Category: architecture

Bibliography: Architecture

I have been combining several old, neglected blogs into this new one and came across this research bibliography I had drawn up for my architecture blog. Since I’m planning to home everything here for now, here it is for future reference.

 

Arthur, Eric. From Front Street to Queen’s Park: The Story of Ontario’s Parliament Buildings. Toronto: McLelland and Stewart, 1979.

Arthur, Eric. Toronto: No Mean City. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974.

Blumenson, John. Ontario Architecture: A Guide to Styles and Building Terms 1784 to Present. Canada: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1990.

Carter, Margaret. Early Canadian Court Houses. National Historic Parks and Sites Branch, Parks Canada, Environment Canada, 1983.

Clerk, Nathalie. Palladian Style in Canadian Architecture. National Historic Parks and Sites Branch, Parks Canada, Environment Canada, 1984.

Clifton-Mogg, Caroline. The Neoclassical Source Book. New York: Rizzoli International, 1991.

Curl, James Stevens. Oxford Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. 2nd Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Davidson Cragoe, Carol. How to Read Buildings: A Crash Course in Architectural Styles. New York: Rizzoli, 2008.

de Botton, Alain. The Architecture of Happiness. Toronto: McLelland and Stewart, 2006.

Duncan, Alastair. Ed. The Encyclopedia of Art Deco. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1988.

Eitner, Lorenz. Neoclassiscism and Romanticisim 1750- 1850: Sources and Documents. Volume 1. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1970.

Galinsky, Karl. Classical and Modern Interactions: Postmodern Architecture, Multiculturalism, Decline, and Other Issues. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1992.

Gowans, Alan. Building Canada: An Architectural History of Canadian Life. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1966.

Gowans, Alan. Looking at Architecture in Canada. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1958.

Honour, Hugh. Neo-classicism. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968.

MacRae, Marion. Cornerstones of Order: Courthouses and Town Halls of Ontario, 1784-1914. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin & Company, 1983.

MacRae, Marion. Hallowed Walls: Church Architecture in Upper Canada. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin & Company, 1975.

Maitland, Leslie, Jacqueline Hucker and Shannon Ricketts. A Guide to Canadian Architectural Styles. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 1992.

Maitland, Leslie. Neoclassical Architecture in Canada. National Historic Parks and Sites Branch, Parks Canada, Environment Canada, 1984.

Maitland, Leslie. The Queen Anne Revival Style in Canadian Architecture.National Historic Parks and Sites, Parks Service, Environment Canada, 1990.

McHugh, Patricia. Toronto Architecture: A City Guide. Toronto: Mercury  Books, 1985.

Murray, Terry. Faces on Places: A Grotesque Tour of Toronto. Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2006.

Otto, Stephen A. Robert Wetherell and Dundurn: An Architect in Early Hamilton. Hamilton: Heritage Hamilton Foundation, 2004.

Pedley, John Griffiths. Greek Art and Archaeology. 4th Edition. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2003.

Pedley, John. Sanctuaries and the Sacred in the Ancient Greek World. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Preyde, James and Susan Preyde.  Steeple Chase: Ontario’s Historical Churches. Erin: Boston Mills Press, 1990.

Ramage, Nancy H and Andrew Ramage. Roman Art. 4th Edition. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2005.

Robertson, D. S. Greek and Roman Architecture. 2nd Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971.

Ricketts, Shannon, Leslie Maitland, Jacqueline Hucker. A Guide to Canadian Architectural Styles. 2nd Ed. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2004.

Stamper, John W. The Architecture of Roman Temples: The Republic to the Middle Empire. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005

Taylor, Rabun. Roman Builders: A Study in Architectural Process. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Wright, Janet. Architecture of the Picturesque in Canada. National Historic Parks and Sites Branch, Parks Canada, Environment Canada, 1984.

Yeigh, Frank. Ontario’s Parliament Buildings: A Century of Legislation, 1792-1892, A Historical Sketch. Toronto: Williamson Book Company, 1893.

What a University Should Look Like

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If I were in charge of things, universities would be required to build in the neo-classical styles or, at the very least, collegiate gothic. I think the University of Guelph is the most gorgeous university campus I’ve seen. I love how they have preserved the original buildings (including original houses and the bull ring) while in-filling with modern buildings. The buildings from the 60s are unfortunate, but the more recent glass constructions complement the original brick and stone buildings.

