Creative Edge • Panoramas • Parish Map • Overlook Park • Architecture • Art Boat • Branding • Creative Works
Objective: To heighten awareness and appreciation for Eastport’s architecture – one of the city’s strongest creative assets.
Large sections of Easptort’s residential areas and downtown are remarkably intact, though many buildings are vulnerable to change or loss. On the Creative Edge efforts include the development of a digital resource of about 400 historical photographs of Eastport’s downtown dating from the 1860s to the present. As part of a broader Quality of Place initiative involving Washington County, an online architectural database is under development on Eastport’s historic buildings, monuments and public art with photographs and text. The initial online architectural database containing records for Eastport’s Downtown National Register Historic District can be viewed here Eastport Downtown Architecture.
The online database is a precursor to the development of high quality printed guidebooks on Washington County and Eastport historic architecture. For the past six years, architect, John Leroux, and photographer, Thaddeus Holownia (see a portion of his photograph of the Livermore house above), have been working to complete an extensive book on Eastport architecture, landscape and community. Also over a 12 month period a streetscape drawing of Eastport’s historic downtown was developed by Kirsten Sparenborg of the University of Virginia. A digital version of the streetscape drawing can be seen by clicking here: Eastport Streetscape Drawing. Printed copies of this streetscape drawing are available for sale at the Tides Institute.
In addition, TIMA oversees (pro bono) the administration of two concurrent CDBG downtown facade improvement grant programs that involve 12 downtown property owners. Matching grants from the programs help facilitate and implement specific front facade restoration of these 12 downtown properties.
Finally, an annual public lecture series on architecture has been launched. The public lecture series has included the following architects:
Tides Institute & Museum of Art Architecture Lecture Series:
2010: Brian Mackay-Lyons, Halifax, Nova Scotia.
2011: Kiel Moe, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Jon Calame, historic preservationist, Eastport, Maine.
2012: Carol Wilson, Falmouth, Maine.
2013: Julian Smith, Director of Willowbank, Queenston, Ontario.
2014: Stephen Kopp and Monica Adair, Acre Architects, Saint John, New Brunswick.
2015: John Leroux, Fredericton, New Brunswick.
2016: Omar Gandhi, Toronto, Ontario and Halifax, Nova Scotia.