>>CITY OF STONE || Guelph, ON<<

[Wheelingman04]

I had no idea what this city was like.

[Echoes]

Wow! I had NO IDEA Guelph looked like this.. I am very impressed!

[john_mclark]

my grandmother once said "Stone is where the soul is." i asked her what that means and she said why the hell should i know.

any ways that is my kind of city.

[c@l]

Longtime forum viewer, first time poster.

Terrific photos. I had a slight orgasm while admiring the incredible architecture.

[DetroitSky]

Quote:
Originally Posted by DetroitSky
Small downtown for it's population, but still nice.

Eh? It's not a small downtown for 115,000 people at all. Upon what do you base your comment?

To another poster: The three "stone towns" in southern Ontario are Guelph, Galt and St. Marys. No other towns have such significant clusters of stone buildings as these three places do.

I've often felt I could live in Guelph, in spite of its somewhat hippy-dippy vibe. The residential neighbourhoods surrounding downtown are marvelous. If you had gone behind the main cathedral you would have ended up in one of the nicest century home districts in all of Canada.

Guelph also has one of the best and most unique used bikeshops in all of Canada (sorry for the incessant superlatives, but it's true): Backpeddling.

It just seems smaller then downtowns like Battle Creek, Michigan or Kalamazoo, Michigan, which have about half the population of Guelph and a lot more high rises it seems. I didn't mean to insult anyone I was just stating what I thought.

Oh, and welcome to the forum c@l!

[softee]

^ But don't those cities have much larger metro populations? Guelph's metro population is not much bigger than it's city population. There's also the fact that Guelph has seen rapid growth over the last 10 years, and it's downtown is still the same now as it was when the city had a much smaller population.

[c@l]

Thanks, DetroitSky, it's good to be here.

I think people are reading too much commentary from your statement than actually is there. I think a knee-jerk reaction is to believe that a vibrant, happening city with a stable economy is one that has progressively taller buildings and highrises. I thought it was pretty clear that you were making a factual observation on Guelph's larger population and smaller (but definitely not inferior) buildings, in comparison with cities that have built up but have smaller populations.

Of course, I'm tired and have been at work all day so I could just be hallucinating...

[rousseau]

Tall buildings or highrises doesn't enter into it. One person said it seemed like Guelph had a small downtown for its size. It does not (obviously, if you've been there), so I was curious about upon what basis the judgment was made.

I'm well aware that people on these types of forums have prickly, passive-aggressive egos, but I do not.

[flar]

Welcome c@l, glad my tour got you to post

I can see where DetroitSky is coming from, a lot of smaller American cities have a nice 8-12 storey miniscraper or two downtown.

[denveraztec]

Excellent photos of a beautiful city!

[Buckley]

Nice pics.

Is that stone local? I recall visiting a park in Guelph (many years ago) that was a reclaimed quarry (perhaps?). I don't think I put it all together back then.

[Austinlee]

Pretty city.

[Salmo]

Thanks for those shots. I grew up in Fergus (12 miles north of Guelph)spent much time in Guelph. My parents were married in St Georges church, spent many a slow afternoon at the Albion hotel in Grade 13, A lot of memories. I love the buildings and feel of the Wellington County area, miss it dearly in Calgary/Alberta.

[Tom In Chicago]

Guelph is home to RWDI/Motioneering. . . the company that does structural wind tunnel testing for just about every super-tall structure on the planet. . .

[tdawg]

looks super charming

[someone123]

Kalamazoo has a larger population than Guelph does.

A downtown with highrises is not necessarily larger or better than one without. In fact, highrises often tend to make things worse if they're combined with parking lots, which they often are in smaller places.

Here is an aerial photo of Guelph from Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne...5970812&size=l

Originally Posted by Tom In Chicago

Guelph is home to RWDI/Motioneering. . . the company that does structural wind tunnel testing for just about every super-tall structure on the planet. . .

Cool, I didn't even know that. Although I'm not too surprised since they are basically part of Canada's technology triangle. Technically, they dropped out of the CTT partnership, but they're definitely part of a region that specializes in high-tech industry regardless.

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by Tom In Chicago

Guelph is home to RWDI/Motioneering. . . the company that does structural wind tunnel testing for just about every super-tall structure on the planet. . .

I did not know they were that well-known. I did some work for them six years ago for Taipei 101.

[Tom In Chicago]

Yeah. . . they've done all the wind tunnel testing for Burj Dubai, Trump Chicago (among other buildings in Chicago that /didn't/ get built like 7 South Dearborn), Taipei 101 etc. . . Marshall and I had cocktails with one of the partners a few years ago when they were in town for a structural engineering conference. . . nice guys. . . I was hoping to visit their facility when I was up in Toronto shortly after, but my schedule didn't permit. . . I'm sure I'll get to visit someday. . . these guys are usually on the History Channel or Discovery Channel whenever someone is doing anything with wind tunnels and buildings. . .

. . .

[flar]

Wow, didn't know Guelph had anything to do with skyscrapers, let alone being an important place for skyscraper research.

Thanks for the replies everyone.