Last week ERA’s Scott Weir presented at the 68th Annual Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) Conference in Chicago held from April 15-19.
The SAH conference brings together innovative thinkers from around the world to examine major currents in architecture and urban design with a mission statement “to foster the understanding and appreciation of architectural history among both professional scholars and laymen.”
Scott’s paper, The Picturesque Gothic Villa Comes to Town, traces the origins of the bay and gable house type that became the prototype of dense speculative development designs for Toronto in the 1870s & 80s.
Through comparative analysis of maps and drawings contemporary to the construction of gothic villa homes, Scott identifies the urban form created by these buildings, overlaid with the results of recent archaeological research, and structured within the political underpinnings of the Toronto lot layout.
Thanks also to ERA’s Sanford Riley for creating the mapping and graphics and to Alexis Cohen for her research on this topic.
Follow Scott Weir on Twitter at @southofbloor and The Society of Architectural Historians at @SAH1365.
