
Science & Tech
20 Canadian innovations you should know about
Celebrating Canadian Innovation Week 2023 by spotlighting the people and organizations designing a better future
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History
Cities are always changing. When we see a building go down, it’s generally because changes of taste and commerce have made it seem dispensable. But sometimes the forces at work are more dramatic: winds, floods or fire.
In the 19th century, neighbourhoods and buildings burned regularly. Wood-frame construction and the limits of firefighting technology meant that, once a blaze began, it would often consume a large area. Even a major building clad in masonry, like the Moncton Sugar Company mill on that city’s waterfront, could go.
Of course, a major disaster also has architectural victims. Halifax’s Exhibition Building had been partially dismantled and moved – but still standing – when the Halifax Explosion of 1917 wiped it out.
In more recent years, it can be weather that is the culprit. In 2010 a winter storm hit the Outer Battery in St. John’s and took Keith Garland’s century-old family fishing shed with it. And in the next century, the changing climate will inflict more and perhaps surprising damage on our cities. The Cecil Hotel in Calgary had seen many things in its century of existence. But when the Bow and Elbow rivers overflowed their banks in 2013, in a storm fed by the effects of human-made climate change, the flood that came spelled the hotel’s end.
Here, a selection of 10 buildings from across Canada.
Fishing is fundamental to the culture and economy of Newfoundland, and it can be a difficult and dangerous business, even here. The Battery, at the mouth of St. John’s Harbour and the base of Signal Hill, has often been hit by rockfalls and avalanches over the years, to the peril of the fishers and families who live here. But in 2010, it was a winter storm that devastated the Outer Battery, taking with it all of Critch’s Wharf and several buildings including the century-old family fishing hut of Keith Garland, which slid into the water. Outer Battery Road.
Designed by Edward Keating.
Designed by David Stirling & William C. Harris.
Designed by John William Hopkins.
Designed by Walter Chesterton.
From 1891 to 1910, children from First Nations and Métis communities in Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Manitoba were brought here. The Presbyterian Church and the federal government had straightforward goals: to Christianize them, assimilate them, and teach them a trade. “All influences should be used to break up the reservation and tribal systems,” wrote the first principal, A.J. McLeod. One historian estimates one hundred children died here. At least thirty-five were buried in a cemetery on the site; their identities are mostly unknown. The school closed in 1910, becoming a jail and later a home for delinquent boys. It burned in 1948, and the only trace remaining is the cemetery. Its architect, Chesterton, joined the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. 701 Pinkie Road, Pense.
Designed by Frank P. Martin.
The original Queen’s Hotel was one of the first hotels in Saskatoon, built in 1892, just after the railway arrived. This larger five-storey replacement was a Beaux-Arts brick building with terracotta trim and pediments. By 1980, the Queen’s was catering to long-term residents. On May 31, a major fire broke out, probably in the sauna. Forty-six firefighters came to battle it; two of them, Victor Budz and Dennis Guenter, perished. In the wake of the fire, the Saskatoon Fire Department changed its breathing equipment and increased its inspections of saunas. 1st Avenue South at 20th Street; now a parking garage.
Designed by Alfred Bodley and Samuel Maclure.
The Canadian Settlers Co. built this hotel on eleven acres of waterfront land, with fifty-seven rooms and eight bathrooms. At the time, Oak Bay was a place to get away from Victoria. The hotel burned in 1902, and a new Oak Bay Hotel was built on a different site; this too disappeared as Oak Bay evolved into a suburb. Now Oak Bay Marina.
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