Outline of Module 12

1. Cultural perceptions of cities

a. Urbanity as culture

b. The arts as culture

c. Heritage as culture

2. Cultural perceptions of Guelph

a. The culture of Guelph

b. The arts in Guelph

c. Heritage as culture in Guelph

3. Suggested Research Topics

4. Assigned Readings

5. Discussion Questions

1. Cultural perceptions of cities

a. Urbanity as culture.

The great German sociologist, Max Weber, had earlier concerned himself with the cultural role of cities in his The City (1905). Weber's concept of the city emphasized urbanity - the cosmopolitan nature of the urban experience. By its very nature a city permitted a high degree of individuality and innovation, and in this way became an instrument of historical change. American urbanists, especially those of the Chicago school of sociologists early in the 20th century, also were interested in how the culture of a city made possible free choice and innovation. For example, Robert Park wanted to know how cities, as physical containers, shaped the emotional, human experience of its residents.[4]

Sociologists have turned to other interests, but planners have taken up the challenge of Mumford, Weber, and Park. In his Community Design and the Culture of Cities (1990), Eduardo Lozano looks for urbanity as he equates city with civilization. Lozano argues that an urbane community is one which offers its citizens a wide range of lifestyles - of opportunities for choice, exchange and interaction. Like Mumford and Weber, Lozano believes that ideals from previous eras of urban history, such as order and diversity, must be reintroduced into modern cities which are characterized by monotony and confusion.

Historians have examined various aspects of the general question of the culture of cities. Central to most of this work is the notion that cities are both a reflection of a larger culture, and a creator of that culture. An example is Donald Olsen, The City as a Work of Art: London, Paris, Vienna (1986). A particularly useful collection of essays in this regard is Visions of the Modern City (1983), edited by William Sharpe and Leonard Wallock. In their introduction they point out that "the city has been seen at once as social and psychological landscape, both producing and reflecting the modern consciousness. It is an arena of action that in the modernist period often seems to usurp the center stage."[5] Another example is a special issue of the Journal of Urban History entitled "Cities as Cultural Arenas." Several stages of urban self-perception are explored, from the Enlightenment city of the 18th century, to the "decomposition" of the city idea in the 20th century.[6]

A provocative concept of urbanity which emphasizes differences rather than community is put forward in the recent work of Thomas Bender, who classifies himself as a cultural historian with an interest in cities.[7] Bender believes that the notion of community is not one that applies effectively any longer to large urban centres, if by community is meant the bonding of people of similar interests and values. Bender argues for a notion of the city as a collectivity based on differences rather than similarities. This is what he feels has made New York such a dynamic place culturally.[8] We might add that modern Toronto and Vancouver represent the same principle, as did Montreal in its prime.

b. The arts as culture.

For the modern era, one of the best studies of an intellectual and artistic elite in a specific city is Carl Schorske, Fin-de-siecle-Vienna: Politics and Culture (1980). Schorske analyzes the collective Oedipal revolt against the past and the conservative present (this was, after all, Freud's city). Among those featured, in addition to Freud, are the painter Gustave Klimt, who used classical symbols to explore the instinctual, and the composer Arnold Schoenberg, who rejected the hierarchical tonal order - the diatonic scale- in music. The revolt of the Viennese artists against a paternalistic political and cultural order meant that they also rejected the possibility of community as they retreated to a narcisstic, essentially private conception of modern life.

Figure 1: The Louvre in Paris. One of the world's great urban museums, the Louvre was originally a fortress and palace. Shown here is a portion of the additions completed under Napoleon III in the mid-19th century. In the spring of 1985 major new changes to the courtyard had just begun. Source: Gilbert Stelter, 1985.

As cultural centres, London has been described as the capital of the 18th century, Paris of the 19th, and New York of the 20th. This is the theme of Leonard Wallock, ed., New York: Culture Capital of the World, 1940-1965 (1988). Wallock and other contributors argue that the experience of life in New York - its intensity, dynamism, and complexity - was behind the innovations in art, dance, music, literature and architecture. Abstract expressionists like Robert Motherwell and experimental composers such as John Cage were looking for a new language of expression. New York's immense cultural influence beyond itself also manifested itself in the more conservative arts such as opera, where Europe had totally dominated. The Metropolitan Opera, managed from 1935 to 1950 by the Canadian tenor Edward Johnson, and later by Rudolf Bing, became one of the world's leading centres of this art, while also promoting North American singers.

