Publications & Exhibits

Michael McClelland talks taste, class, and conservation in Azure Magazine

by Alessandro Tersigni

Azure Magazine‘s Stefan Novakovic recently interviewed ERA principal Michael McClelland about the relationships between taste, social class, and conservation and how they determine the ways we see and live in cities. As our understanding of heritage continues to evolve and broaden to include more diverse forms of value, this historical and practical look at the...

News & Events

The Signs That Define Toronto: A new book from ERA and Spacing

by Kurt Kraler

We are happy to announce the release of The Signs That Define Toronto. Published and produced with Spacing, ERA partner Philip Evans and architect Kurt Kraler team up with Spacing’s Matthew Blackett and 20 contributors to reveal the history, culture, and stories of the city through its unique signage. The book is packed full of...

Publications & Exhibits

Announcing the Frank Darling Book Project

by David Winterton, senior associate

Disponible en français ci-dessous. Over the past six years I’ve been researching and occasionally lecturing at SSAC conferences on Canadian architect Frank Darling (1850–1923) and his ultimate firm, Darling & Pearson. A clear narrative has evolved that outlines his leadership in developing an official “Edwardian” architecture in Toronto and beyond, the firm’s tremendous output of...

The Ward Cabaret: The sound of Toronto’s first cross-cultural community

by ERA Architects

Cultural heritage is influenced and shaped by communities and their histories. In Toronto, this means much of the city’s cultural heritage is impacted by the multitudes of different communities that call it home. One theatrical production is giving this cultural heritage a sound. The Ward Cabaret is back in Toronto after a sold-out run at...

Immigration and Daily Life in the Ward

by ERA Architects

We are very excited to announce the latest installation of the ‘Armoury Street Dig’ series of exhibits at Toronto City Hall. Commemorating and interpreting the histories of St John’s Ward, one of Toronto’s first points of settlement for many newcomers throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the exhibit “Immigration and Daily Life in the Ward: Addresses...

From Past to Page: Uncovering the Ward

by ERA Architects

In 2015, ‘The Ward—The Life and Loss of Toronto’s First Immigrant Neighbourhood’ was published, documenting the area within Toronto known as St. John’s Ward (or simply “the Ward”), home to thousands of immigrants between the mid-1800s and the mid-1900s. With little of the neighbourhood’s physical fabric remaining, The Ward had largely faded from public consciousness,...

an image of leather shoes recovered from the Armoury Street excavation is superimposed on top of a Goad's Insurance Map, detailing the site area and context of Centre Avenue and Armoury Street in historic St John's Ward.

Archaeology in The Ward: A New Exhibit

by ERA Architects

Just a few steps northwest of Toronto’s city hall is a quiet, empty plot of land and a former parking lot that will soon be the home of the new Toronto courthouse. But long before this site was just a place to park, it was a bustling part of St John’s Ward (The Ward), an...

The (Lane)way Forward: Exploring the Potential of Under-Served Public Space

by ERA Architects

As Toronto’s population increases in density, it places more pressure on ever-shrinking resources, including public space. The use of laneways in the city to increase public space offers the opportunity to release some of this pressure. ERA’s Annabel Vaughan moderated a panel discussion on November 30th on just this subject. Organized by The Laneway Project,...

Scott Weir presents at Society of Architectural Historians

by ERA Architects

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...

The material library

by ERA Architects

A material library is a cataloged collection of real-world materials kept for research and reference. Often the library consists of recently released, innovative, or unusual products, but can also include more commonly used materials that are important to combine, compare, contrast etc., in their full materiality. As heritage architects, our library also contains reference materials...

Shipbuilding in NFLD: a book

by admin

ERA’s Philip Evans and grandfather Calvin Evans are about to launch Master Shipbuilders of Newfoundland and Labrador, Vol I, a detailed account of one of maritime Canada’s oldest traditions. The book, published by Breakwater Books, will be launched at 3:30 on Sat. Sept. 14 at the St. John’s Chapters. Philip and Calvin Evans will be...

Slabs vs. points

by admin

A new article in Satellite Magazine on Toronto Towers by ERA’s Graeme Stewart, Josh Thorpe, and Michael McClelland. The article compares Toronto’s two high-rise housing booms, which have generated housing in volume and distribution unlike anywhere else in North America: first, the suburban tower boom in Toronto’s post-war period, and next the contentious condo boom...

Concrete Toronto on spacing.ca

by ERA Architects

ERA is pleased to announce that this summer spacing.ca will be republishing several articles from our book, Concrete Toronto: a guidebook to concrete architecture from the fifties to the seventies. The book, published by Coach House Books in 2007, reconsiders Toronto’s large inventory of concrete buildings and infrastructure from the perspective of a diverse group...

