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...
Booth Street Redevelopment Master Plan
Ottawa’s Booth Street Complex — bordered by Booth, Norman, Rochester, and Orangeville streets in Little Italy — was acquired in 2012 by Canada Lands Company from the federal government. The conditions of the transfer required that best efforts be made to conserve the heritage character of the former federal heritage buildings, and that the spirit...
Crystal Ballroom – King Edward Hotel
Completed in 1903, the original King Edward Hotel was Toronto’s first ‘palace hotel’. It was built at the start of the Edwardian age, which brought opulence and exuberance to the design language at the turn of the century. The hotel’s Crystal Ballroom opened on the 17th floor atop the 1922 tower addition, to great public...
Captain G.E. Morden House
Built in 1858, Captain G.E. Morden House is an example of an original residential estate built during the time of settlement in the Town of Oakville. The building’s historical value is rooted in its past as the home to Oakville’s Morden family from 1900-1947. Captain George Handy Morden owned and operated several Lake Schooners and...
The Selby
The Gooderham Mansion is a landmark building on the corner of Sherbourne and Selby Streets in Toronto’s St. Jamestown neighbourhood. Now a mixed-use space, the top two floors of the building are used as amenity space for The Selby, a purpose-built rental tower developed by Tricon Capital. The ground and basement floors house a restaurant...
Gorsline House
This historic Prince Edward County house was stripped of its original interior details. Luckily, significant elements were salvaged and made available to the new owners. In close collaboration with the client, ERA restored the residence’s formal layout and re-incorporated the salvaged woodwork back to its historic locations while the newly-designed staircase incorporated the original newel...
National Arts Centre
Situated in the heart of the nation’s capital on Confederation Square, Ottawa’s National Arts Centre (NAC) displays a robust Brutalist geometric form, evoking the image of a fortress for the arts. Built between 1964 and 1969 as one of the federal government’s centennial projects, the NAC was designed by Fred Lebensold of the Montreal-based architecture...
Silver Birches
Built between 1906–1912, Silver Birches is a well-loved landmark on the remote north shore of Mackinac Island in Michigan. The Lodge is a rare example of an Adirondack-style Arts & Crafts log hotel and is included on the State Register of Historic Sites. After withstanding a century of extreme Lake Huron weather, Silver Birches and...
Fashion House Condos
The Fashion House Condo is located at 570 King Street West in a neighbourhood formerly characterized by factories including small retail shops, a brewer, tailor, railway switcher and carter. The project incorporates aspects of adaptive reuse conjoined with new construction: a designated heritage building that formerly housed the Toronto Silver Plate Building and new infill with...
Consumer’s Gas Showroom
The Consumer’s Gas building was designed by architect Charles Dolphin and was completed in 1931 as a retail showroom and demonstration kitchen for gas appliances. Its façade incorporates the use of uncommon materials, such as Tyndall stone from Manitoba and cast aluminum. The latter is used in sculptural features including relief panels on both street-facing...
The Broadview Hotel
The Broadview Hotel is a landmark building at the northwest corner of Queen and Broadview in Toronto’s Riverdale neighbourhood. It functioned as a community hub for businesses, clubs, and athletics, as well as a site for public meetings. The building was completed in 1891-92 for oilman and soap maker Archibald Dingman in the Romanesque Revival...
Imperial Plaza
The Mathers and Haldenby-designed Imperial Plaza Building at 111 St. Clair Avenue West is a 21-storey Modernist building constructed in 1957 as the executive offices for the Imperial Oil Company with landscape design by Dunington-Grubb. When it opened, it had a 20th floor observation level that was the highest point in Toronto. The property is...
Little Trinity Annex
The properties at 399-403 King Street East, known as the Francis Beale Buildings, were constructed in the mid-19th century in the Georgian style. In the late 19th century they came under the ownership of the Little Trinity Church community and were used for commercial purposes before eventually falling into disrepair. Little Trinity Church was able...
