Title and statement of responsibility area
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Research: Card Files
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Statement of scale (cartographic)
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Statement of scale (architectural)
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Physical description
ca. 194 "of card files.
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Archival description area
Name of creator
Biographical history
William Bruce Dendy, Canadian architectural historian, was born in Edmonton, Alberta in 1948 and died May 29, 1993 in Toronto, Ontario. Dendy graduated from the University of Toronto in 1971, received a B.A. in Architectural History from Cambridge University in 1973, and in 1979 received two Masters degrees in architectural history, one from the University of Cambridge, and one from Columbia University in New York. He worked as an architectural historian for the Toronto Historical Board from 1973 until 1976, taught Canadian architectural history at the University of Toronto, at the University of Waterloo, at Carleton University in Ottawa, at Ryerson Polytechnic Institute in Toronto, and at the Toronto Urban Studies Centre. Dendy also worked on a consultancy basis as architectural historian to many Toronto-based architectural firms, developers, and government agencies, and also led architectural walking tours of Toronto.
Dendy's two published works, Lost Toronto (1978) and Toronto Observed: Its Architecture, Patrons, and History (1986), were both published by the Oxford University Press and both won Toronto Book Awards. In 1993 Dendy was awarded an honorary membership in the Ontario Association of Architects, and in the same year he was given an Allied Arts Award for his lectures and books on historical architecture.
(Sources: Freedman, Adele. "A Life's Work: The William Dendy Collection", University of Waterloo Alumni Magazine (spring 1995): 11-15; "Historian Won 2 Toronto Awards", The Globe and Mail, Monday, 31 May 1993; Hume, Christopher. "Architectural Historian's Death a Significant Loss", Toronto Star, Tuesday, 1 June 1993, sec. B., p. 6; "Will Bequest Establishes the William Dendy Collection", Insights (spring 1995): 1-2.)
Custodial history
Scope and content
Series consists of the detailed hand-written card files prepared by Dendy as a guide to research materials available in his fields of interest in the subject area of Architectural History.
These card files provide different types of information:
- Bibliographic references to materials in a number of subject areas. This includes special interest topics of Dendy's such as Frank Darling's library and the Massey Patronay. Additionally, an A-Z index of architects (mostly Canadian) is also available. This features bibliographic references to journal articles where information on each architect can be found. In some cases these cards also provide information on the office or home address of these architects.
- Building permit information for Canada (mainly Toronto) for late nineteenth century or early twentieth century. This includes building permit no. and year, address of building, description of building, and name of architect. This information is organized either by architect, by date, or by street or region. However, in some cases no apparent order applies.
- Alphabetical index to architects. Information provided on these card files includes the name of the building, address of the building, and year of construction of the building designed by each architect listed. In some cases a brief description of the building is also provided in additin to a bibliographic reference to the source from which information on the building was obtained. Most of the buildings listed in this index were designed in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century.
- Architect and subject index. Card files are filed alphabetically by name of architect, author name, publication title, or architectural topic. These cards take the form of bibliographic references to publications.
- Subject indexes. This includes an alphabetical subject index to various Canadian and foreign architectural topics, as well as a subject index relating specifically to the history of Toronto's architecture.
- Miscellaneous card files. Some small sections of card files can also be found which relate to various topics and which are organized in different ways. This includes an index of designs (pencil drawings, prints, and photographs) for buildings in Toronto and other parts of Ontario, an index to topics relating to foreign architecture, and miscellaneous card files re Toronto architecture.