For 35 years, ERA Architects has been a strategic thought leader in understanding the ever-evolving phenomenon of heritage. As the firm evolves, so does our approach to working with heritage.
Our interdisciplinary talents, insights, and relationships to the existing built environment lead us to understand places as living through time. As people, communities, values, and societies change, it’s essential to form new avenues and ways of interpreting the places they experience and value. Through our diverse perspectives, expertise, and passions, it’s equally important to remain constant in our stewardship of the relationships between people and their environments.
To showcase how ERA’s studios approach this work in different yet complementary ways, this series of conversations between culture critic Alessandro Tersigni and the firm’s principals will showcase where we’ve been, where we’re headed, and how this array of practices both enriches and productively complicates our approach to understanding and working with heritage in the 21st century.
Alessandro Tersigni: What’s your role at ERA?
Graeme Stewart: I’m an architect and principal at the firm. When I joined ERA in 2002, I was a student at the University of Toronto. One of the earliest things I worked on was the book Concrete Toronto, which involved a huge amount of archival research and navigating a web of connections to understand the city through a different lens. A master’s degree in architecture is a 24/7 vocation in itself, so blending all of that together was fantastically engaging. That creativity and pragmatism of bridging research and practice is why I’ve stuck around ERA for 23 years.
AT: How would you describe what ERA does?
GS: ERA is fundamentally grounded in place. We always start with something — whether a site, city block, community vision, landscape, or a set of ideas. We’re usually exploring particular ways of stewarding what exists and enabling some kind of thoughtful transformation. That’s been true since ERA was a firm of 12 people. In the early days, the question in Toronto’s collective consciousness was, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could imagine that something could transform?” Today, we take transformation as granted. The goal is to ensure it’s meaningful.
AT: What do you think changed about ERA as we’ve grown and evolved?
GS: Something that’s been both a constant and shifting aspect of our approach over time is that we’re always looking for ways to think about the familiar differently. When we did Concrete Toronto in 2007, the idea that brutalist buildings have value or that there would ever be an economy to transform them was radical. Today, the ERA studio I co-lead with Ya’el Santopinto is deeply rooted in both those realities. We’re constantly looking at how to sustain and renew the legacy of what we already have, which is a question that has different answers in 2025 than it did 20 years ago.
AT: How does the concept of heritage intersect with your work?
GS: Heritage is a great alibi to think carefully. We should always be thinking carefully, but the presence of heritage usually allows you to engage with projects in ways that you otherwise wouldn’t. I work frequently with the University of Toronto, for example, whose mandate is to lead global innovation within the context of a legacy of place. The idea that it isn’t a contradiction to transform a site while maintaining and understanding its value is the basis of what ERA does. That’s true whether you’re talking about a net-zero Tower Renewal project that balances a whole series of objectives or a National Historic Site. They’re actually very similar.
AT: It’s clear that ideas of heritage are broadening. What do you think is the ideal unfolding of that process?
GS: We shouldn’t be selective about the environments that we take great care with. We can apply the rigour that’s common in dealing with designated heritage sites when we engage with any kind of place. As Canadians, I think we sometimes feel a bit ahistorical, to our detriment. Heritage is a weird word — it has the potential to mean anything to anyone. But there’s a strong sense in which heritage is simply something worth knowing about our context. That understanding can’t help but lead to better outcomes.
AT: What do you see in ERA’s future as it continues to grow and evolve?
GS: We’re in a really interesting moment. We’ll continue engaging with all the discussions that are defining the 21st century — about decarbonizing, about housing, about equity, about Truth and Reconciliation, and about building in a financially sustainable way that allows for both affordability and major investments. Recently, those pursuits have become even richer by intersecting with increasingly urgent questions, spurred by current events, about what it means to be Canadian. This is an exciting moment where Canada is defining its place in the world, and we all have a role in that. I’m excited to see what’s next.
Stay tuned for more interviews with ERA’s principals as our Meet the Principals series continues next week.
Portrait photography by Mina Markovic
In 2014, Graeme Stewart and Sabina Ali of the Thorncliffe Park Women’s Committee were jointly awarded the 2014 Jane Jacobs Prize, presented by Spacing magazine. Powers of Towers, produced by Spacing, includes interviews with ERA’s Michael McClelland and profiles the efforts of Graeme and Sabina to transform Toronto’s aging suburban high-rise neighbourhoods into livable communities that work.