Historic Building: Erland Lee (Museum) Home

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The Lee (http://www.erlandlee.com) is currently closed to the public, but you can still enjoy the building’s board-and-batten heritage exterior.  I stopped by this evening at the perfect time of day and caught it in the golden light of the setting sun. The house commands an amazing view out over Lake Ontario from the very edge of the Niagara Escarpment.

From Rome to Vancouver

Vancouver Public Library

As my homage to the closing of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, this week’s post is the Vancouver Public Library. This gorgeous building is evocative of the Flavian Amphitheater in Rome (popularly known as the Colosseum). Built between 1992-1995 the library complex includes the circular public space and a high-rise commercial space. The outdoors have been brought indoors thanks to covered walkways with cafes and shops. The building has a rooftop garden, although this is apparently closed to the public.

Photos of Vancouver Public Library courtesy of A. Grudzinskas

Sharon Temple

Sharon Temple exterior view
Sharon Temple exterior view

While initially this structure seems to defy description, the rectilinear plan and symmetry of the Sharon Temple in Sharon, Ontario, evokes the essence of Classical architecture. Each facade of the square building is identical and the tall windows and soaring ceiling fill the airy,  spacious interior with light. Every element has been carefully chosen with a symbolic meaning.

The Sharon Temple was built by the Children of Peace, a group of men and women who had broken away from the Quakers in 1812 under the leadership of David Willson.  Willson embraced music, which the Quakers rejected, and wrote so many hymns that no hymn was ever sung twice in the Temple.  Willson also designed this temple for special celebrations and Ebenezer Doan, the master builder, brought his design to realization.  The architecture is full of Christian symbolism, reflecting the Holy Trinity through groupings of three elements, the twelve apostles through twelve interior columns, the four corners of the earth by the building’s four identical facades and entrances, and the four virtues. The temple was filled with chairs, rather than pews, and could seat 300 people.  The choir, made up of women, stood around the ark which stood in the center of the temple and held the Bible. Musicians ascended the steep, narrow, curving staircase almost 30 feet to the second mezzanine level, where they played while looking down on the ark.

The Children of Peace held most of their meetings in a square meeting house and used the Temple for services fifteen times a year.  The group declined following Willson’s death and the 1880s saw its demise. The Temple was saved from demolition and opened as a museum in 1918.

If  you ever find yourself remotely in the neighbourhood, I highly recommend that you visit this amazing building (http://www.sharontemple.ca) . We are fortunate that it was rescued from abandonment and looming demolition by dedicated volunteers. Many communities have lost large chunks of their built heritage in the name of progress, and with those buildings they lose part of their identity.

Herakles in Toronto

Just a quick post this week as I’m currently busy with another sort of architecture– Minoan peak sanctuaries on Crete– for a presentation later this week.

Head of Herakles
Head of Herakles, former Bank of North America, 49 Yonge St. Toronto

Herakles watched over the comings and goings of the Bank of North America’s patrons from his perch over the main entrance.  The building (now the Irish Embassy pub) is situated at 49 Yonge St, Toronto, at the northeast corner of Yonge and Wellington. The bank was built by Henry Langley in 1873-4 and designed in the Second Empire style by architect Thomas Lamb. Originally the main entrance to the bank was on the Wellington street facade,  but by 1903 Yonge Street had become the major thoroughfare and the segmented (arched) pediment doorway was moved to the Yonge street side.

As mentioned, the building is the Second Empire style, a French-derived style originally brought to Toronto in the 1866 Government House.

This head can easily be identified as Herakles by the Nemean lion skin he wears.  It’s hard to get a really good view of it from the ground, since Herakles is looking up and out rather than down, but you can see the lion’s jaws above Herakles’ forehead. No one has really determined why Herakles occurs here, although I would venture to suggest that he is playing an apotropaic (warding off danger) role. It is common on Classical buildings to see a god, goddess, or, especially, a gorgon, staring out from a temple’s pediment. Their purpose was to ward off evil. I would suggest that this is Herakles’ role here, although the question remains as to why Lamb chose the hero Herakles.

There is another, and quite different, Herakles above the Elgin and Winter Garden Theaters.

(Sources: McHugh 6-7,  Murray 75-77.)

