Italianate Palazzos on Hollis

In the 1860s the commercial gentry of Halifax filled the downtown with palaces of business constructed in a style reminiscent of the palazzos of merchant princes of renaissance Florence, Rome or Venice. This flamboyant Italianate style of architecture was a display of wealth and power at a moment of prosperity in the city.  In early… Read More

Howe Now

Sheila and I keep a soft-sided mental list of areas around town that would be good to walk. Many of these are districts we drive through but have no reason to experience on foot. Here are notes from one of those rambles. On a sunny Sunday morning we started with brunch at the atmospheric Armview.… Read More

Noticed: Good News & Triggers

On Sunday I wandered downtown for the first time in a while. The city was surprisingly busy and everything felt somehow bigger. Can't explain that. Here's some other things noticed. The Granville Street side of the Dennis Building is trussed with a giant steel structure that reminds us of a time when engineering could be… Read More

Old Album, Number Twelve: Detail, Detail

This is the twelfth album selected from my little collection of photos. These images are architectural details around Halifax photographed in the 1970s and early 80s and are arranged generally by the age of the objects. When I rambled downtown Halifax in the 1970s and 80s the photos I took were often of architectural details,… Read More

Making the best impression

Recently on Twitter I posted some photos of the backs of 18th-century gravestones in St. Paul's Cemetery in Halifax. The photos were taken in 1977 when I happened to visit the old burying ground at a moment when bright sunlight accentuated the patterns of tool marks created by the stone carvers. To my surprise over… Read More