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The art and architecture of Canada's Parliament Buildings form a set of living narratives about political power. The Gothic Revival exterior privileges a story of Anglo-European dominance, but inside, that story is slowly changing to reflect a more inclusive vision of the nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fragility analysis was conducted for reinforced concrete frame buildings in Canada designed based on the 1965 National Building Code of Canada as representative of pre-1975 era of seismic design practice. Two-, five-, and ten-storey buildings were designed for Vancouver and Ottawa, representing buildings in high and medium seismic regions. They were modelled for inelastic response time history analysis, with respective inelastic hysteretic models for flexure and shear. Software PERFORM-3D was used to conduct incremental dynamic analysis under incrementally increasing earthquake intensity. Probabilistic analysis of the results of incremental dynamic analysis led to the development of fragility functions, which can be used as seismic vulnerability assessment tools. The results are compared with those generated for frame buildings designed on the basis of the 2010 NBCC. The comparison indicates that the probabilities of exceeding performance levels are significantly higher for older buildings relative to recently built fully ductile and moderately ductile buildings, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Kanada-Studien is the property of Gesellschaft fuer Kanada Studien e.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The diffusion of modernist principles in Canadian building and planning occurred through many channels, but among these the Architectural Research Group of Ottawa and Montreal played a crucial role. Formed in 1938 to conduct research into postwar reconstruction, the group produced articles, radio addresses, and exhibitions in an effort to nurture modernist sentiment across the country. For these young architects, the federal government's commitment to replanning and rebuilding postwar Canadian cities presented them with an opportunity to intervene in the future of Canadian practice. They decried the "backwardness" of conservative practitioners while promoting the ideas of a European avant-garde and orchestrating numerous transatlantic exchanges. This article discusses the group's role in politicking for architectural and urban modernism, as well as the contributions of some of its key members. It shows that Canadian professionals were not simply passive receptors of international modernism but played an active part in shaping these ideas during the immediate postwar period, and that Canada's federal government played a unique role in accelerating this process by allowing modernist architects and planners to operate within and through a number of government-sponsored agencies. La diffusion de principes modernistes de construction et de planification au Canada s'est effectuée par de nombreux canaux, parmi lesquels le Groupe de recherche architecturale d'Ottawa et de Montréal a joué un rôle central. Créé en 1938 pour effectuer des recherches en reconstruction d'après-guerre, le groupe a produit des articles, des allocutions radiophoniques et des expositions afin de cultiver un sentiment moderniste à travers le Canada. L'engagement du gouvernement fédéral envers le réaménagement et la reconstruction des villes canadiennes fut l'occasion pour ces jeunes architectes d'infléchir l'avenir de la pratique au Canada. Ils critiquent l'« arriération » des praticiens conservateurs tout en faisant la promotion des idées de l'avant-garde européenne et en organisant de nombreux échanges transatlantiques. Cet article se penche sur le rôle du groupe dans la promotion du modernisme en architecture et en urbanisme ainsi que la contribution de quelques-uns de ses membres clés. Loin d'avoir été de simples récepteurs passifs du modernisme international, les professionnels canadiens ont activement façonné ces idées dans les années qui suivirent immédiatement la guerre. En outre, le gouvernement fédéral canadien a joué un rôle unique d'accélérateur en permettant aux architectes et planificateurs modernistes d'agir au sein et par l'entremise de plusieurs agences parrainées par l'État. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I address the notion of "National Style" in the architecture of Canada's Parliament buildings in Ottawa. Writing in 1968, Alan Gowans named High Victorian Gothic as the national architectural style of Canada, citing Parliament among his prime examples. His work appeared in a volume titled Th e Shield of Achilles, which considered the role that Victorian-era themes and values played in shaping Canada. The volume was published shortly after Canada's Centennial celebrations and captured some of the nationalist sentiment that characterized mid-20th-century Canada. Architectural historians today have largely dismissed the idea that Victorian Gothic is Canada's National Style in the way that Gowans suggested (see particularly Thomas 1997, 2004, and 2011). But the argument still carries weight in some circles; and as Canada approaches its Sesquicentennial, the issue warrants re-examination. Does this style speak to a particular identity, and if so, whose? How have these buildings been interpreted over the years? What messages do they encode? To what extent do these messages diverge from the urban setting in which the buildings are located? These questions tie in to discourses around what it means to be Canadian, highlighting the confl icts between an identity rooted in Northern European (generally British) ethnicity and numerous other identities that popular interpretations of the Gothic style have excluded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the architecture of long-term residential care (LTRC) design in Canada. Because choosing residential care over aging in place is widely perceived as a personal, social, and familial failure, LTRC is fraught with ageist connotations. Relatedly, chronic underfunding and low prestige make many LTRC buildings nearly invisible. Like hotels, university residences, and even summer camps, LTRC buildings try to look residential, but their functional programs are wholly institutional. We examine how these contradictions are legible in Canadian LTRC architecture, drawing on a fictional example—Joan Barfoot’s Exit Lines—that demonstrates how the real LTRC buildings we discuss are popularly understood. We also draw on an extensive set of ethnographic notes from a team-based research project for which members visited sites across Canada, with a promise of anonymity. We argue here that LTRC buildings fade into our neighbourhoods and cities (and even budgets), because their gestures to institutional and to suburban architectural vernacular traditions are unremarkable, but that they require attention precisely because of this uneasy ambivalence. We highlight a handful of Canadian buildings whose architects have broken the mould of LTRC design and offered fresh alternatives to argue that home might not be the only or even the best model for designing LTRC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a summary of the evolution of the Canadian seismic design provisions for operational and functional components in buildings. The evolution of horizontal seismic force and displacement requirements in the National Building Code of Canada is presented and significant changes and parameters are discussed. Numerical examples illustrate the seismic design force levels as stipulated in recent editions of the NBCC for architectural, mechanical and electrical components attached at different elevations to buildings located in moderate and high seismic zones in Canada. Also, the seismic design force levels, computed according to different editions of the NBCC, are compared for a mechanical component and for an architectural component attached to buildings located in Vancouver. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article evaluates the architectural designs of the skyscrapers from the Edwardian period in Toronto, Ontario including city court, temple building and a historical landmark building, called as Rookery Building.