Figure 2: Edward Johnson as Peter Ibbetson at New York's Metropolitan Opera, 1931. This painting shows Johnson in the lead role in Peter Ibbetson, an opera by the American composer Deems Taylor. The opera premiered at the Met in 1931. Source: Transparency in the Edward Johnson Collection, University of Guelph Archives.

Figure 3: Edward Johnson, General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera. On the occasion of the opening night of the 1946-47 season, Johnson posed in his customary white tie and tails in his New York apartment, in front of his portrait (in honorary doctoral degree robe) above the mantel. Source: Edward Johnson Collection, University of Guelph Archives.

Figure 4: Street Scene in Greenwich Village, New York City. For several decades this part of New York was characterized as a centre of nonconformist art and society. Its streets continue to be a low-scale jumble of shapes and forms, in contrast to the skyscraper scale of much of the rest of Manhattan. Source: Gilbert Stelter, 1990.

As older cities decline, or lose population and activities to their suburbs, they continue to be centres of culture. The urbanist Witold Rybczynski puts it succinctly: "culture has become the major industry in many old cities."[9] These cities are still the location of the most important cultural institutions - the museums, theatres, auditoriums, and universities, even though the factories and some offices have left for the suburbs. They have become major tourist destinations partly because of the attraction of the cultural institutions. Those cultural institutions that do locate in suburbs or new cities remain isolated islands in a maze of freeways and parking lots, without the pedestrian traffic that results in spin-offs of bookstores, galleries and cafes.

Figure 5: Place des Arts in Montreal, 1963, 1967. On Rue Sainte-Catherine, in the heart of the city, this complex is made up of two main buildings, and several halls/theatres, with the work of Quebec artists displayed throughout. Source: Gilbert Stelter, 1995.

A kind of "aesthetic metropolitanism" is the norm in Canada, for much of the institutional activity in the arts is concentrated in Montreal and Toronto, although there are important regional centres in Atlantic Canada and the West. Like architecture, Canadian painting has tended to be derivative, heavily influenced from the outside. Ironically, the first concerted effort to define Canadianism - by the Group of Seven based in Toronto - depicted Canada as a wilderness landscape at a time when the country was becoming urban. Later opposition to the conservatism of this group came from the Painters 11, another Toronto-based group that included Harold Town and Jack Bush, who were connected with New York abstract art. In Montreal, the rebellion against conservative taste was more Parisian in orientation, as in the work of Paul-Emile Borduas.[10]

To what extent can we read cities by the art that is produced in them? According to Jon Caulfield, some paintings seem "to capture or typify crucial aspects of the city's new meaning."[11] Caulfield demonstrates the possibilities of such an approach in an article entitled "The Imagined Cities of Three Canadian Painters," which deals with the depiction of Toronto by artists in several time periods. [12]

Figure 6: Robert Gagen, "Temples of Commerce", 1914. Gagen captures the spirit of Toronto, in which the skyscraper has become the symbol of the concentration of financial power. Source: Metropolitan Toronto Public Library.

Public art has traditionally contributed to the feeling of a city as a public realm - a collective, shared place. This usually meant sculptures of mythological figures symbolizing an important event in a nation's or a city's past. More likely it would be a rather stiff statue of a politician or of a general on a horse. Modernism has tended to destroy the cultural role of public art by undermining the notion of public space as common ground. Much of what passes for "public " art is so abstract, so self-contained, that it can not be read by the public. Thomas Wolfe calls this type of art "the turd in the plaza", left there after the builders have put up another steel and glass box. [13] Or it is consciously offensive, meant to question what the artist regards as outmoded, conventional assumptions.

More recently, however, there is a trend toward a public art that is consciously more "public" in purpose. An example is the "Monument to Construction Workers", designed by artist Margaret Priest for a small downtown Toronto park. The Monument is a large steel framework, with a number of panels symbolizing the work of the building trades in the building of a city - carpenters, electricians, bricklayers, masons, plasterers, and so on. Priest has used the old female idea of a "sampler' to portray this most masculine set of occupations. The work celebrates both the thousands of anonymous workers who have built the city, and the ordinary and usually ignored building materials - metal, bricks, stone, concrete, tiles, and plaster. The artist hoped that the Monument would be "a reminder of the ebb and flow of the built city: it will be both the skeleton of a ruin and the skeleton of a new construction."[14]

Figure 7: Monument to Construction Workers. The Monument is located in a park bounded by Yonge, Richmond, Bay, and Temperance Streets in Toronto. Completed in 1993, it won a Governor-General's Award for Priest and the architectural firm of Baird/Sampson. Source: Margaret Priest, To View From Here (1996), p. 31.

