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Heritage Matters  contributor

Romas Bubelis

Romas Bubelis was the Heritage Architect at the Ontario Heritage Trust. He retired in 2019.

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Re-saturating calcimine paint on decorative plaster moulding from 1817. Reproduction rosettes at top left. Homemade traditional plasterer’s tools at bottom left. (Macdonell-Williamson House, Chute-a-Blondeau)
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The case for craftsmanship

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Viewing Fulford Place from the Olmsted gardens. Photo: George Fischer
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Tracking Olmsted in Ontario

An undiscovered legacy of work left by landscape architects Charles and Frederick Olmsted Jr. exists in fragments of landscape …
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Dismantling select terra cotta pieces in the façade of Toronto’s Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre Centre that are deteriorated and require replacement.
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Maintaining a national treasure

Toronto’s Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre Centre is an inward-looking building of interior architecture. The exterior, by …
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The dining room at Fulford Place in Brockville
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Building on the past

Eastern Ontario offers an array of impressive historic houses. Some of these houses – owned and operated by the Ontario Heritage …
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Gun port in the basement crypt of the Bank
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The character of adaptive reuse

In his 1947 essay titled “The Past in the Future,” architectural historian John Summerson (1904-92) offered this description of an …
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McIntyre Mine Headframe, Timmins
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Northern icons

The towering McIntyre Mine Headframe in Timmins. The Clergue Block House and Powder Magazine in Sault Ste Marie. St. Francis of …
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Traditional building materials (McMartin House, Perth)
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Building assets

Which is more sustainable – an artificial or live Christmas tree? This is an environmentalist’s conundrum, and it illustrates the …
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Casement windows of the Oval Boardroom
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In praise of older windows

Façade: a word of double-edged meaning. Architecturally, it refers to the face of a building. In literature, more often than not, …
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Richview-Willow Grove Cemetery
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Rush and remembrance

On a windswept summer day in 2005, a small congregation gathered beside a cloverleaf off-ramp at the western fringe of Toronto. In …
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Detail of reproduced George Brown House central hall wallpaper
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Historic wallpaper: Finding what’s beneath

Wallpapers first appeared in Canada as early as the mid-17th century. These oldest papers were block-printed, hand-painted or …
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