Building Conservation
Spotlight
2 Queen Street West
2 Queen Street West has served shoppers on the corner of Yonge and Queen since its construction in 1895. Designed in the Renaissance Revival style in a rare partnership between Samuel Curry and Francis S. Baker, the building first opened as the P. Jamieson Clothier Outfitter. It was eventually surrounded by the rise of the...
The University of Toronto’s FitzGerald Building
The University of Toronto’s FitzGerald Building is a 1927 Georgian Revival-style heritage building situated on the south end of St. George Campus. Originally built as a state-of-the-art facility for the Faculty of Medicine and the newly created Connaught Laboratories, the uses have subsequently moved to other locations. ERA was engaged as the heritage architect for...
Grosse Pointe Estate
This residence is a significant landmark in Grosse Pointe. It was designed in 1921 by renowned New York architect Alfred Hopkins and Associates and is surrounded by landscape designs by Ellen Biddle Shipman. Illustrated in Hopkins’ 1931 book, Planning for Sunshine and Fresh Air it is an excellent example of his approach to residential design....
Caledon Log Cabin Restoration
Underneath layers of siding, on what appeared as a forgotten agricultural outbuilding, hid a 150-year-old log cabin. ERA was hired to assess the viability of restoring the existing structure and reimagine it into a private artist studio hideaway nestled into a rustic landscape estate. To better understand the heritage of the site and the structure...
Îlot Bonsecours – PHI Contemporain
Located in the heart of the Old Montreal heritage site, the “Îlot Bonsecours” is a group of four historic buildings, notably the Calvet House and its annex, the Davies Store and the Viger House, which have been combined in recent decades to become the Auberge Pierre du Calvet, among others. In addition to those, there...
The McGill New Vic Project
The former Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH), founded in 1893, was designed by the London architect Henry Saxon Snell in the Scottish neo-baronial style. Located on the slope of Mount Royal, it was intended to be a place of healing close to nature and far from the industrial city, in accordance with the theories of the...
Waterworks
The site, once owned by the City of Toronto, operated as a public market from 1837 to around 1900. The Water Works Buildings were designed in the Art Deco style by City Architect, J. J. Woolnough and completed in 1933. The construction project was part of a plan supported by federal, provincial, and municipal governments...
8 King Street East
Following the Great Fire of 1904, the intersection of King and Yonge streets became the site of Toronto’s first modern skyscraper ensemble — a collection of buildings which inalterably changed the skyline and image of the city. With the CPR building (south-east corner) completed in 1913, and the Dominion Building (south-west corner) completed in 1914,...
Bombardier Centre for Aerospace and Aviation
The Bombardier Centre for Aerospace and Aviation, Downsview Campus, expands and adaptively reuses a historic building that was once the centre of aviation manufacturing and design in Canada — transforming it into an innovative learning institution for Centennial College’s Aviation and Engineering Technology Programs. The new campus includes teaching, research, testing labs and learning spaces for...
Paradise Theatre
The Paradise Theatre is a surviving example of Toronto’s hallmark 20th-century theatres, complete with distinct Art Deco styling specific to the World War II era, with abstracted classical and geometrical elements. Opened in 1937, the Paradise Theatre was designed by Benjamin Brown, one of the earliest Jewish architects in Toronto. Situated prominently between Dovercourt and...
University of Toronto: Scarborough Campus
In 2015, a new Secondary Plan was developed for the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus. As a sub-consultant on the planning team led by Urban Strategies, ERA undertook a Cultural Heritage Resource Assessment in order to identify and assess cultural heritage resources, including the buildings, views and open spaces, in accordance with the Ontario Heritage...
Fanshawe College: School of Culinary Arts & Information Technology
The Kingsmill’s Department Store building in downtown London is now home to Fanshawe College’s Schools of Information Technology and Tourism, Hospitality and Culinary Arts. Located on 130 Dundas Street, previously 126-132 Dundas St, the building is an important cultural landmark for the city and was built in 1865. Its current façade is composed of both...
Cambium Farms
Historic farmstead properties are a common sight throughout small, rural Ontario. The large acreage lots often contain a combination of built structures and landscape features, including the brick farmhouse, the wood-framed barn, outbuildings, silos and mature trees. In 2017, ERA was approached by Cambium Farms to think through how their 1873 barn, currently operating as...
Parkwood Estate National Historic Site: Greenhouse Conservation
Oshawa’s Parkwood Estate was erected in 1915 as the home of automotive industrialist Colonel Sam McLaughlin, who had a keen interest in horticulture. Designed by the leading establishment architecture firm Darling & Pearson, the estate included five greenhouses, with additional greenhouses added over time. The estate is now a National Historic Site. After the property...