The article evaluates the architectural design of Alberta settlements that was designed by David T. Fortin.

Copyright of Urban History Review / Revue d'Histoire Urbaine is the property of University of Toronto Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

During the rise of historical preservation in the 1970s, Montreal architect and artist Melvin Charney displaced the traditional idea that preservation in architecture consists in the conservation of existing buildings. In his installations of the period, architecture is not located in buildings but in the underlying, unconscious, and presumably universal meaning of architectural figures. His works introduced into conservation practices the radical idea that blending a built image and a narrative may preserve the social content of architecture. In putting back "meaning into the thing itself," Charney demonstrated the efficiency of mythical speech in the creation of a meaningful architecture. His installations of the 1970s teach us that building myths is essential to the creation and preservation of monuments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on the environmentality of the Canadian architecture during 19th century. Topics discussed include the most important Gothic fictional authors in the second half of 18th century, the article "The Limits of the Picturesque," by Ian S. MacLaren on Canada's picturesque, and the novel "The History of Emily Montague" by Frances Brooke. Several photographs which show picturesque characteristic of Canada are also presented.

An essay is presented on the incorporation of ancient classical design of three chrono-geographical sites in British Columbia. The chrono-geographical sites discussed include the neo-Palladian paradigms found in the residential architecture of the area, the classical courthouses in South Carolina which are inspired from the Palladian architecture, and the classical Edwardian courthouse in Vancouver. Also mentioned is the association of civility and jurisprudence with the geographical sites.

