What Our Buildings say About Us

Inspired by a grandfather who was one of the designers of Hamilton's Piggott Building and Westdale High School, and educated at Ancaster High School and McMaster University, Shannon Kyles taught mechanical engineering and architecture at McMaster and later at Mohawk College for more than 30 years. Her teaching at Mohawk also included courses on the history of western (European) architecture and architecture in Ontario.

Now retired and living in Greensville, Shannon recently published her first book, a beautifully illustrated, almost 400-page study of styles and buildings across Ontario, from homes made by First Nations peoples before colonization through to 21st century homes and non-domestic buildings.

The Story of Ontario Architecture: What We Built and Why We Built It (Greensville, 2025), is available through Kyles' website (www.ontarioarchitecture.com), the Dundas Museum & Archives, the Art Gallery of Hamilton, Barely Bent Books, and King West Books in Westdale, among other independent local booksellers.

• The video stream is limited to what was dis­play­ed to the audience on the large screen at the front of the lecture venue. We have no picture-in-picture video of our speaker at the podium.
• The audio was captured by the microphone at the podium . Questions from the audience are invariably too faint to be heard, even with speakers set to maximum volume. For that reason we always ask our presenters to repeat the question before starting their response.