Figure 8: Margaret Priest. Priest is Associate Professor of Fine Art at the University of Guelph. The occasion is an opening of an exhibition of her drawings which formed the basis for the panels of the Monument. Source: Gilbert Stelter, 1996.

Countering the metropolitan orientation of much cultural production in Canada are the festivals of drama and music in smaller places like Stratford and Niagara-on-the-Lake in Ontario. The first was the Stratford Festival, begun in 1953, specializing in Shakespearean productions although it has branched out to other kinds of drama and also music. Niagara-on-the-Lake's Shaw Festival began in 1962.[15] In both cases it appears that the business of culture has taken over the communities' economies which now depend on the thousands of visitors from larger places and especially on tourists from the United States. The cultural draw is obviously enhanced by each community's ambience. Niagara-on-the-Lake is the best preserved early 19th century town in Canada, with its abundance of Georgian buildings; Stratford has a well-maintained late Victorian townscape.

c. Heritage as culture.

What has been called a "paradigm shift" also happened in the 1960s, as both ordinary citizens and professionals began to look at cities in new ways. A notable example was Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961). Jacobs challenged conventional planning practises by suggesting that planners' prescriptions for revitalizing cities were in fact killing them. New York City became a major battle ground against the real estate interests that regarded historical preservation as an infringement of their property rights. The demolition of Pennsylvania Station in 1963, despite a widely supported campaign to save it, led the New York Times to condemn this "monumental act of vandalism...any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves...And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed."[17] The reaction to this demolition led to the passing of legislation in 1965 that gave the city one of the strongest and most comprehensive preservation laws in the United States.

A Canadian heritage movement can be traced back to the 19th century, but widespread public interest and support is much more recent. A variety of publications alerted the public to the danger. [18] A number of excellent walking tours have allowed residents to understand the heritage of their cities in more depth.[19]

Much of the local activity connected with heritage preservation concerns the saving of individual buildings which are threatened by development. In Ontario, the Ontario Heritage Act of 1974 gave municipal councils the right to appoint citizens to a committee that would advise councils on what buildings were to be designated as being of architectural and historical importance. These Local Architectural Conservation Advisory Committees (known as LACACs) generally concern themselves with doing local inventories and with designating particular buildings. Unfortunately, the Ontario act is a very weak instrument of preservation, for it allows local authorities only to delay, not to prevent the demolition or remodelling of a building by a determined owner.

At the national level, the establishment of the Heritage Canada Foundation in 1973 provided the basis for a philosophy of heritage as more than the preservation of a handful of remarkable buildings. As described by the Executive Director in 1989,

A sense of place and a sense of continuity are at the heart of what our heritage is all about. This is because the built heritage of Canada is not found in great buildings, in cathedrals and castles. It is found instead in the mass of everyday buildings - the ones in which we live, work, shop, worship, and play. These are the ones that give special character to our communities.[20]

Main Street is the glory of Canada. If a community has no heart, it has no soul; and its heart should beat faster at the core. For here is the glory of the past, the symbol of stability, the structures that our fathers erected, the visual reminder of another time that gives every town a sense of continuity.[21]

2. Cultural Perceptions of Guelph

a. The culture of Guelph.

For the first half of the 20th century Guelph seems to have reverted to being an obscure provincial town, with a stagnant population and its businesses in decline. The best-known Victorian industries such as Raymond's and Bell went out of business. The Provincial Winter fair, which symbolized the city's connection to the agricultural community, slowly declined and died. What remained of an old elite apparently withdrew to their stone houses and refused to support public initiatives of any kind. A more dynamic economy in the latter half of the century was partly the result of the creation of the University of Guelph in 1964 and the arrival of new and diversified industries from outside the community.

The ethnic composition of Guelph's population did not change as much as that of larger cities in Southern Ontario such as Toronto. Those of British origin remained relatively high - over 80% for most of the first half of the century - and is still near 60% at a time when Toronto's British proportion has fallen to 40%. For the details of these changes, or lack of them, see table.

Loyalty to the British Empire and to conservative traditions was a key characteristic of many Guelphites in the early 20th century, as exemplified in the activities and careers of physician John McCrae and politician George Drew.[23]

Figure 9: Portrait of Dr. John McCrae by Evan Macdonald. Born in Guelph in 1872, McCrae became a physician in Montreal but served in the Boer War as an artillery officer and later as a medical officer during World War One. His "In Flanders Fields," published in Punch in 1915, epitomized Guelph's (and presumably Canada's) feelings about the war. Source: McCrae House, Guelph Museums. You might want to visit the Lost Poets of the Great War web site and go to poet, John McCrea.