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A Colonnade is a Collection of Columns

column
Anatomy of a column, First Pilgrim United Church, Hamilton, ON

To talk about architecture in any meaningful way it is necessary to know some of the terminology. I thought we would start with columns, since I named this blog  ‘Pediments and Pilasters’, and pilasters are closely related to columns. Columns are perhaps the most easily identified aspect of classical architecture.

A column consists of three main parts: the base, the shaft and the capital. Certain types of bases, shafts and capitals combine to form particular types of columns. You may have heard of the Ionic, Doric and Corinthian orders. Each order consists of a set of particular architectural features that are usually used together, and the order an architect used can be determined from the elements that make up the column and entablature. Today, however, I will just explain the three main parts of the column using this photograph of an Ionic column.

The column base is just that, the base on which the column sits. Not all columns have a base; some sit directly on the stylobate, plinth or foundation. The main part of the column is the shaft. The shaft may be smooth or it may be fluted– that is, it may have vertical grooves extending all or part of the length of the shaft– or it may be decorated with carving. The columns of First Pilgrim United Church are fluted, but the columns of Central Presbyterian Church  are unfluted. The columns from the Ontario Legislative Building use a variety of finishing techniques, including low-relief carving, fluting and nothing at all. The column  shaft usually tapers towards the top (a curve called entasis) to maintain the column’s elegant proportions.

The  shaft is topped off with the capital, a block which visually eases the transition between the shaft and the entablature above it. The capital is one of the key elements that will help you identify what order, or type, the column is.  The photo used in our diagram has Ionic capitals. Other capitals which I will also eventually post about are the Doric, Composite and Corinthian capitals.

The columns support the entablature. The entablature for the Ionic and Doric orders is different, but it serves the same purpose: to hold up the beam that holds up the roof. Greek temples used a column-and-lintel (also called post-and-beam) style of building, so the columns surrounding the building supported the beams which spanned the building and held up the roof.  Modern architecture doesn’t rely on post-and-beams, so these features are now more decorative than functional. We’ll look at the entablature in more detail when we start to explore the different architectural orders.

As you look around for columns, you will notice that they occur in a wide variety of forms. In an old church or cathedral you may see columns that look like a bundle of smaller, more slender columns called colonnettes. A row of columns in a straight line that supports an entablature, such as in our photo above,  is called a colonnade. A row of columns that creates a porch is called a portico, and if that extends around three or four sides of a building or a garden it is called a peristyle. Columns that are attached to a building are said to be engaged and a column that has been ‘flattened’ against a building to become rectangular is called a pilaster. When the row of columns is against a solid wall, it is called a blind colonnade; if the space between columns is filled with windows it becomes a glazed colonnade. One of my favourite buildings, the Landed Banking and Loan Company building in Hamilton, Ontario, is a great example of a glazed colonnade. A colonnade supporting a series of arches is called an arcade— but more about that when we look at arches.

So that, dear reader, is everything you need to know about columns in a nutshell. If you find it all a bit daunting, no worries: there is no quiz and not every entry is going to feature this many technical terms!  I have hundreds of photographs of beautiful columns that I plan to share with you over the course of this blog and I hope it will encourage you to look for beautiful columns as you go about your travels.

A note on photos: Click on the photos to enlarge. All photos are from my personal collection. You are welcome to use them for personal, education purposes only (and with appropriate credit). Please do not repost them, publish them or use them for any commercial purposes.

Standing Guard

Eagle on engaged column, 25 King St. W. I should begin this new blog with some philosophical treatise on the nature of Classical architecture. But I’m not going to. Instead, I am going to share a delicious architectural detail I discovered on a cold, windy day in downtown Toronto.  This grouchy-looking bird tops an engaged column framing a window on the south side of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) building at 25 King St. W, Toronto.

Note the amazing details that have gone into this. The bird’s wings are spread back at a 90 degree angle to support the bricks above. The feathers have been carefully differentiated. His expressive eyes have been deeply carved and his head positioned so that he looks down on the viewer. I should note that this window is very tall so his perch does appear to be quite lofty.  I find the basket-weave capital atop the spiral-fluted column evocative of a bird’s nest.  He is matched with a similar column and bird on the left side of the window.  The birds’ menacing looks threaten anyone who dares to mess with your money.

Banks are great places to look for details like this. Don’t forget to look up!