A “Transformative Project”
The National Trust for Canada has announced that Montgomery’s Inn has won an Ecclesiastical Insurance Cornerstone Award, as one of six “Transformative Projects” nationwide. The award is in recognition of the Inn’s recent restoration.
The awards honour projects “completed between 2016 and 2019 that have creatively renewed or transformed historic places or landscapes for new or traditional uses.”
Here is how the Trust described Montgomery’s Inn and its restoration:
A bustling museum in the suburb of Etobicoke, this historic former inn underwent a major restoration to position it as a hub for generations to come. This project demonstrates how historic museums can adapt to become even more vibrant gathering places in the service of their communities.
The project’s staged construction allowed the museum to continue to operate normally while integrating the restoration work into tours, using it to enhance the Inn’s “discovery” narrative.
While respecting the large historical spaces, the project successfully increased the inn’s spatial transparency, accessibility, and flexibility. Period spaces can now easily be transformed into a gathering place or farmers market, aided by a new lighting system.
“A great example of a small museum demonstrating big community effort.”
-Jury commentsKey Players: George Robb Architect (Peter Stewart and Francine Antoniou); Ojdrovic Engineering Inc. (Nebojsa Ojbrovic); J.D. Strachan Construction Limited (Don Hutchinson); Iconoplast (Jean-François D. Furieri); City of Toronto (Sandra Lougheed and Jo Ann Pynn); and City of Toronto, Montgomery’s Inn Museum (Alexandra Kim).
https://nationaltrustcanada.ca/nt-awards/montgomerys-inn-museum-restoration
Other transformative projects honoured include the Senate of Canada Building in Ottawa and the Burrard Bridge in Vancouver.
About the Awards
The Ecclesiastical Insurance Cornerstone Awards bring national attention to exemplary projects and places that contribute to quality of life and sense of place, and illustrate the viability of heritage buildings and sites for traditional or new uses.The awards are presented in two categories, with the potential for up to six (6) awards in each category:
A. Transformative Projects Projects completed between 2016 and 2019 that have creatively renewed or transformed historic places or landscapes for new or traditional uses; and
B. Resilient Places Historic places or landscapes that illustrate extraordinary resilience, significance, and benefit to a community over a sustained period of time, with a successful track record of 10 years or more.
Special consideration will be given to places and projects that reflect one or more of the following principles:
The involvement of youth;
https://nationaltrustcanada.ca/what-you-can-do/awards/cornerstone-awards
Social innovation or enterprise;
Environmental benefits;
Cultural diversity.