Comme 2019 marquera le 100e anniversaire de l’Institut canadien des urbanistes, le Comité du centenaire a mis de l’avant un certain nombre de projets, dont la production d’une chronologie illustrée des personnes, des lieux, des plans et des politiques qui ont marqué l’histoire de l’urbanisme au Canada.;xNLx;- - - ;xNLx;Project Manager: Dilys Huang, RPP, MCIP;xNLx;Production Editors: Kyla Tanner, Miranda Brintnell, Ilias Kokoros ;xNLx;Chief Curator: Dr. David Gordon, RPP, FCIP;xNLx;Curatorial Committee: Gerard Farry, MCIP; Dr. Raphaël Fischler OUQ, MICU; David Gordon, RPP, FCIP; Dr. Jill Grant, LPP, FCIP; Dilys Huang, RPP, MCIP; Kyla Tanner
In 1535, when Jacques Cartier arrived in what is now called Montreal, he found a thriving Iroquoian community at the foot of the mountain. According to the explorer, the village of Hochelaga was located on the island of Montreal, approximately 8 km inland from the docking point, and was surrounded by corn fields extending in the vicinity of Mount Royal. Cartier described the village: "There are some fifty houses in this village and each about fifty or more paces in length, and twelve or fifteen in width, and built completely of wood and covered in and bordered up with large pieces of the bark and rind of trees, as broad as a table, which well and cunningly lashed after their manner." To this day, no physical evidence of the ancient village of Hochelaga has been found.
During the pre-Contact period between 1550 and 1650, the Wendat (Huron) Confederacy, comprising four First Nations, planned and developed approximately 30 villages between Lake Simcoe and the Georgian Bay Peninsula. Based around extensive agricultural subsistence and trading economies, the Huron Wendat settlement patterns demonstrate the organizational complexity of pre-Contact First Nations community planning.
Jean Talon fut intendant de la Nouvelle-France entre 1665 et 1672. C’est dans ce rôle qu’il contribua à bâtir la nation que le Canada allait devenir, notamment en encourageant l’établissement permanent, en créant le mode de lotissement radial distinctement canadien et en introduisant le tout premier recensement, dont il se servait pour éclairer ses décisions en tant qu’un des premiers urbanistes du Canada.
The first British colonial towns in Canada featured a regular gridiron of blocks divided into individual building lots for settlers. The small blocks in Charlottetown's original waterfront grid have retained their historic ambience and charm. In this early map, note the central square and four neighbourhood squares. The original town site was surrounded by common land, which provided room for future expansion and defense works.
St. Andrews, New Brunswick is an early Canadian example of colonial town planning due to its Loyalist founders and grid street pattern. Loyalists fled Castine, Maine during the American Revolution and settled on the Passamaquoddy Bay, part of the Bay of Fundy, establishing St Andrews in 1783.
The Governor General, Lord Dorchester, had ambitious plans to develop what is now Ontario. His 1789 model included a system of townships each averaging 100 square miles and containing a town site. The towns were to be a square mile, divided into one-acre "town lots" with space for streets, church, market, and defence works. A large military reserve would surround the town and then farm lots beyond this.
Established in 1859 and incorporated in 1860, New Westminster is known as the oldest city in Western Canada and was originally the capital of British Columbia until 1866. The Downtown area (original boundary of the city) was first surveyed by the Royal Engineers with a grid pattern parallel to the Fraser River.
The Dominion Land Survey (DLS) is the method used to divide most of Western Canada into one-square-mile sections for agricultural and other purposes. The survey was begun in 1872, shortly after Manitoba and the North-West Territories became part of Canada, following the purchase of Rupert's Land from the Hudson’s Bay Company. Covering about 800,000 square kilometres, the survey system and its terminology are deeply ingrained in the rural culture of the prairies. The DLS is the world's largest survey grid laid down in a single integrated system. The inspiration for the DLS system was the plan for the prairies to be agricultural economies.