Figure 10: Study for a Portrait of George Drew by Evan Macdonald. Drew was born in Guelph in 1894 and practised law in the city. He became mayor in 1925. He married Fiorenza, daughter of Edward Johnson, the Guelph native whose career as a Metropolitan Opera star made him an international success. Drew became leader of Ontario's Conservative Party in 1938 and Premier of Ontario in 1943. In 1948 he was elected the leader of the Federal Conservative Party. Source: Macdonald Family Collection.

The most important non-British group in Guelph has been that of Italian origin, which has made up about 10% of the population since World War Two. The Italian-Canadian Club has become a key social institution with an influence far beyond that of one ethnic group. The Black community, on the other hand, which reached its peak in the 1880s, has slowly declined in numbers.

Figure 11: Portrait of Herbie Lawson by Evan Macdonald, 1946. A member of an old Black Guelph family, Lawson posed, complete with cigar, in Macdonald's studio above Macdonald's clothing store. Source: Macdonald Family Collection.

Modern Guelph's character is more complex than that of the Guelph of John McCrae, George Drew and Herbie Lawson. Guelph's downtown core is no longer the retail centre of the city but is remarkably healthy thanks to a number of locally owned restaurants such as the Bookshelf, Doug's Place, Einstein's Cafe, Latino, Tiki Ming, and Friends in Our Kitchen, and specialty shops such as Pond's Camera, Thomas Video, Barber Gallery, and Wyndham Art Supplies. Most of these places promote local artists by regularly showing paintings on their walls and by providing additional space during the annual studio tours. And the large downtown stone churches have provided the main venues for cultural events and concerts, in addition to their regular religious functions.

Figure 12: The Bookshelf on Quebec Street. This is one of downtown Guelph's most important features. The Bookshelf combines the region's best bookstore with a café, an art movie theatre and a bar. Source: Gilbert Stelter, 1996.

Figure 13: Barbara Minett, co-owner of the Bookshelf. Minett is shown at the extensive magazine section, next to the cafe's entrance. Source: Gilbert Stelter, 1996.

Figure 14: The Meridian Coffee House on Wyndham Street. This coffee house is typical of many small, locally-owned restaurants and bars which provide a cosmopolitan atmosphere in the downtown core. Unfortunately, the Meridian had a major fire in the fall of 1997 and its future is uncertain. Source: Gilbert Stelter, 1996.

Two elements of Guelph's culture are of relatively recent origin- a dynamic arts community and a heritage movement. These will be described briefly in the following sections.

b. The arts in Guelph.

An important introduction to Guelph's musical history is provided in Guelph and Its Spring Festival (1992), edited by Gloria Dent and Leonard Conolly. Among the most useful articles for understanding the place of music in the community are those by John D'Alton, Terry Crowley, and Gerald Manning. Another useful introduction to Guelph's cultural heritage is Gloria Dent, "The City on Stage," River Run Centre in Guelph (Souvenir Program of the Official Opening, October 4th, 1997).

Like most smaller cities and towns in Canada, Guelph was something of a cultural wasteland for music until the 1960s with only minimal support for public performances. An Opera House was opened in 1894 but most of its 1200 seats were never filled and by 1923 it was converted to a movie theatre. [24] Much of the music composed and performed in Guelph was church-related. The best example was the work of Roberta Geddes Harvey (1849-1930), the organist at St. George's Anglican Church for fifty years. Harvey composed the music, in 1903, for what was reportedly the first Canadian opera, La Terre Bonne, or, Land of the Maple Leaf . And in 1907 she produced the first oratorio published in Canada, Salvator . Both were put on at the Opera House, but before very disappointing audiences.

That Guelph, therefore, should be the birthplace and home of Edward Johnson (1878-1959), one of the world's greatest opera stars, was hardly due to any strong local musical tradition. Johnson went from Guelph as a young man to New York, then to Italy, and back to New York where he was the lead tenor of the Metropolitan Opera Company and later managed the company for fifteen years.[25] The extensive Edward Johnson Collection has only become available recently in the University Archives and should become a major source for the study of European and North American cultural history during the first part of the 20th century.

Figure 15: Edward Johnson's home as a youth in Guelph. Johnson's father, James, owned the King Edward Hotel across the street from City Hall. On this postcard of the city, Johnson marked Xs around a third storey window and wrote on the back: "The window marked was my room for years. Most of my life was spent there." Source: Edward Johnson Collection, University of Guelph Archives.

