Architecture & Design   Tags: architecture, industrial_design, product_design  

Search on your architect's name, the building name, city district and any other terms you may have identified

Sample general searches:

• "Calgary and (architect$ or home$ or house$ or building$)"
• "Canad$ and (historic$ or heritage) and (architect$ or building$)"

Note the following two research guides to locating local historic information. 

• A guide to researching building history / Calgary (Alta.). Heritage Advisory Board. [Calgary, Alta. : Heritage Advisory Board, 199-?]  17 pages.
  N4390.2 .A5 C35 C34A (3 circulating copies), Visual & Performing Arts
• Historic downtown Calgary : including Calgary's National Historic District 'Stephen Avenue' / Calgary (Alta.). Heritage Authority.  Calgary : Heritage Authority, 2004. 36 pages.
  N4390.2 .A5 C35 C34 2004 (3 circulating copies), Visual & Performing Arts

Located in Visual & Performing Arts, Taylor 3rd floor

We have clipping files for Canadian architects and some by building

• E.g.  "Alberta / Calgary / Encana Tower" file contains 41 ephemeral items (as of December 2007). 
• Note keywords found in clippings, such as other building and architect/builder names, to use as search terms in other sources, e.g. the historic York Hotel.

See also:

• Find Canadian Art Files (includes Architects),
• Canadian Art Files Name Index, and
• Canadian Public Art & Buildings Index.

(Taylor 4th floor)

• For early Calgary airphotos, fire insurance plans, City Files (electronic) and more.
• E.g. One can do research on the site of a Mount Royal home from different time periods - from the time it was a field to more recent years.
• Airphotos can be borrowed long enough to have photographs made of them.

Art and Architecture in Canada: A Bibliography and Guide to the Literature to 1981 / Lerner, Loren and Williamson, Mary F.   
Online: in Academic Complete (Ebrary) . 
Print: N 6540 .L47 1991 V.1-2, Visual & Performing Arts Reference

Bibliography of Canadian Architecture / Simmins, Geoffrey, comp.   NA 745 .S55 1992, Visual & Performing Arts Reference

Online indexes are good sources of both current and retrospective information.  Newspaper indexes provide the most current information.  Although not always the most scholarly information, in some cases the only information you are going to find is in newspapers.

Artists in Canada  (Web)

• Indexes Canadian Artist Files, including architects, in art libraries across Canada, including University of Calgary Library's up until 1988. 

Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals Online: 1977-   (UofC only)

• The most comprehensive index for architecture
• Indexes more than 1,000 periodicals published worldwide on architecture, archaeology, city planning, interior design, and historic preservation. 

Art Index Retrospective / Art Abstracts Online: 1929-   (UofC only)

• Go to Open Database Selection Area (top of screen) and choose to search both databases
• Note: Architecture is included in most art sources

Canadian Newsstand  (UofC only)

• Covers articles, columns, and features published by many Canadian daily and weekly newspapers.

Canadian Encyclopedia  (Web)

• See sections on architecture, names of architects, buildings, and so on.

Canadian Periodical Index Online: 1988-
(UofC only)

• Canadian and international periodicals, with emphasis on mainstream and academic titles
• Includes some full-text articles

See other: Architecture Indexes and Canadian Studies Indexes in Online Resources.

• On the City of Calgary Heritage Web site at: , choose Inventory of Potential Heritage Sites on the bottom right of page.
• The City'a Inventory of Potential Heritage Sites built prior to 1952 is categorized into A, B and C lists, according to priority/ heritage importance. For A list some research has been carried out for each of these buildings. The associated files are available from the City's Planning Department Library on the 4th floor of the Municipal Building. A file may have info about the building's architectural features and significance, and a bit about it's historical importance, who owned it, who lived in it, etc. researched from archival sources, that would be hard to locate anywhere else. Not sure about photographs, but I would certainly try there.
• In addition, there is a link on the above page to Contact Heritage, another place to ask for information.

• See Historical Land Use Research / City of Calgary Archives regarding past uses of land within Calgary: 

I sometimes find useful information, dare I say, in  Wikipedia, e.g. the Encana building project article.