La ville de Montréal fit appel à Frederick Law Olmsted pour concevoir un parc naturel sur le mont Royal. La vision d’Olmsted consistait à créer un parc naturel de paysage montagneux qui profiterait à la classe ouvrière et lui permettrait de profiter de la nature sur le territoire de la ville. Il est aujourd’hui l’une des principales attractions touristiques de Montréal et des millions de visiteurs s’y rendent chaque année.
The lands now known as Canada were already inhabited by Indigenous peoples long before European settlers began to arrive approximately 500 years ago. People lived in permanent settlements, traveled to follow food sources, or moved among sites, depending on the time of year and availability of supplies. On the west coast, abundant fishing led to coastal settlements such as the Haida Gwaii villages, such as Skidegate Village, which remained in place for centuries.
The City of Saskatoon was born out of the Temperance movement in 1882 when the Temperance Colonization Society of Toronto established a “dry” community in the area. John Neilson Lake led Temperance colonists to the site that is now Saskatoon.
Banff, Albeta, was founded in 1883 near a proposed Canadian Pacific Railway tunnel site. The first town, 3 km from present-day Banff, was known as "Siding 29". Banff's development, controversial because of the fragility of its environment, has always been determined by the federal government, tourism and the railway. In 1885 the Banff Hot Springs Reserve was formed on 10 acres of land around the local hot springs, and in 1887 a major expansion of park land occurred with the formation of the Rocky Mountains Park. Subsequent winter recreational developments and Banff's symbol as Canada's premiere all-season tourism destination encourages over 3 million individuals each year to visit the park. Banff was incorporated as a town in 1990 with a population 7,584.
In 1885, the first survey of the City of Vancouver was begun by CPR Civil Engineer Lauchlan Hamilton. The downtown grid system in today's Vancouver is credited to Hamilton.
In April, 1900 a fire broke out in downtown Hull that left 40 per cent of the city homeless. It burned the Court House, Post Office, the Imperial Hotel, an Anglican Church, newspaper offices, as well as numerous shops and residences. The fire then spread to the many timber yards and mills lining the Ottawa River. The wooden interprovincial bridge across the Chaudière rapids was also set ablaze severing the only land link between Hull and Ottawa. Through the afternoon and evening the fire worked its way south, devastating the LeBreton Flats area. In the end, the inferno spread over five square miles of territory, consuming more than 3,200 buildings—factories, mills, shops and homes. Seven persons lost their lives, mostly in Hull. More than 14,000 people, were left homeless and largely destitute as their places of employment were also destroyed. Estimated losses range from $10 million to $15 million ($300 million to $450 million in current dollars).
In 1903, Frederick Todd prepared a preliminary parks plan for the Canadian capital, which considered both Ottawa and its sister city Hull, located across the river in the province of Québec. However, the Ottawa Improvement Commission declined to retain him as a regular consultant and relied on its technical staff for design and construction. Many of Todd’s recommended parks and parkways were incorporated in the future plans of Edward H. Bennett (1915), Noulan Cauchon (1923), and Jacques Greber (1950).
Tuxedo Park was planned by the Olmsted Bros. as an exclusive residential suburb of Winnipeg. Through the use of landscape architecture, allowances for wide roadways and boulevards, strict building codes, and generous allotments of park land, Tuxedo Park came to be regarded as “the most beautiful and exclusive district for elaborate home-building in Winnipeg". In close proximity was Assiniboine Park, located along the Assiniboine River. At the time, it was considered well beyond the limits of the city. Assiniboine Park was designed by Frederick Todd as a large suburban park and recreation grounds for the rapidly growing city.
John M. Lyle attended the Hamilton School of Art and trained as an architect at the Yale School of the Arts before enrolling in the École des beaux-arts, Paris in 1894. Upon return to Canada in 1906 he was instrumental in disseminating the beaux-arts ideals to the architectural profession through Atelier Lyle's lectures at University of Toronto. His early works reflect the beaux-arts style - Royal Alexandra Theatre (1906) and Union Station (1913-27) in Toronto - as do his later works - Memorial Arch, Royal Military College, in Kingston (1923) and Bank of Nova Scotia in Ottawa (1923-24).
