Canada's leading architectural and design critic, Adele Freedman has been writing for the The Globe and Mail for almost a decade. For this collection she has selected her best columns, including a revised and expanded version of her profile of architect Peter Dickinson, the modernist architect whose work (including the Benvenuto Place Apartments in Toronto and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Building in Montreal) had a profound influence on the Canadian architecture scene before his pr...

Every bookshop has a storyWe're not talking about rooms that are just full of books.We're talking about bookshops in barns, disused factories, converted churches and underground car parks. Bookshops on boats, on buses, and in old run-down train stations. Fold-out bookshops, undercover bookshops, this-is-the-best-place-I've-ever-been-to-bookshops.Meet Sarah and her Book Barge sailing across the sea to France; meet Sebastien, in Mongolia, who sells bo...

Unbuilt Toronto explores never-realized building projects in and around Toronto, from the citys founding to the twenty-first century. Delving into unfulfilled and largely forgotten visions for grand public buildings, landmark skyscrapers, highways, subways, and arts and recreation venues, it outlines such ambitious schemes as St. Alban's Cathedral, the Queen subway line and early city plans that would have resulted in a Paris-by-the-Lake.Readers may lament the loss of some projects...

An inroductory guide to antique styles, history, and designsNot sure how to tell Chippendale from Queen Anne, or Art Deco from Art Nouveau? Learn the easy way with Frank Farmer Loomis IV, an appraiser and lifelong antiquer. If you're looking for clear, simple explanations rather than unpronounceable terms like corbeille a fleurs (flower basket) or sang de boeuf (red glaze), you've come to the right place, as he will "demystify all the perplexing twaddle" for you. A...

A captivating exploration of the ever-evolving world of architecture and the untold stories buildings tell.When a building is finished being built, that isn’t the end of its story. More than any other human artifacts, buildings improve with time—if they’re allowed to. Buildings adapt by being constantly refined and reshaped by their occupants, and in that way, architects can become artists of time rather than simply artists of space.From the connected farmh...

There is no better way to see America than on foot. And there is no better way to appreciate what you are looking at than with a walking tour. Whether you are preparing for a road trip or just out to look at your own town in a new way, a downloadable walking tour is ready to explore when you are.Each walking tour describes historical and architectural landmarks and provides pictures to help out when those pesky street addresses are missing. Every tour also includes a quick primer o...

The Villages Within is an irreverent version of Torontos past that will not improve anyones knowledge of history, but its fabrications and exaggerations may provide an amusing insight into the lives of those who built the town of York. It is an expos of historical untruths, a book that no school should ever permit its students to read.Discover Lord Dorchesters unusual method of staying warm while his underwear froze during his first winter in Canada. Learn about Elizabeth ...

Mike Filey's "The Way We Were" column in the Toronto Sun continues to be one of the paper's most popular features. In Toronto Sketches 3, the third volume in Dundurn Press's Toronto Sketches series, Filey brings together some of the best of his columns.Each column looks at Toronto as it was, and contributes to our understanding of how Toronto became what it is. Illustrated with photographs of the city's people and places of the past, Toronto Sketches

Mike Filey’s "The Way We Were" column in the Toronto Sun continues to be one of the paper’s most popular features. In More Toronto Sketches, the second volume in Dundurn Press’s Toronto Sketches series, Filey brings together some of the best of his columns.Each column looks at Toronto as it was, and contributes to our understanding of how Toronto became what it is. Illustrated with photographs of the city’s people and places of the past, Toronto Sketches is a nost...

'Craftsmanship has again become fashionable in high places, just as it did in the last few recessions.'The concept of craftsmanship has never been as relevant and timely as it is today. Assailed on all sides by – among many other tendencies - flexible working, short-termism, portfolio careers, quick-fix training and the cult of celebrity, it has recently re-entered public debate with a new sense of urgency. Why?A bestseller in hardback, this series of linked essays by the m...

There is no better way to see America than on foot. And there is no better way to appreciate what you are looking at than with a walking tour. Whether you are preparing for a road trip or just out to look at your own town in a new way, a downloadable walking tour is ready to explore when you are.Each walking tour describes historical and architectural landmarks and provides pictures to help out when those pesky street addresses are missing. Every tour also includes a quick primer o...

"An excellent and novel exploration of key ideas behind city spaces and the behaviors they engender." — Wall Street JournalFrom the acclaimed landscape designer, historian and author of American Eden, a lively, unique, and accessible cultural history of modern cities.Dream Cities explores our cities in a new way—as expressions of ideas, often conflicting, about how we should live, work, play, make, buy, and believe. It tells the sto...