Ottawa Mosque, ByTowne Cinema could get heritage designation
Designation 'long overdue,' says former president of Ottawa Muslim Association
Image | ottawa mosque bytowne cinema heritage designation
Caption: The Ottawa Mosque, left, and the ByTowne Cinema, right, are two of eight Ottawa buildings that are being considered for a potential heritage designation. The city's built heritage committee will discuss their merits on Tuesday. (Campbell MacDiarmid/CBC, Guy Quenneville/CBC)
The Ottawa Mosque and the ByTowne Cinema could be among the latest additions to Ottawa's list of heritage buildings.
The built heritage committee will vote Tuesday on whether to grant that status to a number of buildings in the city — including the Rideau Street cinema and the mosque near Tunney's Pasture.
Despite being only about 50 years old, the Ottawa Mosque meets five of nine criteria for designation, with particular "design, associative, and contextual values," according to the city's heritage planning branch.
A property can be designated under the Ontario Heritage Act if it meets two or more of nine criteria established in the regulations.
Buildings that get that designation are granted special legal status that recognizes their cultural value, ensures their preservation and protects them from demolition and inappropriate alteration.
'An honour'
In a report recommending its designation, the branch noted that it was the first purpose-built mosque built in Ottawa and one of the earliest in Ontario after the London Muslim Mosque.
The irregular-shaped mosque, which has a dome and a minaret with modernist architectural influences, was built between 1973 and 1979, the report noted.
Its designation would be a "long overdue" recognition of the city's Muslim community, according to Mohamed Ghadban, a former president of the Ottawa Muslim Association.
"It's the main mosque or the mother of all the mosques in the city," said Ghadban.
According to Statistics Canada, in 2021 there were nearly 100,000 Muslims in Ottawa, making up nearly 10 per cent of the population and forming the second largest religious group.
But when the mosque was built, there were just a few hundred Muslims in the city, Ghadban said.
"[It would be] an honour to actually have this building designated," Ghadban said, noting that the city is now home to more than a dozen mosques.
Movie theatre in the Moderne style
The heritage planning branch also recommended the designation of the ByTowne Cinema for its historical and design value, saying it met six of nine criteria.
The theatre, it said, is a representative example of a purpose-built, post-war neighbourhood movie theatre in the "Moderne" style — a subset of the modern architectural movement that's characterized by smooth walls, simple ornamentation, rounded corners, and curved glass.
"The ByTowne features elements of the Moderne style through its rounded profile, streamline stone cornice, smooth brick cladding, and metal accents," the report to the committee noted.
ByTowne Cinema owner Daniel Demois applauded the research the city conducted into the theatre's history.
"It really is a vote of confidence from the city," he said. "They've taught me a lot about what is important about the design and the history of the building."
The Nelson Theatre, as it was originally known, was opened by proprietor Hyman Berlin in 1947. The building was designed by Toronto architectural firm Kaplan & Sprachman, which was instrumental in introducing the Moderne style to Canadian theatre architecture, the report noted.
It has operated as the ByTowne cinema since 1988, although it almost closed for good during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ottawa's ByTowne Cinema to reopen under new owners
Designation could provide practical benefits to the cinema, according to Demois, as it would become more eligible for grants to help maintain and repair heritage elements.
Running a 650-seat single theatre in a market dominated by multiplexes can be challenging, said Demois, who hopes that a heritage designation would also reaffirm the value of independent theatre.
"With these older independent cinemas, the trend has always been ... to consider them more discount cinemas," he said.
"But we've kind of started leaning away from that. If this is a heritage building and this is a place worth celebrating, maybe it's actually a premium experience."
The other buildings up for designation on Tuesday are:
The Rothesay Apartments at 172 O'Connor St.
The former Bell Telephone Exchange buildings at 251 Besserer St., 200 First Ave. and 43 Eccles St.
Eglise Saint-François-d'Assise at 1062 Wellington St. W.
Eglise Saint-Joseph d'Orléans at 2757 St. Joseph Blvd.
The recommendations will still have to be approved by full city council.
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