The largest national park in the Canadian Rockies, Jasper Park, was created in 1907. Tourism began as early as 1915 and the first major hotels, the Athabasca and the world-famous Jasper Park Lodge, opened in 1921 and 1922 respectively. Thomas Adams prepared this town plan in 1923. The coming of the Grand Trunk Pacific and Great Northern railways (1911-12) and an all-weather road to Edmonton (1936) spurred Jasper's growth, not only as a tourist town, but also as a railway divisional point. Today, more than 3 million visitors pass through the park gates each year, and more than 1.8 million stop to experience this unique wilderness and World Heritage Site. The Town of Jasper was incorporated in 2001 with a population of 4,051.
In 1908, the Municipality of Point Grey was established by breaking away from the Municipality of South Vancouver. The newly elected Council moved quickly to improve access and services to the area. The BC government re-planned part of the town in 1925 and a Town Planning Commission was formed in 1926, chaired by Professor Frank Buck. Point Grey collaborated with the City of Vancouver on the 1929-30 comprehensive plan prepared by Harland Bartholomew Associates.
En 1909, Westmount (Québec) adopte le premier règlement de zonage au Canada qui prend la forme de règlements d’aménagement. Un « règlement sur la construction » est assorti d’un ensemble complet de contrôles d’aménagement comme on les connait aujourd’hui. L’instance municipale divisa le territoire en un certain nombre de districts, attribua à chaque zone des usages prescrits pour le sol et des types d’habitation, imposa des normes variables de retrait et de hauteur des édifices, les surfaces couvertes et même la densité des projets.
The 1909 Plan of Chicago was a foundational document for the City Beautiful movement across Canada and the USA. Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett created the Plan with a concern over city appearance, and a goal of improving living conditions in both urban and suburban areas of Chicago.
Thomas Mawson's Regina plan in 1912 was inspired by the City Beautiful movement and work by Daniel Burnham. While his plan was never fully implemented, it drove much of the planning and design for Wascana Centre.
In 1912, Leaside was planned according to garden suburb principles by landscape architect Frederick Todd, contracted by the Canadian Northern Railway (CNR). Part of CNR's growth plan involved creating planned communities built around new shops. Leaside would be the third of these model towns, following Mount Royal, Quebec and Port Mann, British Columbia. Leaside became the first town in Ontario to be comprehensively planned before construction.
Mont-Royal est une banlieue indépendante de Montréal, conçue par l’architecte paysagiste Frederick Todd. Elle fut construite par le Chemin de fer Canadien du Nord. Todd s’inspira en grande partie des mouvements de cités-jardins, banlieues vertes et City Beautiful. Les principes de conception englobent l’utilisation d’un réseau quadrillé, d’un système de boulevards diagonaux et d’un réseau de rues curvilignes.
Begun in 1913 as a response to the city’s housing crisis, Riverdale Courts (now Bain Apartments Co-operative) was one of two housing projects built by the Toronto Housing Company. The buildings were designed by architect Eden Smith in the Arts & Crafts style. The project was a public-private partnership dedicated to providing comfortable but affordable homes for low-wage earners. It was among the first social housing projects in Canada aimed at improving conditions for the working class.
Thomas Mawson was an architect, landscape architect, and city planner. He was an advocate for the City Beautiful movement in Canada in the early 20th century. Mawson was invited to the University of Toronto to deliver a series of six public lectures in 1911 on the subject of city planning. Coverage in the local and national press led to commissions for work in Toronto, Halifax, Banff, Vancouver, Victoria, Saskatoon and Regina, including his grandiose City Plan for Calgary. Many of the original colour perspective drawings of the plan have survived, and are now held in the Mawson Collection at the Canadian Architectural Archives at the University of Calgary.
Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Thomas Adams was involved in the British Garden City movement and was founding President of the Royal Town Planning Institute. He came to Canada in 1914 to serve the Commission on Conservation. Adams founded the Town Planning Institute of Canada in 1919, which primarily promoted the new discipline of planning.
Bowring Park opened in 1914 as a public recreation area for St. John's on land donated by Bowring Brothers to mark their 100th business anniversary in Newfoundland. Frederick Todd and Rudolf Coshius began the original design and construction in 1912.
