This Once Was

Building upon what has come before.

Each day as we walk around the places where we live, signs of previous eras often present themselves. Remaining façades, historic plaques, or modern attempts of recreating the past; these remnants of what once was are often all we have to interact with of the history that has shaped the places we inhabit.

As I pass by the same buildings day-after-day, I often think to myself, “what was once located where these new buildings and businesses now stand?” Some of the buildings have managed to retain their character over the years but many buildings in London, Canada have suffered lesser fates, many destroyed and demolished to make way for new buildings and far too often, parking lots.

Searching through archives of images to find historic buildings that had their own character, I took to the streets to find the current and past locations of these buildings. Super-imposing the historic with what currently exists in the same location, the following image study provides commentary on: how the city has changed over time, what character of the street has been lost and maintained, and the level of value we assign as a community to our historic groundings when weighed against modern city-building, and political agendas.