Who Created First Nations Residential Schools?
Sir John A. Macdonald is often vilified for creating the Indigenous residential schools that devastated so many First Nations communities. But a recent online presentation by an amateur Ontario historian Dave Town, to the Orillia Museum of Art and History tells a story of earlier residential schools and the battle the First Nations fought regarding […]
585 Johnson Street – A Proposal for a New Building
585 Johnson St. Proposal Illustration by Studio 531 Architects. During the December 14, 2021 meeting of the Victoria Heritage Advisory Panel a proposal was presented to demolish the much-altered but existing building at 585 Johnson Street, constructed in 1876 for and by Thomas Shotbolt, pioneer druggist. The original building was designed by architect John Teague. […]
Saving Building With Seismic Upgrades
In the City of Victoria recent development proposals which involved historic masonry buildings in the downtown area have had engineering opinions put forward that, under the current Building Code and the pending next step, it is either uneconomical or extremely difficult to seismically upgrade these structures. In September 2020, when discussing the Duck Building proposals, […]
Facadism at 1702 Quadra
1702 Quadra – Will this soon be but a façade? The Abby at 1702 Quadra Street, at the corner with Fisgard, was constructed shortly before WWI to a design by C. Elwood Watkins and was the site of Hong Yuen & Co., Produce, before being converted to the existing eight to nine unit apartment building. […]
Heritage Houses at Risk
New Proposals in Victoria Will Require the Demolition of Historic Houses Back to business. Projects under consideration at Victoria include the proposed demolition of a couple of buildings upon which we have little information. 224 Kingston – All we have on our website is that it was built in 1890. It is adjacent to a […]