In 1915, Edward H. Bennett authored one of the first comprehensive plans in Canada for the cities of Ottawa and Hull. Despite its ambitious, yet practical aesthetic and technical proposals, little of the plan was ever implemented. However, the plan did have some influence, notably on Gréber's plan of 1950.
Horace Llewellyn Seymour worked as a land surveyor and municipal engineer before being seconded to the town-planning section of the Commission of Conservation in 1915, where he served as Thomas Adams' lieutenant for eastern Canada. This was Seymour's formative period as an urban planner, and Adams' ideas influenced him throughout his career. His wide experience included the reconstruction of the area devastated by the halifax explosion and two benchmarks of Canadian planning: the comprehensive plan and zoning scheme for Kitchener-Waterloo (1922-24) and the first plan for Vancouver (1926-29). From 1929 to 1932 Seymour was director of town and rural planning for Alberta.
In 1915, Morell and Nichols proposed a grandiose civic centre for the City of Edmonton. The Minneapolis landscape architects' design was heavily influenced by City Beautiful principles. The objective of the plan was to bring a sense of civic grandeur to indicate to potential investors that the city had a bright future.
From the ashes of the catastrophic Halifax Explosion, which shattered the City's North End on 6 December 1917, rose the Hydrostone District, a splendid example of an English-style garden suburb. The neighbourhood is an important achievement by the influential town planner Thomas Adams; it is also Canada's first government-assisted housing project.
Le plan de la ville de Témiscaming fut conçu par Thomas Adams et influencé par les principes de cités-jardins. Il reposait sur des concepts tels que la ceinture de verdure, la séparation des usages conflictuels et l’aménagement de rues épousant le contour du territoire de la ville frontalière.
Thomas Adams' 1919 design for Lindenlea was a Garden Suburb in Ottawa. It was a demonstration project for the federal government's first affordable housing programme, providing modest homes in an attractive setting with a community hall, small parks system, tennis court and playground.
The Town Planning Institute of Canada (TPIC), which was modeled after the British Town Planning Institute, was founded by Thomas Adams in May, 1919 to primarily promote and professionalize the new discipline of planning. The TPIC was eventually renamed as the Canadian Institute of Planners (CIP) in 1974.
Noulan Cauchon was an engineer, town planner and, at various stages during his career, an architect. He was a founder of the Town Planning Institute of Canada and the Ottawa Town Planning Commission in 1921. He played a significant role in the planning of Canada’s capital city in the early twentieth century. Cauchon was a close ally of Thomas Adams during the 1914‐26 campaign to extend town planning across Canada. Cauchon’s background as a railway engineer influenced his City Scientific approach to planning, which contrasted with the City Beautiful proposals for the capital produced for the federal government. This City Scientific approach became the dominant mode of planning in Canada after 1918. Cauchon produced a comprehensive zoning by‐law and many small‐scale planning schemes for the Ottawa area.
A.E.K. Bunnell managed the Ottawa office of the Federal Plan Commission (FPC) from 1913-15 and worked with Edward Bennett. The FPC ‘s 1915 report was one of the first comprehensive plans for a Canadian metropolitan area. In 1942-43, Bunnell was a member of the Advisory Technical Committee to the Toronto Planning Board preparing a master plan. Bunnell joined the Ontario Department of Planning and Development in 1944 as a consultant and for many years was the Director of the Community Planning Branch, became Director of the Housing Branch, and a consultant to the Department of Municipal Affairs. Bunnell was instrumental in drafting Ontario’s 1946 Planning Act and 1948 Housing Development Act. He was a founder and honorary member of the Community Planning Association of Canada. Bunnell was made a Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Planners in 1973.
Thomas Adams and Horace Seymour produced the zoning plan for Kitchener and Waterloo. It was comprised of five simple land use districts: Heavy Industrial, Light Industrial, Business, Residential, and Detached Private Residential. Citizens lobbied the Ontario government for authority to enact the comprehensive zoning bylaw.
