After the Second World War, Canada experienced a significant population boom. Returning soldiers, refugees, migrants, and others found their way to Canada, swelling the population by one million by the end of the decade. When the war began in 1939, Canada’s population was reported as 11.2 million. Twenty years later it was over 17 million. These circumstances created a dire need for housing. The main solution to the problem was increased suburban sprawl. The geographic footprints of cities expanded hugely during the post-war era, driven by the need for housing and the rise of the personal automobile. While sprawl was the main solution, it was not the only one.

Calgary’s response to the housing crisis at the time – aside from sprawl – was simple, straightforward, and judging by a lack of newspaper coverage about them, inoffensive and welcome: infill multiplex walk-up apartments. Calgary did also see several high-rise apartment and condominiums approved and built, but with restrictive zoning practices.

Today, throughout Calgary’s mature, inner-city communities, multiplex walk-up apartments can be found lining streets, often built on one or two lots. Where one or two homes existed beforehand, anywhere between 12 to 18 households now exist. These multiplex walk-up apartments built during the post-war era became ubiquitous throughout Calgary.

The mid-century Modernist designs were incredibly easy to implement and build: two floors set above an elevated basement level, with units flanking a single corridor usually served by two sets of staircases. These buildings are so common throughout Calgary, most people likely spend little time thinking about them. But these small-scale buildings served to increase density, keep inner city neighbourhoods growing and diverse, and provide accessible housing stock. Today, as many of these units lack modern amenities like in-suite laundry, air conditioning, and dishwashers, many provide below-market-rate housing options: yesterday’s market-rate housing often becomes today’s more affordable housing.

These post-war multiplexes also hold stylistic value for the era of their construction. Many are decent examples of Modernist architecture and represent that style well with the inherent lack of ornamentation and use of functional, space-maximizing design. Most of these multiplexes are either simple rectangles, with larger ones sometimes being T or I shaped. The buildings also tend to have symmetrical facades, with a large living room window sometimes accompanied by a smaller kitchen or bedroom window, depending on the lot size. Façades are often made of brick in a stretcher bond pattern, sometimes with detailing vertically between the large windows made of vinyl or another cladding material. Modernism in architecture was an expression of function over form and sought to maximize floorplans.

One of the reasons why these small-scale apartments became commonplace after the war was that there was a lack of available land in the inner-city and a historical aversion to multi-family housing prior to the Second World War. In 1912, the City of Calgary’s Head of Buildings, H.A. Sylvester, referred to terraced homes as “municipal parasites”, citing concerns over sanitation, tax revenue, and legislative control over multi-family housing. The result of this attitude, shared by many, was a general lack of purpose-built multi-family housing in favour of single-family housing. This led in part to the sudden boom of the post-war multiplex apartment: this type of housing was not available nor welcome beforehand.

Calgary was not alone in this aversion and moral opposition to apartment buildings. Toronto saw a widespread ban of apartments and multifamily housing throughout much of the city. For some time, the most density allowed was terraced houses, which are still incredibly common throughout Toronto.

Even to this day, because of Toronto’s rigid zoning laws, anything denser than a townhouse is not allowed off main streets for the most part (with many parts of Toronto like Etobicoke being largely single-family only). This creates sudden and dramatic changes with single family homes directly across the street from towering high rises. Given that many prominent examples of heritage in Toronto are on main streets, it also creates a situation where the more public-facing heritage is at a much greater risk of redevelopment as the main streets are the only areas open to development of higher density. Lack of availability led to a housing crunch in Toronto, and also threatens the city’s existing heritage.

Attitudes of those like Sylvester left a mark on Calgary. There are over three-hundred sites on the Inventory of Evaluated Historic Resources in Calgary that were purpose-built for residential use, and more than three-quarters of those sites are single-family homes. Apartments, bungalows, duplexes, and terraced homes are represented on the Inventory of Evaluated Resources, but not nearly as abundantly as single-family homes. Some of Calgary’s best architecture can also be seen in multi-family homes like Glenwood Manor, Donegal Mansions, and the Anderson Apartments. Had historic attitudes opposing density been different, we would potentially have more buildings like these, and a better capacity to adapt to current and future housing crises.

These attitudes in many ways still exist today. At times, when a housing development is proposed that would add density to a neighbourhood or suburb, it can be met with skepticism and concerns about added traffic, negative impact on property values, etc. As a result, density can be pushed back to older, inner-city neighborhoods, where much of Calgary’s existing built heritage remains. This legacy of moral opposition to apartments is one of the biggest threats to heritage today. Past attitudes against multi-family housing potentially deprived Calgary of more exquisite examples like the Anderson Apartments or the Donegal Mansions. With so few apartments, terrace or rowhomes, and duplexes on the Inventory, the impact is significant today when one is lost.

Sources:

Population of Canada from 1800 to 2020. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1066836/population-canada-since-1800/. Statista, August 2019.

“Toronto’s housing crisis of 1922 was rooted in policies that still make homes unaffordable in 2022” Globe & Mail. June 17, 2022.

https://www.calgary.ca/arts-culture/heritage-sites/scripts/historic-sites.html?dhcResourceId=84

https://www.calgary.ca/arts-culture/heritage-sites/scripts/historic-sites.html?dhcResourceId=151

The Post-War Walkup & Calgary's History with Gentle Density

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