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Expanding the narrative
Expanding the narrative
This is part of a broader conversation about whose history is being told, about gender, people of colour and the economically disenfranchised, and others whose stories have been overlooked or intentionally omitted from the authorized discussion.
Food
Francophone heritage
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Intangible heritage
Intangible heritage
Intangible cultural heritage includes language, traditions, music, food, special skills, etc.
Medical heritage
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MyOntario
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Contributors

Romas Bubelis

Romas Bubelis was the Heritage Architect at the Ontario Heritage Trust. He retired in 2019.

The case for craftsmanship

One of the greater pleasures of working in architectural conservation in Ontario is the opportunity it provides to work with traditional building materials: the timber...

Viewing Fulford Place from the Olmsted gardens. Photo: George Fischer

Buildings and architecture

Tracking Olmsted in Ontario

An undiscovered legacy of work left by landscape architects Charles and Frederick Olmsted Jr. exists in fragments of landscape across Ontario. Their father, Fredrick Law...

Dismantling select terra cotta pieces in the façade of Toronto’s Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre Centre that are deteriorated and require replacement.

Buildings and architecture

Maintaining a national treasure

Toronto’s Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre Centre is an inward-looking building of interior architecture. The exterior, by contrast, appears massive but plain. The singular exception...

The dining room at Fulford Place in Brockville

Buildings and architecture
Community

Building on the past

Eastern Ontario offers an array of impressive historic houses. Some of these houses – owned and operated by the Ontario Heritage Trust – are featured...

Gun port in the basement crypt of the Bank

Buildings and architecture
Adaptive reuse

The character of adaptive reuse

In his 1947 essay titled “The Past in the Future,” architectural historian John Summerson (1904-92) offered this description of an old building. He was speaking...

Buildings and architecture
Community

Northern icons

The towering McIntyre Mine Headframe in Timmins. The Clergue Block House and Powder Magazine in Sault Ste Marie. St. Francis of Assisi Anglican Church in...

Traditional building materials (McMartin House, Perth)

Buildings and architecture
Environment

Building assets

Which is more sustainable – an artificial or live Christmas tree? This is an environmentalist’s conundrum, and it illustrates the paradox of “sustainable” building materials...

Buildings and architecture

In praise of older windows

Façade: a word of double-edged meaning. Architecturally, it refers to the face of a building. In literature, more often than not, it connotes a front...

Community
Cultural landscapes

Rush and remembrance

On a windswept summer day in 2005, a small congregation gathered beside a cloverleaf off-ramp at the western fringe of Toronto. In Richview-Willow Grove Cemetery...

Detail of reproduced George Brown House central hall wallpaper

Archaeology
Buildings and architecture
Cultural objects
Tools for conservation

Historic wallpaper: Finding what’s beneath

Wallpapers first appeared in Canada as early as the mid-17th century. These oldest papers were block-printed, hand-painted or stenciled. Pattern and colour was applied to...