Figure 16: "Rosedale", Johnson's retirement home in Guelph. Johnson inherited Rosedale, 673 Woolwich Street, from his father. The house was on a large, beautifully landscaped property, at the corner of Woolwich Street and Speedvale Avenue. The lot backed on to the Speed River. It was demolished in 1965 to make way for an apartment building. Source: Edward Johnson Collection, University of Guelph Archives.

Figure 17: Johnson's Guelph friends: Harry Higinbotham on his lawn at Ker Cavan. The entire Higinbotham family helped Johnson in his early years in New York and Europe. Harry became an insurance executive in London, England, and often travelled with the Johnson family in Europe. He renovated Tyrcathlen as his retirment home in the 1920s, renaming it Ker Cavan. Source: Allan-Higinbotham Papers, University of Guelph Archives.

Figure 18: Family Christmas at Rosedale, 1958. Left to right: granddaughter Sandra Drew (now Lady Scholey), Johnson, son-in-law George Drew, grandson Edward Drew, daughter Fiorenza Drew. Johnson's wife, Beatrice, had died in 1919. The Drews had flown to Canada from London, where Drew was serving as Canadian High Commissioner. Four months after this photograph was taken Johnson died of a heart attack, after collapsing at a performance of the National Ballet of Canada at the Guelph Memorial Gardens. Source: Edward Johnson Collection, University of Guelph Archives.

Johnson always felt that his career had been hampered by the weak cultural traditions in Guelph and Canada generally. He later wrote that "one too long schooled in repression and restraint will naturally find it difficult to portray, as a mature artist in later years, the big emotions that are the very life of opera and song."[26] Johnson remained very loyal to Guelph, however, and subsidized the study of music in Guelph's schools in the late 1920s without too much success. After he retired from the Met in 1956 he returned to live in Guelph full-time. Again he tried to stimulate the study of music locally through creating a music education foundation, but he died before the plans were finalized. A fine thesis which describes this aspect of Johnson's life is John D'Alton, "Edward Johnson and Music Education in Canada,"M.A. thesis, University of Guelph, 1996).

Johnson's dream became a reality after his death with the founding of the Guelph Spring Festival in 1967, inspired in part by the successful example of the Stratford Festival. What had changed was the formation of the University of Guelph which brought a large number of new faculty to the city. They helped to transform the local cultural scene. The chief catalyst was Dr. Murdo MacKinnon, the first Dean of Wellington College and later Dean of the Faculty of Arts, who served as the President of the Edward Johnson Music Foundation from 1967 to 1982.

Figure 19: Murdo MacKinnon. An enthusiastic supporter of the local architectural heritage as well as of the arts, MacKinnon is shown extolling the merits of Guelph's cityscape. Source: Gilbert Stelter, 1993.

Figure 20: A Portion of the MacKinnon Building (Arts) Tower at the University of Guelph. This Corbusier-inspired building now commemorates MacKinnon's indefatigable efforts to bring the academy and the city together in the celebration of the arts. Source: Gilbert Stelter, 1996.

The other major figure was Nicholas Goldschmidt, the Festival's Artistic Director for many years, who had superb international connections in the world of music. The annual three-week festival has brought many of the world's finest musicians and singers to Guelph and has regularly commissioned new Canadian works. The Festival has also stimulated a tremendous expansion of other classical music activities in the city and in surrounding communities. These included the Guelph Music Club, a Youth Orchestra, a Suzuki School, the Guelph Children's Singers, and the Guelph Chamber Choir.

Figure 21: The Guelph Chamber Choir in Concert. This choir, under the direction of Gerald Neufeld, has won a number of C.B.C. and Canada Council awards. Shown is a performance of Bach's Mass in B-Minor in the Church of Our Lady. Source: Gilbert Stelter, 1989.

The artistic achievements of the musical community have not been matched in quality by the venues in which they have had to perform, which have included High School auditoriums, University gymnasiums and War Memorial Hall. The local churches are among the most effective concert sites, of which the Church of Our Lady is certainly the most dramatic. Planning for a Civic Centre apparently began as early as 1940. By 1960 a Civic Centre Association even had architect Richard Pagani build a model of a proposed centre. Other plans in 1974 also fell through.

A fourth effort, launched in the 1980s has finally borne fruit, with construction completed in the spring of 1997. This is a splendid complex with an 800 seat theatre, a 250 seat studio theatre, and two rehearsal halls. After a community wide competition for a name, "River Run Centre" was chosen. Although this name has no particularly Guelph associations, it has caught the public's imagination. And judging by the first few months of operation, the public's support.

