Modern architecture worth protecting
It’s not old, but a committee says Goudie Eventide Home is noteworthy
KITCHENER — Although it’s only 24 years old, the 1993 A.R. Goudie Eventide Home is a historically significant example of modern architecture and its key architectural features should be protected, according to Heritage Kitchener.
The long-term care home at 369 Frederick St. has pure, simple geometries” and clean lines, says a heritage assessment presented to the city’s heritage advisory committee on Tuesday.
With its “crisp stucco and glass exterior,” the building “appears fresh and immaculate (even 24 years after its construction),” wrote Owen Scott, a landscape architect and president of CHC Limited of Guelph, in the heritage assessment. “Its interior volumes have a sense of visual weightlessness” and an airy feel because of the large windows in its public areas.
“It provides modern space filled with light and fresh air to promote health and vitality,” Scott says.
The heritage committee was considering a proposal by owner peopleCare to build a U-shaped five-storey retirement home on the treed lawn at the front of the property closest to Frederick, and add a three-storey addition to the existing nursing home.
The building isn’t protected with a heritage designation, but is listed on Kitchener’s inventory of historic buildings.
The committee has no power to impose conditions on the proposal, but can advise city planners as they work with the developer to refine the site plan, said Leon Bensason, Kitchener’s co-ordinator of cultural heritage planning.
It was clear from the discussion Tuesday that the committee agreed that the building has heritage value and should be considered for heritage designation, but committee members made it clear the proposed addition needs to do more to protect the heritage features of the original building.
“I don’t think this proposal really does it (the building) justice,” said committee member Steve Burrows.
The consultant highlighted several elements that deserve protection, including the redtopped steel, concrete and wood canopy over the main entrance, prominent walls glazed with bright yellow panels, the lightfilled common area and the unusual location of the building set far back from Frederick Street.
The site’s long history as a place of caring for the needy and vulnerable also contributes to its heritage value, the report said.
The Goudie home is the fourth building on the site designed and built for the care of people in the city. The story began in 1869 with the Waterloo County House of Industry and Refuge, which housed the poor, homeless children, the chronically ill and unwed mothers. The original refuge was meant to be a self-sufficient farm, with residents contributing their labour to the farm and household chores. Farming continued until 1956.
It became the county home for the aged in 1947, was sold to the Salvation Army in 1962, which hired award-winning Montgomery Sisam Architects to build the current building in 1993. The home was named after Arthur R. Goudie, a department store founder and a major donor.
The proposed addition would eliminate about a third of the entrance canopy and convert one of the large yellow-panelled walls from an outside wall to an interior one. The view of the 1993 building would be blocked from Frederick Street, since the proposed retirement home would fill in most of the lawn at the front of the site.
The consultant concluded those changes had a minor impact on the heritage of the building, but the committee disagreed
“I do think it’s been altered far too much,” said committee member Kim Huxted. “It’s not respectful of what’s there.”
The committee wasn’t unanimous though. Member Slavko Miladinovic disagreed, saying the building’s architecture wasn’t as important as its continuous history of care.
Bensason said he would pass on the committee’s majority view that more needs to be done to protect the building’s heritage, to Kitchener’s director of planning, who will make the final decision on the proposed addition and site plan