West Kildonan Library up for historical status

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This article was published 04/01/2023 (1175 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The city’s historical buildings and resources committee has recommended that the West Kildonan Library be awarded historical status. The committee made the recommendation to the standing policy committee on property and development after compiling a report that found the library meets a number of “heritage values” as outlined by a city bylaw.

“It’s very good news and very welcomed because, as we saw earlier this year (2022), this library is very important to our community,” said Daniel Guenther, co-chair of the Friends of West Kildonan Library Coalition, which first formed to oppose the relocation of the library to the Garden City Shopping Centre. Guenther is also a community correspondent for the Free Press Community Review.

“This just confirmed what our residents already know, which is that this library is historical and is important and is a landmark for our community, because generations of residents have been going there,” he said.

The library was completed in 1967, four years before the City of Winnipeg Act led to the creation of the Unicity. It was an upgrade to the City of West Kildonan’s bookmobile, which had been running since the 1950s, and to a small public library that opened in Kildonan Shopping Centre on Main Street in 1962, which struggled to meet demand. This push to expand library services in Winnipeg and surrounding municipalities was an historical theme of the era, tying into post-Second World War policies, the report found.

The report also found the library “stands as an excellent example of the International Style, a modern architectural movement of the post-World War II era.”

“Through its use of hard, angular edges, severely plain surfaces, large areas of glass and square or rectangular modules, the style stressed material and proportionality over ornamentation,” the report explains.

Besides fitting into the modernist architectural style prevalent in the era, the building’s historical status bid is helped through its use of locally sourced Tyndall stone and its connection to noted local architect George A. Stewart, who designed the library.

Stewart designed two other libraries — the Fort Garry and St. Vital Public Libraries — Harrow United Church, Charleswood Bethel Mennonite Church, and the University of Manitoba’s Ellis Building, among others.

Guenther said the historical designation would open up opportunities to improve the space.

“It opens up avenues to pursue additional grants and funding that are dedicated for restoring and rehabilitating historical structures. We know that there is some work to be done at the library. The city has already said it needs carpet and some finishing or refinishing,” he said, pointing out that Cornish Library and St. John’s Library — Winnipeg’s two libraries funded by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, of 2,509 Carnegie libraries worldwide — have both had successful renovations completed in recent times.

The motion will reach a vote at the standing policy committee on property and development, which will meet next on Jan. 9. An agenda for the meeting was not yet public at press time.