Architecture - Kitchener

Not just buildings..infrastructure, public space, landscape

Houses:

Kitchener "specials" our houses.. the phrase is taken from "Kitchener an Illustrated History",

and describes typical historic brick houses of good quality.

Glasgow Street bridges Waterloo and Kitchener and includes larger relatively

wealthy homes from 50s on.

Materials:

Brick: Like much of Ontario, yellow brick is popular and looks great against the

snow. We have red brick too.

Stone: Not so much

Asphalt: This is our most ubiquitous contemporary building material. I sure would

love to see an "Asphalt Index" for this town.

Colour:

So if you were looking for an "indigenous" colour for Kitchener, I would choose

this deep red, which has nothing to do with rust, or rustbelts.

Examples of unusual rustication..

These include a boulder look on Jubilee Drive and "sticky out" brick on Schneider.

Streetlamps:

We have a mix of urban and suburban arterial type lamps, that sometimes

result in interesting combinations where the "traditional" meets the modern.

Brutalism:

We have a few examples, a style characterised by use of sculptural undecorated concrete, see

Duke Street Parking Garage & Centre In The Square Guelph is a better place for that kind of thing.

Modernism:

KWAG has a book -Images of Progress on the subject in this area http://www.abcartbookscanada.com/kwag.html

Groundscrapers:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundscraper

Kitchener has some good ones they tend to be very low, maybe just one storey.

DavidJensenius: Loves the Duke Street Parking Garage as it is...

Cherie: Likes our old factories like The Hide House on Victoria Street. The Hide house is about 55 meters long.

Hide House

KenBrown!: Likes a small little office building on King East

Lisa1: Likes The End of the Roll (currently being unrolled)

& Laurier Pool (Waterloo).

Jilianpopplon: Would like to draw our attention to the Clocktower in Victoria Park, ubiquitous logo & a monument to our heritage history...Front Page

Adam: Selects the School of Pharmacy an obvious highlight http://www.e-architect.co.uk/toronto/pharmacy_school.htm

Steve Lambert: Is "taken" by the jail next to the Governor's House