Serving Kitchener, Waterloo, Wilmot, Woolwich & Wellesley Townships

EXECUTIVE 2016 - 2017

President Marg Rowell

Vice-President Vacant

Treasurer Amanda Stellings

Secretary Sandra Parks

Membership Coordinator: John Arndt

Education Coordinator: Susan Burke

Social Convenor Vacant

Members at Large Sandrina Dumitrascu

Communications: Gail Pool, Communications Director

Deb Westman; Newsletter Editor

Waterloo Regional Heritage Foundation Representative: John Clinckett

NEWSLETTER Fall 2017 Volume 13, Number 4

what’s inside ?

Loss of Bill C-323 is but the Beginning

ACORN: Call for Submissions

Join a Focus Group on City of Waterloo's CHL Study

Highlights from CITY BUILDING: Lecture Series Kick-off

A Dialogue on Intangible Cultural Heritage

Seasonal Gathering on December 9th

Opportunities + Actions

What's Up Waterloo Region?

Education

Legacy

Invitation

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Loss of Bill C-323 is but the beginning

Message from the National Trust for Canada

The loss of Bill C-323 is not the end… It’s the beginning

The House of Commons Environment and Sustainable

Development Committee's November 28 recommendation

not to proceed with Bill C-323 is deeply disappointing.

However, the Committee's report (slated for Monday,

December 4) is expected to signal a broader federal vision

for historic places and recommendations for a range of

measures. Once the Committee’s report is tabled in the

House of Commons, the Minister of the Environment and

Climate Change must respond within 120 days.

Why is the loss of Bill C-323 the beginning? It is an important

opportunity to insist on even more substantial gains for

heritage than those proposed in Bill C-323. We urge

everyone with a stake in historic places to be informed, be

active and be part of the movement.

Here is what individuals can do:

Sign on to the National Trust’s statement of priorities for

federal action here (this will open a survey window).

Sign up for our newsletter so we can keep you informed and

engaged.

For more information on the process see The National Trust

for Canada - Change the Game 4 Heritage.

Source: National Heritage Trust

ACORN Spring 2018

Call for Submissions: REMNANTS OF THE PAST

A remnant is defined as a remaining piece or surviving

trace when the greater part of an entity is gone. Ruins

of buildings and landscapes, abandoned public works, and

relocated fragments of a lost community sometimes attract

attention as remnants of an important activity from Ontario’s

past. Even better, some are now enjoying active preservation

or repurposing.

The Spring 2018 ACORN will look at both rural and urban

examples where surviving traces remain to draw links to

valued heritage and historic continuity. Articles should

be a maximum of either 500 or 1000 words in length and

“encourage the conservation and reuse of structures,

districts and landscapes of architectural, historic and cultural

significance to inspire and benefit Ontarians.”

Before commencing work on an article, please send your

proposal or questions to liz.lundell@rogers.com to avoid

duplication and ensure photo guidelines are received.

Deadline for submissions is January 29, 2018. Submitters

are encouraged to look at past issues available on the ACO

website.

Image: Susan Radcliffe

Opportunities+Actionsin the news

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What’s up Waterloo Region?... more opportunities

Focus Group on Cultural Heritage LandscapesDate January 8th, 7-9pm

Location Waterloo visitor and Heritage Information

Centre

10 Father David Bauer Drive, Waterloo

As part of our City Building theme for this year, the ACO

has arranged with the City of Waterloo for a focus group

on Cultural Heritage Landscapes (CHL). A CHL is an area

of heritage significance that has been modified by human

activities and is valued by a community.

Planning for CHLs can reveal information about areas that

may need conserving built heritage that reveal important

stories from our past, CHLs contribute to a community's

character and sense of place.

One part of the Waterloo study involves organized focus

groups. Members of the ACO are invited to participate in

one of these focus groups.

With a limit of 15, ACO participants will meet with facilitators

to:

• briefly review what a cultural heritage landscape is and

why the City of Waterloo is doing the study,

• discuss, review and rank areas that have already been

identified as candidate cultural heritage landscapes, and

• identify any new areas that haven't yet been identified.

Maps and photos will be provided to assist in the review

and identification of CHLs.

For more information on the study, see: City of Waterloo

Cultural Heritage Landscapes.

You may also want to participate as an individual at the City

of Waterloo's website: Mapping Waterloo’s Cultural Heritage

Landscapes.