Perhaps no project has ever stirred such conflicting emotions in Guelph's history, however. A vocal opposition, led by several city councillors, questioned the spending of tax dollars on what they felt was an elitist venture. It was argued that those who wanted to go to the theatre, concerts, the ballet, or opera could always go to Kitchener-Waterloo, Hamilton, or Toronto, where good facilities already existed. The local daily newspaper, the Mercury , probably gave the opposition an undue amount of space and credibility, but the controversy certainly revealed some major fault lines which ran through the community.

Among those who braved the barrage of criticism and pursued the vision of a performing arts centre were three indomitable women: Margaret MacKinnon, the chair of the Citizen's Committee; Nancy Coates, chair of the building committee; and Edwina Carson, director of the fund-raising campaign. The citizen's group originally planned to use the old Speed Skating Rink, a stone structure built in 1882, as the focal point of the Centre. This was located between Woolwich Street and the banks of the Speed River near the site of John Galt's Priory and the place where he had symbolically founded the town in 1827. When the Rink burned in 1991, plans were changed and a new building was designed for the site.

Figure 22: The Speed Skating Rink on Fire, Fall, 1991. This building was designed by John Day, a local architect, as an indoor skating rink, but it spent most of its life as a railway company warehouse. Source: Gilbert Stelter, 1991.

Figure 23: Margaret MacKinnon. The leader of the citizen's group at a reception following the ceremonial ground breaking for the new centre in the fall of 1995. Source: Gilbert Stelter, 1995.

Figure 24: The Guelph Centre under Construction, March, 1996. The building is designed by the architectural firm, Moriyama and Teshima, who also had renovated a historic building into the Macdonald-Stewart Art Centre next to the University campus. In the background of this photograph can be seen the Gothic spire of St. George's Anglican Church further along Woolwich Street. Source: Gilbert Stelter, 1996.

Figure 24a: Artist's conception of the Guelph Centre. Source: Moriyama and Teshima Architects. Visit Moriyama & Teshima's Guelph Civic Centre web page.

Figure 24c: Key Players in the Completion of the River Run Centre. Ted Teshima, architect; Nancy Coates, chair of the Building Committee; Daniel Teramura, Project Architect, at a banquet for donors in May, 1997. Source: Gilbert Stelter, 1997.

Figure 24d: Edwina Carson and Nicholas Goldschmidt. Carson directed the fund-raising campaign headed by Doug Bridge. Goldschmidt was Artistic Director of the Guelph Spring Festival for many years. Source: Gilbert Stelter, 1997.

Figure 24e: John Counsell at the Piano While mayor, Counsell staunchly advocated City Hall's involvement in the funding of the Centre. He is also an experienced performer, and he is shown here at the the piano in the Canada Company Hall, the spectacular lobby of the Centre. Source: Gilbert Stelter, 1997.

Figure 24f: Opening of the Spring Festival in the River Run Centre, May, 1997. Shown are some of the principal performers of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana: Darryl Edwards, tenor; Kevin McMillan, baritone; Gerald Neufeld, director of the Guelph Chamber Choir. Source: Gilbert Stelter, 1997.

the visual arts.

The best guides to this aspect of Guelph's history are Judith Nasby, Visitors, Exiles, and Residents: Guelph Artists Since 1827 (1977), and Nasby's contribution entitled "Art Works" in Inventory of Primary and Archival Sources: Guelph and Wellington County to 1940 (1989).

Of the many artists who have made Guelph their home, two in particular have made the changing city one of their chief interests. From the 1940s to the 1960s, Evan Macdonald (1905-1972) was Guelph's best known and successful artist.

Macdonald was the product of an old Guelph family with strong roots in the business community. After studying at the Ontario College of Art and in England, Macdonald returned to Guelph to run the family's men's wear store.[27]

Evan Macdonald is best known for his portraits, three of which are shown in this module. Macdonald also painted hundreds of landscapes and community views. These ranged from West Coast settings mostly done during the Second World War when he was stationed there with the armed forces, to fishing scenes in the Maritimes, to Northern Ontario mining activity. He also did many interpretations of Guelph's street scenes.

Perhaps his most interesting and original work concerned the demolition of Guelph's heritage. He often did several versions, to capture the changing light on rubble and debris. Certainly Macdonald made the community more aware of what was happening to its architectural heritage. His art made local residents realize that what was coming down might be worth looking at, might be considered as works of art in their own right, and hence, might be worth preserving for the future.

