My undergraduate thesis exploring the role the Market Square Shopping Centre played in re-imagining the downtown of Kitchener, Ontario has been published by the online literary magazine Numero Cinq! The Struggle for the Centre: One City’s Adventure With Modernity
The New Courthouse Construction of Waterloo Region’s new Mega Courthouse is well underway on the block bordered by Duke, Frederick, Weber and Scott Streets. It will add yet another monumental single-use block to the downtown, which does have a certain urban sexiness to it, especially in those sleek computerized renderings, and I do believe that […]
Kitchener’s recent downtown renewal seems to have genuinely turned around the atmosphere there. The new wider sidewalks with sloped curbs not only make the sidewalks more pedestrian friendly, they also make the roadways less daunting as well. J-walking has become much easier because of the reduced distance between sidewalks and the slower speed of cars […]
The last mall on our trip was Peterborough Square – yet another red brick fortress. The inside, however, looks like it’s been renovated pretty recently. It has this sort of re-modernist aesthetic, but with warm materials and colours. There’s wood and marble almost everywhere, cut and arranged in beautiful rounded geometric forms. And yet, amongst […]
The same day we visited Brantford Market Square we also visited Hamilton. There are two malls in downtown Hamilton on the same block, Jackson Square and Hamilton City Centre (formerly Hamilton Eaton Centre). I have yet to find out why they were built in the same block nearly 20 years apart, but presumably the Hamilton […]
On the first day, we decided to just drive to Brantford so we could have an early start the next day. We stayed at a sketchy motel a few doors down from a teenage couple who smoked a lot. In the other direction, one of the units looked like it may have been converted into […]
London Citi Plaza was the first surprise of the trip. It actually seems like a semi-functioning mall! The architecture is also pretty stunning all in all, with vaulted arcade-style roofs and some decor that has clearly been updated since the mall’s first incarnation. In particular, the super sleek, super simple metal pillars and bar chairs […]