We think that members of the ACO are well placed to

provide input into this process. The focus group meeting is

open to members and you can register at Eventbrite.

Heritage Day 2018Saturday February 25th

New Dundee Community Centre1028 Queen St., Wilmot ON

watch for

details!

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But what exactly is Intangible Cultural Heritage, you may be

asking yourself? My first exposure to the phenomenon dates

back several years when I caught a brief CBC news clip reporting

that the craft of making and decorating gingerbread cookies in

Northern Croatia had been listed by UNESCO as Intangible

Cultural Heritage of Humanity, one which this organization

was committed to safeguarding as a world treasure. At the

symposium I further learned that such a craft is considered to

be an “essential component of cultural diversity and of creative

expression”. The making and decorating of gingerbread in

Croatia has been passed on from one generation to another for

centuries, thus becoming one of the most recognizable symbols

of Croatian identity.

So think twice before you bite into that piece of fancy gingerbread

this Christmas. It may be on UNESCO's endangered list!

Of course, there's much more to intangible heritage than fancy

cookies, as we came to understand during the symposium. It

includes other living expressions of our identity such as oral

traditions, performing arts, festive events, and the knowledge

and skills required to produce traditional crafts. So the Trust had

quite a challenge addressing the broad diversity of practices and

traditions recognized as intangible heritage today. The format

they chose for the symposium, however, did allow participants

to experience quite a range of representative examples.

The first panel which explored “identity and cross-cultural

exchange” brought together representatives from organizations

as diverse as the Aga Khan Museum, the Canadian Lesbian

and Gay Archives and the Canadian Language Museum, which

certainly made for lively discussion. Two other panels discussing

“inter-generational transfer” and “intangible cultural heritage

and the digital age” were equally well-composed. The panelists

included, among others, a First Nation's App Developer, a

Intangible cultural heritage is an elusive

though fascinating subject, one which the

Ontario Heritage Trust invited the public to

explore at a recent symposium in Toronto.

Susan Burke, a member of your ACO

Executive attended, as did member Karl

Kessler. Karl joined a number of other artists

and craftsmen who provided interactive

demonstrations during the course of the day,

several of which animated the skilled trades

Karl has been documenting in his Vanishing

Trades project.

A Dialogue on Intangible Cultural Heritage

Wychwood Barns - Barn # 3 and entry to the community gathering place. Photograph - Toronto Artscape Inc.

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university professor and host of a history

podcast and a writer/storyteller in the Jewish

tradition.

Breaks between the panel discussions featured

performances by an indigenous singer/

songwriter from the Lakehead area and a

spoken word artist whose poetry preserved

her native Jamaican language.

Culinary traditions from a variety of cultures

were showcased by the finger foods served

up for lunch - Mexican tacos, Asian dumplings

and spicy noodles, Italian bruschetta, Japanese

sushi - all were delicious and portable;

lunchers strolled through the aforementioned

exhibitions which, throughout the day

engaged registrants with interactive displays

and demonstrations of skilled trades such as

carpentry and masonry.

One of the highlights of the symposium for

Karl and me was certainly the venue known as

the Wychwood Barns located at St Clair and

Christie streets in Toronto. Once used as a

streetcar maintenance facility, this series of

five brick structures on 4.3 acres of land was

transformed into a community centre and park

by Toronto Artscape Inc. in 2007/8, a true

adaptive re-use success and a game-changer

for the city of Toronto.

Built in 1913, by the mid-90's the buildings had outlived their usefulness

and had been declared redundant. Plans for demolition were underway

but because the site had been declared of heritage significance by the

City, the Councilor for that Ward, Joe Mihevc, suggested that a heritage

study be conducted for the “streetcar barns” and that adaptive re-use

be considered. Architect Joe Lobko, in concert with the community,

identified the activities missing in the area and today the “barns”

provide live/work studio space and housing for artists, office space for

local community groups, public green space, a greenhouse, a farmers'

market, a beach volleyball court and a community gathering place,

actually a covered street between two of the original buildings where

our symposium was held.

As journalist David Steiner effused in Canadian Architect magazine in

2010, “The adaptive re-use of long-vacated streetcar service barns as a

cultural precinct in midtown Toronto is a prime example of what the city

is starting to do right.”

