Attendees at Doors Open Halifax this weekend got the chance to look inside one of Dalhousie’s oldest buildings and learn about the work of the university’s Architecture and Planning students.
The Ralph M. Medjuck Building (5410 Spring Garden Road) was a popular destination for attendees at the annual event, which sees many of the city’s public and private spaces throw open their doors for people to explore.
On Saturday, June 4, more than 600 attendees toured the Medjuck Building, with several hundred others attending on Sunday as well. Some of the students who work and study in the building were on-hand as volunteers, taking guests through a tour through the upstairs studios rarely viewed by the public. On the building’s main floor studio, guests could view graduate projects from this year’s classes of Architecture and Planning students.
This was the fourth year Dalhousie has taken part in Doors Open Halifax, and the second to feature the Medjuck Building.
The Medjuck Building was, for many years, the primary academic building for the Nova Scotia Technical College, subsequently the Technical University of Nova Scotia and today (following the 1997 merger with Dalhousie) is part of the university’s Sexton Campus. The building — its neoclassical style designed by architect Herbert E. Gates — opened its doors in 1909, making it one of the older buildings at the university. (For context, at that point Dalhousie’s campus consisted of merely the Forrest Building.) Over the years it’s held classrooms, labs, administration offices, student common rooms, a gymnasium and the Provincial Museum of Science.
The building’s namesake, Ralph M. Medjuck, is a Dalhousie law grad, real estate developer, philanthropist and generous supporter of architecture and planning education. He provided a $2.5 million donation to support all manner of improvements to the building in the early 2000s, after which the university dedicated the building in his honour in 2005.
Photographer Nick Pearce dropped by the Medjuck Building on Sunday to take in some of the Doors Open sights.
