Architecture: Stewards of a Heritage Home

Originally published in the Globe and Mail. Read the full text here.

Edmonton homeowners double as stewards of building’s arts and crafts heritage

When, in 2004, David Locky first visited his future home – a bungalow in Edmonton’s Highlands neighbourhood – he was mesmerized by the brick on the fireplace. It was as coarse as old-growth tree bark and as iridescent as a mollusc shell. In the right light, you’d see shades of ochre, copper and burnished red.

At the time, Mr. Locky and his wife, Sarah Wilkinson, were graduate students and neither knew much about architecture. (Today, Mr. Locky is a biology professor at MacEwan University and Ms. Wilkinson works in restoration ecology at the University of Alberta.) When the seller explained that the fireplace was made of clinker brick – a rare material in Edmonton – they didn’t know what he meant. But the house had a rustic kind of charm and the $209,000 price was just within their budget. So they bought it. Then they set about researching the house and its design history.

They learned, for instance, that clinkers are castaways. Because the kilns of the 19th century distributed heat unevenly, the bricks closest to the centre often liquefied and fused together. Deeming them unsalable, brickmakers threw them out. By the early 20th century, a salvage culture had emerged, with builders scouring dumps in search of clinker discards, which they separated with mallets. The pieces were dry, heavy and often misshapen. They were called clinkers because, when you banged them together, they’d clink.

They were a favoured material of the arts and crafts movement, a design culture that originated in England and later flourished in North America. Mr. Locky’s home – which he calls the Rose House, in reference to the original owners, William and Lillian Rose – is a relatively pure exemplar of the vernacular arts and crafts style in Alberta. But purity is an inapt word. For arts and crafts designers, perfection was a dubious virtue. This was a humanistic movement. It sought beauty in the rough materials of daily life.

This is an excerpt. Read the full text here.