Panel Discussion on “Identity and Cross-cultural Exchange” underway. Photograph (top) - Karl Kessler

Interactive displays and demonstrations by skilled craftsmen. Photograph (bottom) – Karl Kessler

on a field trip with Susan Burke and Karl Kessler

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“

Leavitt Plan, 1914, commissioned by the Berlin

Civic Association, included a system of boulevards

encircling built areas, with civic squares, Union

Station Plaza and zones for industry and residential

uses. (from Elizabeth Bloomfield “Economy,

Necessity, Political Reality: Two Planning Efforts in

Kitchener-Waterloo, 1912-1925.” Urban History

Review 91 (1980): 3–48)

I graduated in Honours Geography from

Waterloo Lutheran University in 1968. This had

to be the best urban historical geography lecture

I have heard in the past 50 years! The use of

historical maps and photos added greatly to this

insightful presentation.ACONWR member Warren Stauch

Designing our Neighbourhoods: Trends and

Influences over 150 Years

Adams-Seymour Plan, 1924, ordered by the newly

formed City of Kitchener Planning Commission,

was adopted by Kitchener, making it a “pioneer in

the Canadian town planning movement.” (from

Elizabeth Bloomfield “Economy, Necessity, Political

Reality: Two Planning Efforts in Kitchener-Waterloo,

1912-1925.” Urban History Review 91 (1980):

3–48)

With several successful lecture series behind it, the local branch of the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario hosted the first of this season’s educational presentations on November 9th to widespread acclaim from those in attendance. The City Building lecture series examines the role played by planning, urban design and landscape architecture in the 3-dimensional development of our communities while encouraging the preservation of our built heritage.

Our first presenter, Glenn Scheels,

Principal Planner and one of the

founders of GSP Group, has over 35

years of planning and design experience.

After completing degrees at Ryerson

and some Toronto work experience, he

spent most of his professional career in

Kitchener-Waterloo.

Sheels’ engaging presentation, Designing

our Neighborhoods: Trends and Influences

over 150 Years, took a look at the twin

cities’ growth from small villages to one

of Canada’s largest and most vibrant

urban areas.

More than 50 people attended the

presentation which began by looking

at the early days in Waterloo County,

when initial growth was incremental:

lot by lot, extending streets, organic

and mixed, controlled by the Town

engineer. Kitchener’s East Ward served

as an example. Sheels compared this

to more planned communities, like

Guelph and Goderich, and reviewed

City Building | Lecture Series Kick-off

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Lecture highlights from Sandra Parks

The Westmount neighbourhood straddles both Kitchener and Waterloo. Sheels cited it as

an example of the new planning policies coming into force in the early 20th century. (For

orientation, Glasgow St. runs side-to-side along the bottom of the photo, with Westmount Rd.

running top-to-bottom.)

the influence of British and American

(1869 Olmstead Plan for Riverside, IL)

sources, and international movements

like City Beautiful (1893 Chicago

World’s Fair), the Garden City (1913

Canberra, AU) and New Towns (1903

Letchworth, UK).

Berlin/Kitchener started to come into

its own in the early 20th century, when

civic and business leaders endorsed

town planning as a way to organize

and address problems and promote

themselves as a progressive city.

Sheels illustrated this beautifully using

research in Elizabeth Bloomfield’s

1980 article, “Economy, Necessity,

Political Reality: Two Planning Efforts

in Kitchener-Waterloo, 1912-1925,”

available online at www.erudit.

org/en/ journals /uhr/1980-v9-n1-

uhr0892/1019348ar.pdf. Both the

more sophisticated 1914 Leavitt Plan,

commissioned by W.H. Breithaupt of

the Berlin Civic Association, and the

more modest 1924 Adams-Seymour

Plan, ordered by A.R. Kaufman of

the newly formed City (Kitchener)

Planning Commission, included both

municipalities. The latter was adopted

by Kitchener, but not Waterloo.

In the mid-1920s, Kitchener became

known internationally as a “pioneer in

the Canadian town planning movement,

as the first Ontario municipality to

adopt a modern town plan and enact an

associated zoning by-law” (Bloomfield).

This comprehensive presentation

looked at the 1930s and ’40s, a time

of limited growth and small scale

expansion, but important as the

beginning of the automobile age, as well

as the post WWII era of rapid growth

in Canada and K-W, when the industrial

economy provided good paying jobs

and the mantra was to get away from

the ‘dirty’ city.

