from TreeHugger.com
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto
So many of our smaller towns and cities are in trouble; just a few weeks ago I wrote about one that was demolishing an entire street of empty buildings. Others pull themselves together and reinvent themselves. Guelph, Ontario is such a place; a few years ago citizens formed a Civic League to throw the bums out and put in a new, activist and green City Council and Mayor. They have taken a strong stance on ecological awareness and heritage preservation and it shows.
Now they have built a new City Hall that reflects those goals.
Guelph had a lovely old city hall that dated back to 1856, and that they had seriously outgrown; various departments were spread all over town. Next to City Hall was an arena that had been built on the site of an 1899 Winter Fair building. When they pulled off the aluminum siding they found that the original stone facade of the fair building was inside, so Moriyama and Teshima Architects integrated it into the design. It creates quite the dramatic lobby space.
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