A WORKPLACE SHINES
A NEW BUS GARAGE IN EDMONTON BUILDS ON THE LEGACY OF EARLY 20TH-CENTURY INFRASTRUCTURE BUILDINGS, CONCEIVED AS ARCHITECTURALLY AMBITIOUS EXPRESSIONS OF CIVIC PRIDE. Kathleen Andrews Transit Garage, Edmonton, Alberta ARCHITECTS gh3* (design architect) with Morrison Hershfield (prime consultant) TEXT Trevor Boddy PHOTOS gh3* PROJECT
ARCHITECT
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CANADIAN ARCHITECT 11/21
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One of the few lazy diagonals in a hard-working grid-iron city, Edmonton’s Fort Road is well-named. Dating from the 18th century and by far the oldest street in the city, Fort Trail—now renamed to the blander Fort Road—is a former First Nations then Settler ox-cart trail that meandered from Fort Edmonton to Fort Saskatchewan. During the past hundred and fifty years, first a rail line, then a light rail transit corridor arrived to flank its path. Fort Road is also the unlikely location of two pioneering works by top Toronto architects, separated by two generations. A spirit of innovation and of taking workplaces very seriously links the two buildings constructed on this site: Eric Arthur’s 1936 Canada Packers Plant and Pat Hanson’s Kathleen Andrews Transit Garage, completed last year in its place.
2021-11-03 1:49 PM