Figure 25: Demolition of the Opera House, 1953. Source: Guelph Civic Museum.

Figure 26: Demolition of the Post Office and Custom's House on St. George's Square, 1961. Source; Macdonald Family Collection.

Figure 27: Two Views of the Demolition of the Carnegie Library, 1964.

Figure 28: These are two of the many versions he did of that razing. According to the Chairman of the Library Board at the time, Macdonald "filled the town with his views of the library coming down" and helped stir up public resentment against that act. Sources: Private Collection and Macdonald Family Collection.

The other significant Guelph artist was Gordon Couling (1913-1984). The Couling Collection in the University Archives is a large body of papers and artistic works that will provide an insight into his work and the community he lived in. Couling had a multi-faceted career, with major contributions to local history, to the local heritage preservation movement, to the teaching of art, and to artistic production in various media. Couling taught generations of students, first at the Macdonald Institute, later at the University of Guelph where he became the first Chair of the Fine Art Department. He worked closely with people in the local community, helping found the Guelph Creative Arts Association, and at a regional level, the Central Ontario Arts Association.

What tied this all together was a life long search for the meaning of community which perhaps can be partially illustrated by some of his art.

Figure 29: Vancouver in the early 1940s. Couling was fascinated by cities. He did dozens of sketches of New York, for example. In this crayon drawing Couling effectively captures an entire city and its spectacular setting in one view. Source: Private collection.

Figure 30: A Collage of Guelph Buildings, 1948. This large canvas, hung as a mural, includes those public buildings that Couling felt characterized the spirit of Guelph. The perspective is deliberately non-spatial, for Guelph, like most places, can not readily be captured from one viewpoint. Source; This mural hangs, largely unnoticed, in the cafeteria of the Guelph Collegiate and Vocational Institute.

Figure 31: The Church of Our Lady. Couling's small oil is an example of the countless artistic depictions of this church's physical domination of the city, like some medieval cathedrals in European towns. Source: Private collection.

Figure 32: Carden Street in 1959. While Couling produced literally hundreds of sketches of individual buildings, he also effectively explored the character of urban space. Here he illustrates the intimacy and diversity of this street scene, presided over by the looming facade of the Church of Our Lady. Source: Private collection.

Figure 33: Portion of a mural depicting Roman Catholic history in Guelph.

This large mural covers an entire long wall in the lounge of the St. Joseph's Hospital Senior Citizen's Centre. The priest with his arms raised is Father John Holzer who came to Guelph in the 1850s and founded the separate school system and St. Joseph's Hospital. Couling produced a large amount of what might be termed "ecclesiastical" art, especially in stained glass windows. The best examples of these are in what was his own church, Paisley Memorial United, where he interpreted some of the early history of Methodism in Guelph.

public sculpture

Public art can have a cultural role that is increasingly difficult to perform, that of establishing the idea of the city as common ground where people have a sense of commonality even though they might be different in terms of ethnic background, class, and in their conceptions of what is good and beautiful.

Figure 34: The Blacksmith, 1884. For thirty eight years this twelve foot statue enhanced the center of St. George's Square, symbolizing the early city's connections to its rural surroundings. Cast in New York, the Blacksmith was given to the city by local carriage-maker J.B.Armstrong. In 1922 it was unceremoniously removed from the square to facilitate traffic. Its new location is an obscure space known as Priory Park on Macdonell Street, between a side wall of the Cooperator's Building and an Eaton's parking garage. Source: Gilbert Stelter, 1996.

Figure 35: John Galt, 1979, by John Miecznikowski. It took a long time for Guelph to honour its founder but Galt was eventually given a suitable spot in the fine public space in front of City Hall. Galt is properly portrayed as an energized, dynamic creator. His outstretched hand suggests an act of giving life - in this case, the act of founding a city. He seems to be saying: "Here it is. I've laid out the town for you." Source: Gilbert Stelter, 1996.

Figure 36: Passages, 1983, by Kosso Eloul. These monumental rectangles precariously balanced at unusual angles are located at the corner of College and Gordon Streets in the Macdonald-Stewart Art Centre's Donald Forster Sculpture Park. Similar works by this artist can be seen in several Canadian cities, such as one entitled "Innercity Gate" in front of the TD Centre in Toronto. The Guelph work is best seen, like the city itself, by walking through it and experiencing the changing character of its forms. Source: Gilbert Stelter, 1996.

