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Ottawa
Ontario International style houses are cubist
in nature with flat roofs, clean lines,
straight edges, and full sheets of glass. The smooth exterior
surfaces created by glass in steel frames are contrasted with
variously textured blocks and poured concrete.
This house has an ornate block column
on the flat front porch. The room above the garage has a fully
transparent glass curtain wall, and behind it the wall with
the door is a fully transparent wall
as well. The design elements are held together with vertical
and horizontal steel bands, cantilevered
overhangs, and expanses of textured
surfaces.
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Ottawa Ontario
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Hamilton
This unusual house was designed
and built in 1958. It was much publicized because it was the
first building in the world made entirely of steel framing,
appropriate for Hamilton which is known as the Steel City.
The roof is a gentle segmental
arch shape creating an elegant barrel
vault. All of the wall surfaces are windows; there is a
three foot overhang over the walls. The mullions
are of steel. The house is in a woodland setting, sheltered
from the road to ensure privacy.
Marken was the architect.
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Hamilton Ontario
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Hamilton
A public building in the International style is
Mills Library in McMaster University. The patterned brickwork
on the outer wall surface allows light to pass through into
the library indirectly. Side windows on the bays
allow even more light in.
Midway vertically is a horizontal band
of unpatterned concrete to stop the bays from looking too much
like columns. The roof is slightly
tapered and continues the bays.
The International style was very appropriate for
public buildings that were not meant to have a heavy Classical
presence or give the impression of age as in the Gothic
revivals. This library allows maximum diffused light into the
interior which makes it perfect for reading.
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Hamilton Ontario
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Port Credit
The Samit-Linke House built in
1939 is indicative of the strictly unadorned but nicely balanced
qualities of the International style. This building is very
avant-garde for its time. The front façade
is symmetrical with paired windows on either side of a simple
frontispiece. The windows have simple
sills, no surrounds,
and no cornices or lintels.
The garage is hidden from the front view, nicely tucked into
the front wing. The chimney is simple
and elegant with a small projection on the exterior. The building
is made of gold brick with a flat roof and slight rustication
on the base.
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Port Credit Ontario
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Niagara Parkway
International Style homes, like Brutalist homes,
are built for people of exceptional taste who are looking for
an elegant, low-maintenance home that will reflect their forward
thinking. The landscaping is generally considered part of the
design: formal gardens and perennial
beds are usually replaced by larger hedges and bushes of extraordinary
colour. This house on the Niagara Parkway is no exception.
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Niagara Parkway Ontario
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Guelph
This low-rise office building
in Guelph exhibits some of the qualities Mies van der Rohe was
responsible for: a box-like shape, large expanses of window
with coloured spandrels, and aluminum
mullions.
The rectangle is imposed on the
land rather than forming to it. The building exterior is low
maintenance and the interior allows for plenty of light for
the office staff.
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Guelph Ontario
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St. Catharines
This downtown office building
makes maximum use of the city block that it inhabits. Where
the Edwardian office buildings had flat façades with
extravagant door and window surrounds, this building has muted
openings. The second floor and all those above it are cantilevered
out from the first floor, effectively obscuring all of the entrances.
The façades on all sides
are uniform, with mullions acting as ribs supporting alternating
glass and metal panels. There is no ornament of any kind, and
concentration is needed even to distinguish the windows from
the wall panels.
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St. Catharines Ontario
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Simcoe
Two buildings in downtown Simcoe show the blending
of Art Deco and International style elements. The owners of
the one featured on the right have painted the buildings in
bright colours to accentuate their design qualities. This example
is pink with deep blue sills, a blue
frontispiece, and blue horizontal
bands above the corner windows supporting
the central decorative stepped-back parapet
on the façade.
The windows have deep blue muntin
bars in a geometric pattern. The building is rectangular and
streamlined, the blue bands giving the
façade the appearance of speed and movement.
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Simcoe Ontario
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