Space and Culture

Kitchener-Waterloo are two cities, sited side by side, that are generally hidden by the shadow cast by Toronto (an hour North-East on highway 401). Not only the home of the biggest Oktoberfest outside of Munich, K-W is becoming known for the techno-excellence of the University of Waterloo (the only Canadian stop on Bill Gates’ recent speaking tour) and the subsequent tech-spinoffs like Research in Motion (of Blackberry fame) and OpenText.

In the last couple of years philanthropy has taken hold in the region, with RIM CEO’s Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis each donating tens of millions of dollars to create, respectively, The Centre for International Governance Innovation (Jim) and the innovative and the architecturally significant Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (Mike).

Both Kitchener and Waterloo were founded by German speaking Mennonites from Pennsylvania (Kitchener was named Berlin prior to its name change in 1916 — i.e. WWI). During the nineteenth century (the “smoke-stack era”) and into the twentieth Kitchener became an industrial powerhouse (manufacturing especially leather, rubber, furniture, and buttons — Kitchener was once known as “Buttonville”). Manufacturing continues to be a major economic engine of the region (Toyota builds Corollas and Lexi just down the road in Cambridge). The industrial era, however, has left Kitchener (and Waterloo, to a lesser extent) with a wealth of old factory buildings. Slowly these (now abandoned) factories are being converted to lofts and commercial spaces in an effort to bring people to what was once a bustling downtown core. One of the more recent factory to loft conversions is being done to the old Kaufman rubber factory in Kitchener. These days this grand old building is being marketed like this, but in the good old days it looked more like the shots in this photoblog. Interestingly, according to the blog’s photographer, the massive chimney in some of the shots was torn down the day after these photos were taken.