BACKGROUND: Green building standards are significantly impacting modern construction practices. The resulting structures are more energy efficient, but their impact on occupant health has not been widely studied. OBJECTIVE: To investigate a range of indoor environment and ergonomic issues in green buildings. METHODS: Retrospective post-occupancy evaluation survey of 319 occupants in two Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified buildings and one conventional building on a Canadian University campus. RESULTS: Results show that working in the LEED buildings was a generally positive experience for their health, performance, and satisfaction. However, the LEED buildings did not always receive the highest ratings for environmental conditions or for health and productivity. Respondents indicated a range of concerns with thermal conditions, office lighting, noise and their overall workstation designs and these were not always better in the green buildings. CONCLUSIONS: These results highlight the need for better integration of ergonomic design into green buildings and into the LEED rating system, and these implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article talks about architectural developments in downtown Toronto focusing on the designs of buildings including Toronto's ninety-ninth public library built by KPMB Architects. Topics include slowdown in the housing market, increase in the number of compact apartments in the city, and rising traffic issues.

The article provides information for the International Confederation of Architectural Museums (ICAM) and the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) and approaches to curating architecture. Topics include the foundation of the ICAM, proposed by former museum director Juhani Pallasmma, and CCA in 1979, the four elements of the CCA, such as a library, photographs, and archives, and details related to several architectural exhibitions at the CCA.

In her 2003 collection of essays Occasional Work and Seven Walks from the Office for Soft Architecture, poet Lisa Robertson describes a shifting and dissolving Vancouver. Through a consideration of the theoretical work of geographer Doreen Massey and architect Rem Koolhaas, we explore the ways that, for Robertson, space is not reducible to singular, official narratives, but is the result of the complex and contradictory accretion of multiple historical trajectories. Focusing on Vancouver's New Brighton Park, both in Robertson's text and as a physical space, we ask how clashing forces, from the forceful organisational movements of global capital to the differentiating, yet minor, descriptions of the wandering poet, produce a space, a specific site, together through their cooperations and antagonisms? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Eastern Townships Studies / Revue d'études des Cantons-de-l'Est (JETS/RECE) is the property of Eastern Townships Resource Centre and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

An architectural review is presented for the design of the building that houses the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) in Ottawa, Ontario.

The article discusses the 150th anniversary of the town hall in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 2013 and the history of Halifax. It examines the construction and architectural style of the town hall and a visit by the then-prince and princess of Wales in August 1863 to dedicate the town hall. The author discusses additions and improvements to the Halifax townscape during the latter half of the 20th century.

