176 GRAND DESIGN

Former courthouse is fine example of architecture from underappreciated era

Former Kitchener courthouse fine example of architecture from underappreciated era

With each passing year, a tidy, formallooking piece of civic infrastructure presiding over Weber Street in downtown Kitchener has slowly transformed into a rare gem; a survivor from an underappreciated – and endangered – period in architectural design.

The block-long former Waterloo County courthouse, at 20 Weber St. E. between Queen and Frederick streets, was built in 1964 and designed by the local firm Snider Huget and March. And it is an essay in mid-20th century Modernism.

It served its original purpose until 2013, when the Region of Waterloo adapted the building for various uses. Robertson Simmons architects Inc. managed the renovation.

Clad in subtly shaped and textured concrete, two wings converge at a gentle angle that softens the long horizontal slab and frames a park-like green between the entrance and street. Dozens of vertical window bays project outward from the darker-toned ground floor and clerestory windows at the roofline, further balancing the horizontal profile. To take in the well-proportioned side elevation as well as the front, the building is best viewed from Queen Street.

But the most remarkable characteristic of the former courthouse is that its original façade is wholly intact. Of all the big, ambitious local buildings designed in the mid-20th century – commercial, public, institutional – many that survive have undergone significant exterior alteration. Not here. The courthouse makes a coherent architectural statement in the language of its era, without revisions, unabridged.

Well-designed and well conserved, it speaks of our cultural heritage as powerfully as any work of art.