Harland Bartholomew and Associates (St. Louis) were hired by the newly established Vancouver Town Planning Commission. Their publication, A Plan for the City of Vancouver, British Columbia, was the first comprehensive plan ever created for Vancouver. It detailed key elements of the city’s layout and envisioned extensive growth for the future. Although never fully implemented, the plan was updated in the 1950s and the City has applied many of Bartholomew's planning ideas over the past 90 years.
After the Great Depression, many families were dependent on ‘relief’ as unemployment for workers reached about 20 per cent. As a result, the League for Social Reconstruction formed as a social planning movement that sought to provide economic prosperity to all Canadians.Their 1935 book, Social Planning for Canada, set the agenda for decades to come.
The first National Housing Act was passed in 1938. The Act served the dual purposes of providing housing and creating employment opportunities. The first Canadian social housing legislation was introduced when the National Housing Act made provision for construction of low-rent housing. In 1949 the NHA was broadened to include federal-provincial programs to fund housing for low-income families, seniors and the disabled. Prior to 1970, government programs assisted one-third of all housing starts. Most of this assistance was directed to market housing, with less than 5% of all housing starts for lower income Canadians.
En 1938, le gouvernement fédéral fit l’acquisition des premières parcelles de terrain dans les collines de la Gatineau, ce qui donna lieu à la création du parc du même nom. En tant que parc, cet espace vert n’allait plus servir à l’exploitation de ressources, mais allait plutôt devenir un lieu de conservation et de loisirs. Au fil des décennies, il est devenu plus qu’un lieu de loisirs. Région naturelle chérie, il est aujourd’hui un employeur important et un moteur de développement économique.
Eugene G. Faludi undertook the 1943 Master Plan for Toronto and Environs, only the second master plan in North America that went beyond municipal boundaries to take a regional approach to planning. It included Canada`s first subway system, much of the regional highway system we see today, and a grand civic square at Bay and Queen Street, which would eventually become Nathan Phillips Square.
From 1945-1960, Eric W. Thrift was Director of the Metropolitan Planning Commission for the Winnipeg area. Thrift became one of the first Fellows of the Town Planning Institute of Canada (TPIC, now the Canadian Institute of Planners), for his role in re-establishing the Institute. He was elected President of the Institute in both 1953-54 and 1961-62, the only person to lead the Institute on two occasions. In 1960, he was appointed as General Manager of the National Capital Commission. Thrift was elected president of the American Society of Planning Officials (ASPO, now the American Planning Association) from 1964 to 1965, the only Canadian to hold that post. In 1970, Thrift was appointed as Queen’s University’s campus planner and as a founding Professor in its new School of Urban and Regional Planning.
Halifax's first "Master Plan" was created in 1945 to assist with transitioning the city from wartime to peacetime, and dealing with a number of issues in Halifax, including "the handling of modern traffic in its narrow streets" and identifies slum clearance and housing, street changes and improvements, a vocational school, proper library facilities, and preparation of zoning bylaws as solutions.
In 1945, A.L.S. Nash he brought his surveying and engineering experience to the new Community Planning Branch of the Department of Planning and Development in Ontario where, during the 1950s and 60s, he was largely responsible for drafting and implementing Ontario’s Planning Act. Nash was elected as a Fellow of the Town Planning Institute of Canada in 1969. He was President of the Town Planning Institute of Canada and on the Board of Directors of the American Society of Planning Officials. He was an Honorary Vice-President of the Ontario Land Surveyors.
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) is the federal crown corporation responsible for administering Canada's National Housing Act. CMHC was created in 1946 as the successor to the Wartime Housing Corporation, and until 1979 was called Central Mortgage and Housing. Its mandate was to help improve housing and living conditions in Canada.
Enacted in 1946 by the Province of Ontario, the Planning Act gave municipalities the power to develop official plans and zoning bylaws to regulate land use planning. It also allowed the establishment of local planning boards and committees.
The Community Planning Association of Canada was formed in 1946 following a community planning conference convened by Central (now Canada) Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). The Association promoted public education and citizen involvement in planning to Canadians.
In 1946, John Bland, the Director of the School of Architecture at McGill University, completed the Report of the City of St. John's Newfoundland for the Commission on Town Planning. The report's purpose was to provide a guiding plan for the development of St. John's.
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