On the northern border of Toronto, the Town of Markham is often qualified as a suburb. Driving through Markham is a standard edge city trek – bursts of development along major arterial roads are collections of residential façades emulating grander, more palatial architectural feats from throughout history. In-between are postmodern clock towers indicating hubs of low density commercial activity surrounded by vast pastures of free parking. Along with Markham’s conventional, rapidly-developed, twentieth-century streetscape, is a robust heritage planning policy that enables a peculiar integration of what was once rural into what is hoping to be urban. One autumn afternoon by grace of an earnestly invested tour guide, a community called Markham Heritage Estates was introduced to my Markham-scape. Set back from 16th Line is a subdivision, Markham Heritage Estates is made up of transplanted hundred-year-old houses from former farmlands surrounding Markham, set in a careful framework that makes this subdivision an anomaly. Softly curving routes tour the visitor through wide parcels that spill onto the sidewalk-less street. Houses that once stood in solitude on rural properties vastly separated from adjacent properties now face the street as unlikely neighbours. They share the collective memory of a land made up of large private holdings, with a sigh of relief that their community still validates a particular moment of rural Canadian history. Despite having been corralled into this subdivision, these houses have been carefully curated on their sites and together can now function as a rural heritage museum. Each house photographed perfectly on its own; no neighbour was too close and no element of landscaping betrayed the new density. A Heritage Estates tour guide told us how the site had been used in television commercials and how great it was that these homes look so authentic -they were an ideal backdrop! As someone who grew up in rural Canada, the difference between houses that are comfortable being seen from all sides versus those who present only street facades (in veneers) is a major distinction between rural and urban vernacular. Purpose and pragmatism play into site planning in a rural context and there is nothing innately rural about a subdivision composition – regardless of the style of the houses in it. farmhouses | suburbia by dana seguin + christopher katsarov luna heritage village an embedded collective memory
christopher katsarov luna
This instance of rural urbanism is bizarre but fascinating. I suggest a visit around 3:30pm when gigantic SUVs glide through the ‘hood returning blonde children home from school and some of the heritage-inspired interiors begin to illuminate. –
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