage Park
In March 2006, the Ontario Heritage Trust acquired a cultural conservation easement on Country Heritage Park. Located in …
Heritage conservation at our front door
The term “porte-cochère” has continental flair, though humble origins. In French, it means “carriage door” and originally …
Heritage by numbers
Ontario’s heritage is an immense and complex jigsaw puzzle. Every individual element of heritage creates a whole . . . a sort …
Saving the Spencerville Mill – Preserving community heritage
The Spencerville Mill, a fine cut-stone flour and grist mill, is located on the bank of the South Nation River in the small …
The biography of a house: If these walls could speak
Researching family history is a popular pastime for many who want to uncover their family’s unique past and discover how they …
Winning the battle
There are countless examples across the province of successful restorations of Ontario’s treasured heritage sites. Although the …
Our cultural heritage places: how heritage buildings adapt
Although heritage remains a year-round activity for many of us, Heritage Day is celebrated annually on the third Monday in …
Snapshots of the past
A flash of phosphorus. A whiff of smoke. And an image is captured. Photographs have chronicled our lives for over 150 years, …
Historic wallpaper: Finding what’s beneath
Wallpapers first appeared in Canada as early as the mid-17th century. These oldest papers were block-printed, hand-painted or …
Small-town museums key to small-town success
For 18 years, my wife and I raised our two sons in the Town of Richmond Hill just north of Toronto. When we moved to the small …
Breaking news: Saving our First Parliament
It was announced on December 21, 2005 that the site of Ontario’s first parliament buildings in Toronto has been saved. The …
Unearthing the past: Discoveries at Macdonell-Williamson House
Built in 1817, Macdonell-Williamson House in eastern Ontario reflects the ambitions and aspirations of retired fur trader, John …
Moving forward with heritage conservation
Thirty years ago, when the Ontario Heritage Act was new, I was a young planner with about a year’s experience working in …
The healthy roof: Staying on top of heritage preservation
The following excerpt appears in Well-Preserved: The Ontario Heritage Foundationʼs Manual of Principles and Practice for …
New natural heritage easement properties
John Edward (Ted) Greenwood Sanctuary
On March 30, 2005, the Ontario Heritage Foundation received – from Mary …
The new Ontario Heritage Act: The evolution of heritage conservation
An important shift has occurred in Ontario’s legislative framework for heritage conservation. On April 28, 2005, the Ontario …
Trent University under the modernist microscope
Throughout the developed world, attention is being given to the built heritage of the modern era. Organizations such as …
Working with superstructures: The framework for Ontario's heritage buildings
Last issue, we discussed the importance of a solid foundation when preserving heritage structures. In this issue, we …
Leidra Lodge – A new conservation easement
June Ardiel has been a patron and leader in Ontario's arts community all her life.
She has authored a book on the …
The changing face of heritage: The International Style – Toronto’s Toronto-Dominion Centre
In the second quarter of the 20th century following the First World War, Europe saw the emergence of a significant movement in …
The Homewood collection
As you drive east along Highway 2 between Brockville and Prescott, you will find the robust Georgian Homewood Museum deeply set …
Inside Uncle Tom's Cabin
At a bend in the Sydenham River near the town of Dresden stands Uncle Tom’s Cabin Historic Site. The museum – built on the site …
The Sharon Temple and the heritage of faith
While most of Canada celebrates Heritage Day on the third Monday in February, Ontario celebrates Heritage Week. The theme …