This article examines how personhood was shaped in the routine dispositional relations of longhouse life among the Iroquoian societies of eastern North America. Drawing on scholarship that situates the emergence of culturally-specific modes of personhood within relational networks of people and things, I present evidence that over seven centuries, a deep resonance developed between the ‘polyvalence’ of Iroquoian domestic spaces and a broadly ‘fractal’ (sensu Fowler 2004) or ‘part-in-whole’ sense of personhood in Iroquoian societies. An ethnohistoric review of seventeenth-century Ontario Iroquoian concepts of personhood is followed by an archaeological analysis of the development of longhouses between the tenth and sixteenth centuries. I report the results of a kernel density estimation (KDE) analysis of the spatial distribution of post and pit features across longhouse living floors in a diachronic study of 45 hearth areas. The results indicate that everyday practices within the longhouse came to follow several characteristic patterns by the mid-twelfth century ad. These patterns served to define ‘polyvalent’ relationships in which resident persons and nuclear families were at once identifiable as distinct social atoms and as inextricable components of larger hypostatic wholes — most especially house and lineage. A fundamental coherence was thereby established between the embodied experience of domestic taskscapes and a mode of personhood in which any social whole was understood as a dynamic and partible alliance of elements. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Gordon Joseph Culham (1891–1979), a landscape architect and town planner, was instrumental in the professionalization of both his disciplines in Canada. He helped lead the disorganized practitioners of the 1930s into the modern age and enabled them to assume their professional role in the improvement of Canada's urban centres. The discovery of an archive of Culham's papers provides a previously unavailable insight into the conceptualization and creation of the professions of landscape architecture and town planning in Canada. Culham characterized this as leading a ‘useful life’. He prepared, practiced and enjoyed the power associated with the professions he helped found in leading this useful life. He was a Harvard graduate who worked with the greatest landscape architectural firm in America, the Olmsteds and with the premier British town planner, Thomas Adams. Culham returned to his homeland on the eve of the Depression with an unrivalled reputation. He brought with him a strong sense of professionalism and helped elevate a small, dispirited community of Canadian landscape architects and town planners into one united organization for almost two decades. Professional specialization was an inevitable outcome but Culham continued to bridge the divide between his chosen fields throughout his ‘useful life’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article intends to reveal the spiritual dimension present in the religious communities' buildings' architecture as found though morphological analysis. Religious buildings are far more than the quiet background of a spiritual life and an apostolic mission, they reflect the immaterial values of a religious community and structure daily life within. The goal is to understand this translation from intentions to constructions and the design rules guiding their planned development. The monasteries of the Ursulines and Augustinian Sisters in Quebec City provide examples of this analysis. The two case studies reveal the recurrent patterns but also the disruptions and degradations affecting the properties. These changes reflect the shift in the world and values of the religious communities, starting in the 1930s for the Augustinian, which later prevailed following Québec's Quiet Revolution. The building and site evolution underlines the changing values of both the religious orders and the society they were committed to serve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A photo essay which explores visual relationships between the sky and the architecture of large buildings in Toronto, Ontario is presented.

Archaeological excavations from 2005 to 2007 on the site of the Château Saint-Louis uncovered evidence for the official residence of Canada's Governors General during the colonial era. The chateau underwent several changes in the course of its existence, and by the end of the French regime had become one of the colony's most prestigious buildings. The archaeological evidence shows that the layout of the chateau and its secondary buildings followed from an earlier spatial organization model applied by Champlain in 1626, apparently derived from an architectural tradition of north-west France. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the decades following the Second World War, Inuit of the Canadian Arctic were introduced to Euro-Canadian architecture in communities that were scattered throughout the North. These houses, and the settlements in which they were situated, were spatially designed around Euro-Canadian concepts of family, community, economics and administrative control. Direct observations of space use by Inuit families were carried out in a remote Canadian Arctic community, and interpreted using space syntax analysis and agency theory. The results of this study indicate that the programmatic categories typically used to structure Euro-Canadian houses, such as bedrooms, kitchens, living rooms and porches, are rarely adhered to by Inuit families. While this apparent mismatch between intended versus actual uses of space may appear arbitrary, it is, in fact, systematically matched to the spatial structure of the houses they inhabit. These interpretations have important implications for the development of aboriginal housing policy in northern Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the history of architectural history in Canada. The authors examine the primacy that the cities of Toronto, Ontario, Ottawa, Ontario and Montreal, Quebec hold in the Canadian psyche and discuss how architecture reinforces this notion. They also explore the influence that being on the edge of the British empire as well as their proximity to the United States has had on Canadian architecture. They discuss the most prominent literature on Canadian architecture and the schools that have embraced and cultivated Canadian architects and architectural history.

Examines how La Casa a la Carta, a rowhouse constructed in Mexico in November 1997, exemplifies a framework for the transfer of industrialized methods of production and the modification of Canadian products to comply with local culture, code jurisdictions and building methods. Background on the construction; Challenge of technology transfer; Product modifications critical to the industrialized production of a unit.

Part I. Presents an information model for the improvement of design coordination for building projects in Canada. Construction of the model around a central library of generalized building components; Increase in consistency of the design process; Implementation into a collaborative design system.