The design of the façade paid amusing tribute to the early wood- framed pre-WW1 facades of Old Strathcona. I would typically never deliberately reconstruct a replica façade in a recognised historic area, but the Comics store deserved some special treatment that paid tribute to the authentic historicism of the area without pretending to be anything but a cheerful take on the comic book business.
The Comics store is depicted as an unlikely over-stated cartoon hero in an early twentieth century streescape. David Murray
Unfortunately the life of this building was all too short. There was a fire in the neighbouring Antiquarian Book Store building in 1990, four years after the completion of the new facade, with a partial collapse onto the roof of the Wee Book Inn. The damage was so severe that the whole Wee Book Inn building was reconstructed — the comic book façade demolished, never to be seen again.
James Dow
The Comics store and The Mite ended up being temporary architecture. For different reasons they outlived their times. Perhaps the Comics store in Old Strathcona could never could have been considered a permanent feature of the streetscape because it was so specific to the comic business. In fact, the current owner, Carey Luxford told me that his parents were contemplating reconstruction of the store before the fire, perhaps because the old building structures were no longer viable. Commercial businesses come and go over time. On Site review asks what is the acceptable durée for architecture? In this case, fate intervened to answer this question. It was ‘progress’ that ended the life of The Mite. If the fire had not destroyed the Comics store, perhaps progress would have also brought about its demise. It is interesting to me that both these buildings were fantasies in their own right, a little
unbelievable. The Mite owes its reputation to a cartoon depiction in the Ripley’s Believe It or Not oeuvre and the Comics store to the fantasies that are embedded in comic books, which often depict both super optimism and the super human – the heroic. g acknowledgements Research assistance: Erik Backstrom Chris Zdeb, Edmonton Journal article - July 30, 2015 https://edmontonjournal.com/entertainment/local-arts/wee-book-inns-words-and- cats-celebrate-half-a-century-in-edmonton DAVID MURRAY , AAA, FRAIC, APTI, has a long history in preservation, rehabilitation of historic resources and urban design strategies in historic districts. He practices in Edmonton, Alberta. https://www.davidmurrayarchitect.ca
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on site review 43: architecture and t ime
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