Figure 37: The Family, 1985, by William McElcheran. This most prominent piece of sculpture in the city, located in St. George's Square, was the subject of some controversy in the early 1980s because of the nudity of its subjects. Some clergy and their congregations attempted unsuccessfully to convince City Council not to accept the sculpture from a sponsoring group, the Italian Fountain Committee. Ironically, the sculptor's best known works are those of fat businessmen, tightly buttoned up, scurrying about to make a living. He has also recently designed a new altar screen and confessionals for the Church of Our Lady. Source: Gilbert Stelter, 1986.

Figure 37a: Passages, 1997, by Peter Johnston. Someone has apparently decided that Guelph needs two public sculptures with this name. This dramatic copper wall dominates the entry to the River Run Centre. Artist Peter Johnston has effectively evoked the spirit of Guelph's heritage by including references to John Galt and his town plan, the railway, and the spectacular churches. Source: Gilbert Stelter, 1997.

c. Heritage as culture in Guelph.

The general public's attitude apparently was summed up by the Mercury's front page coverage of these changes in 1963.

Some people may be critical of this change, but we must move with the times, and certainly no one can deny that the new buildings are in keeping with the larger volume of business they now handle. Yes, the face of St. George's Square. has changed, but we must accept these changes if we are to keep our place in this modern world.[28]

Several other local organizations are also engaged in developing an appreciation of Guelph's heritage. In the forefront is the Guelph Arts Council, directed by Sally Wismer, which coordinates many of the activities on the local arts scene and publishes an important newsletter, Arts in Guelph , nine times a year. The Council published two walking tour guides by Gordon Couling, Where Guelph Began (1979, 1986), and Downtown Walkabout (1982), and two recently by Florence Partridge, The Slopes of the Speed (1990), and Altar and Hearth in Victorian Guelph (1994). Volunteers from the Council present regularly scheduled walks based on these books each summer. The Council also presents several heritage awards annually to those renovating and preserving heritage buildings.

Figure 38: The cover of "Where Guelph Began" by Gordon Couling. Couling pioneered research in the history of individual Guelph buildings in this book and also sketched each building in his recognizable style.

Figure 39: Gordon Couling as Walking Tour Guide. Couling points out one his favourite views of Guelph to British urban historian H.J. Dyos in 1974. Source: Gilbert Stelter, 1974.

The Guelph Historical Society has long been a focal point for those interested in the history of the city. The Society sponsored and helped in the writing of Leo Johnson's History of Guelph, 1827-1927 (1977), and publishes the annual journal, Historic Guelph , devoted to local history.

Figure 40: Ruth Pollard, Long-Time President of the Guelph Historical Society. The occasion is her retirement, after seventeen years as President of the Society. Source: Gilbert Stelter, 1993.

Figure 41: Ross Irwin, Current President of the Guelph Historical Society, at the Society's office on Yarmouth Street. Source: Gilbert Stelter, 1996.

The Guelph Civic Museum's permanent displays effectively portray some of the character of earlier periods of Guelph's history, and the Museum staff is now doing new research into the history of some of the ethnic and racial groups that have made up Guelph's population. The Museum also carries on a large education program with local school children.

The interest in Guelph's heritage has never been higher. We have come a long way since the 1960s. Ironically, the very concept of Guelph as a real place, as a community with a recognizable identity, is endangered. Guelph is not being swallowed up by larger places in a physical sense, nor has it become a part of some larger regional political jurisdiction. Rather, the problem lies in the area of attitudes and sources of information. An example is the weakening of a community-based media. Guelph does not have a real TV station, the source of news in most places. The daily newspaper, the Mercury , is not taken any longer by many people who now subscribe to the Kitchener-Waterloo Record , where Guelph's coverage is reduced to that of several other small, outlying places. The twice-weekly Guelph Tribune has become the best source for municipal affairs.

Some might feel that the process of a declining community consciousness has gone too far to be reversed. But this community has a lot going for it, as outlined in this module. Its partly a matter of attitude, which includes a sense of place. Knowing and appreciating the past is one way of re-establishing a strong sense of local identity.

3. Research Topics

• a. Guelph and Imperial patriotism: examples are John McCrae and Laura Lemon.
• b. Edward Johnson and Canadian musical culture.
• c. Gordon Couling and the establishment of the local preservation committee LACAC.
• d. Artists perceptions of the community. Examples are Gordon Couling, Evan Macdonald, and several current artists.
• e. Music and the community: composition and performance - the Guelph Spring Festival.

4. Assigned Reading

Because of the length of this module, this is the only additional reading.

5. Discussion Questions

Each student should come prepared for a three to five minute presentation on the question: what kind of city is Guelph? Your discussion should include ideas from the general reading and from your own specific research.