Rapid Response at Harbourfront Centre

by admin

Harbourfront Centre Architecture Gallery, Toronto June 21 to Sept 7, opening June 21, 6 to 10 p.m. The design duo known as Captains of Industry, which consists of ERAer Amy Norris and Clint Langevin of architectsAlliance, are collaborating on a project for Rapid Response, an exhibition exploring architectural responses to natural disaster. Amy and Clint...

Seoul: its heritage and its future

by ERA Architects

ERA’s Sharon Hong was recently published in Transforming Asian Cities, a new book edited by Nihal Perera and Wing-Shing Tang for Routledge. According to Perera and Tang, Asian cities are too often thought of as “following global models” and “Western-dominated urban hierarchies and spatial structures.” This new publication, however, aims to provide “inside-out” interpretations of...

April 25-27: Exhibition on landscape

by admin

Please join us for the opening reception and exhibition of Gladstone Grow Op, an exploration of landscape and place curated by Victoria Taylor, OALA. Thursday, April 25 to Sunday, April 28. Opening reception: Friday, April 26, 7–10 pm Our contribution, Hoarding Suggestions, situated at the Gladstone Art Bar and sponsored by the Friends of Allan...

I thought there were limits: An art show

by ERA Architects

This month and next, ERAer Josh Thorpe is participating in a group exhibition at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery at Toronto’s Hart House. The show, I thought there were limits, curated by Julia Abraham, brings together five Toronto artists whose work plays with space and architecture: Karen Henderson, Yam Lau, Gordon Lebredt, Kika Thorne, and...

Gladstone Grow Op

by admin

We are pleased to announce that ERA will be participating in Grow Op: Exploring Landscape and Place, a special four-day event and exhibition to be held in late at Toronto’s Gladstone Hotel April 25-28, 2013. The exhibition, curated by landscape architect Victoria Taylor OALA CSLA, will involve a wide range of interdisciplinary practices and creative...

Append & tweak: Rethinking heritage in our suburbs

by ERA Architects

An article by ERA associate Joey Giaimo was recently published in the latest APT Bulletin of the Association for Preservation Technology International. The article, “Append & Tweak: An Approach for Preserving the Evolving Suburban Landscape,” asks us to re-evaluate how we regard and manage heritage resources in suburban contexts, and argues for a cultural landscape...

United Way AGM: Graeme Stewart’s Keynote Address

by admin

On Thursday, June 21, ERA’s Graeme Stewart addressed United Way’s AGM as keynote speaker. In 2010, ERA and CUG+R published Tower Neighbourhood Renewal in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, which looks at a broad range of historical trends, planning issues, sustainability concerns, social needs, and opportunity for renewal in and around Toronto’s tower block neighbourhoods. In...

Micro-enterprise on Toronto’s streets

by ERA Architects

In early June, Working Habitat and Scadding Court Community Centre (SCCC) hosted a charrette exploring opportunities for small-scale enterprise and pop-up vendors in Toronto. The charrette introduced important lessons and concepts from Scadding Court’s experiences with Market 707. Located just east of Bathurst on the south side of Dundas, Market 707 is a cluster of...

The Growing Old City

by Graeme Stewart

Image courtesy of OpenFile. Interesting article on the population of the Old City of Toronto in Open File: We finally have more people living in pre-amalgamation Toronto than in 1971 With 736,775, we’ve now surpassed the Old City of Toronto’s peak population in 1971 (it dipped by 100,000 in the 70s and 80s) – but...

Concrete Ideas

by admin

The book Concrete Ideas: Material to Shape a City was launched in January, 2012. Edited by Pina Petricone, the book considers new approaches to concrete architecture by exploring a variety of new technologies and possibilities for the material. First introduced by Pina’s article in Concrete Toronto, the book is a compilation of ideas, articles and...

Tower Neighbourhood Renewal article in the APT International

by ERA Architects

ERA is featured in the summer edition of the International Journal for the Association for Preservation Technology (APT), in an article examining the Tower Neighbourhood Renewal initiative. From the introduction: In 2008 the City of Toronto initiated its Tower Neighborhood Renewal program. The program looks at the significant impact of post–World War II construction in...

On mapping

by Michael McClelland

With any exercise in mapping there are a whole series of interesting Borges-like adventures that reveal themselves. There is the story or stories the map-writer wishes to tell, but to the map-reader there are countless other stories which may appear as unpredictable discoveries beyond the intentional. As a child, playing the game of ‘connect the...