New thinking in town planning included

segregation of uses, with curvilinear

street patterns, cul-de-sacs, local public

parks and private space. The grid was

replaced by a new hierarchy of streets

from local to highways.

Sheels looked at American and Ontario

examples of these new auto-oriented

communities, and how this idea took

hold in KW neighbourhoods like

Westmount, Kitchener’s Rosemount

and Waterloo’s Beechwood. The post-

war tract housing boom was examined

by looking at Levittown on Long Island,

Don Mills in North York, and the Victory

Housing neighbourhood of St. Mary’s

in Kitchener. The latter is now one of

two Heritage Conservation Districts of

wartime houses in Ontario; the other is

in Ottawa.

Residential neighbourhoods aren’t the

only places affected by new planning

policies – Sheels examined our industrial

areas, engineering and economic

influences, transportation, office and

shopping complexes, even stormwater

management.

The present and future was also explored.

Lots sizes and the orientation of houses

on narrower lots has changed. A ‘new

urbanism’ may see more neighbourhoods

with rear lanes and garages. New forms

of housing are emerging: back to back

and stacked townhouses, 10-plex units,

and more mixed-use sites.

Knowing his audience, Sheels focused

part of his presentation on conserving

older buildings, though, as he pointed

out, KW is not unique in the loss of

its older building stock. Recent trends

have provided a catalyst of downtown

rejuvenation: Waterloo Town Square,

Kitchener City Hall, Lang Tannery,

Kaufman Lofts and others, Merchants

Rubber to Breithaupt Block, and the

future of Huck Glove and Ratz-Bechtel

to new mixed uses and Rumpel Felt as a

new transit hub.

With transportation moving full circle,

from early rail and streetcars to today’s

LRT line, transit is evolving from the

hub and spoke model to north/south

and east/west corridors. Transportation

is influencing development and shaping

our cities. Planning policy is building on

that and public policy is influencing city

growth.

Sheels concluded with a list of city

shapers of the future: transit and rail

service, autonomous cars, on demand

services, intensification, efficiencies,

provincial policy, focus on public spaces

and social activity, small household size,

affordability, technology, energy use

and sustainability.

As Sheels demonstrated, town planning

and the accompanying public policy

play a key city-building role, as well

as a large part in many aspects of our

everyday lives.

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ACO Noth Waterloo Region

Seasonal Celebration

Serving Kitchener, Waterloo, Wilmot, Woolwich & Wellesley Townships

Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ACONorthWaterloo

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/@ACONWRB

Email us at: aco.nwrb@gmail.com

Executive Committee Members Wanted

Do you enjoy the programs and activities of your local branch of the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario? The Lecture Series, AGM

and Seasonal Celebration, newsletters and email blasts, and participating in advocacy in our community? If so, here’s an opportunity for

you to join the North Waterloo Region Branch Executive Committee.

The Executive Committee is the decision-making and planning body for the local branch. It represents branch members by appearing at

municipal councils, consulting with various levels of government, and issuing statements on local heritage matters. It plans educational

activities for branch members and the general public. It’s a liaison to the Provincial organization and to other ACO branches, and looks

for ways to support their actions and interpret them to both branch members and the general public.

The Executive has several openings at present, including:

Vice President: assists the President, carries out the duties of the President in that person's absence or inability, and performs other

duties determined by the Executive.

Social Convener: organize refreshments for events, including organizing people to prepare refreshments or ensuring refreshments

are delivered or picked up on the day of an event, purchases supplies, and submits receipts for expenses to the Treasurer.

The Executive Committee generally meets monthly, except for July and August. Meetings are two hours long, on a mutually agreeable

evening. All members participate in the Executive Committee's deliberations and decisions in matters of policy, finance, programs,

personnel and advocacy. New members will serve until the next Annual General Meeting.

If you are interested in joining the Executive Committee or would like more information, please contact President Marg Rowell at

(519) 634-9354 or aco.nwrb@gmail.com.

Saturday, December 9th, 2017

1 - 4pm

Emmanuel United Church

Purple room

22 Bridgeport Road West

Waterloo

Please enter from the parking lot

behind the church

Free parking at Waterloo Public Library

Please bring a plate of treats.

Hot mulled cider and joice will be provided.