The Hawrelak Park Pavilions
William Hawrelak — formerly Mayfair — Park (9330 Groat Road)
Architects: Bittorf & Wensley
Constructed: 1967-68 & 1973
Construction of Mayfair Park began in 1959 on the orders of controversial city mayor, William Hawrelak. A naturalist at heart, Hawrelak wanted the Saskatchewan River valley to “fit into the overall park development of the City along the lines of the zoo, and the golf courses and other picnic areas.” The old Mayfair Dump, a festering, waterlogged gravel pit west of the University, did not. Planning for a new park there began in 1955, with funding coming “from the payment of 15 cents every time the [C]ity hauled a cubic yard of gravel out of it.”
Opened on Canada Day 1967, Edmonton’s newest “pretty jewel” quickly became “a beehive of activity.” In addition to 160-acres of parkland, Mayfair included some seventy-five picnic tables, a boardwalk, two-dozen barbecues, a 500-foot lakeshore promenade and dozens “of winding trails… along the bank of the North Saskatchewan River.” Its manmade lake, stocked with trout for school fishing programs, provided opportunities for boating in the summer and skating in the winter, making Mayfair Edmonton’s only true all-season park.
Serving all that was a boathouse for lakeside rentals, a main pavilion including lockers and a concession, and two permanent picnic shelters — a third came in 1973. All four originals opened following its first Canada Day celebration, with the Main Pavilion inaugurated on February 3rd, 1968. An Edmonton Journal writer said of it, “finished or not, the new skating pavilion at Mayfair Park is rapidly becoming a busy spot [as] that park is one of the city’s favourite haunts for family skating.”
Architecturally, the Pavilions are significant for their Organic Expressionist and West Coast Modernist influences. Maitland, Hucker, and Ricketts write in A Guide to Canadian Architectural Styles that “Expressionism was another approach to modern architecture.” Popularized in the 1960s and ‘70s, it rejected “the rigid form of Internationalism in order to exploit the structural and expressive possibilities of new construction techniques.” West Coast Modernism, meanwhile, drew inspiration from Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture, the International Style, and Japanese residential design. According to the Vancouver Heritage Foundation, it incorporated “these elements into designs that responded to the climate, terrain and rainforest setting in which they worked” — its use in Prairie Edmonton is something of a welcomed anachronism. A contemporary article of the Journal cited “old Norwegian architecture” as another source of inspiration.
While all five buildings share common features, their envelopes vary from structure-to-structure, with a City heritage study writing that “each facility respond[s] to different programmatic needs in the time since their construction.” The Main Pavilion, for instance, prominently features wrap-around glazing, while the Boathouse features simple board-and-batten cladding. Concrete columns and beam systems supporting symmetrically curved, cedar-shaked roofs apexed by acrylic-domed ‘ridgelights’ are a feature shared by all.
Although the Park’s name may have changed — it was rechristened in 1976 for the late-Mayor — these pavilions remain an iconic feature of its landscape over a half-century later. All five are currently considered for inclusion on the City’s Inventory of Historic Resources.
Image Gallery:
Sources:
“City Will Prepare Plans For 2 More 100-Acre Parks,” Edmonton Journal, July 27, 1955.
“Winter Recreation,” Edmonton Journal, November 13, 1961.
“Gravel Pit Slowly Changes Into City’s Newest Park,” Edmonton Journal, September 24, 1965.
“Model Set Up On Location,” Edmonton Journal, January 10, 1967.
“Skating Pavilion,” Edmonton Journal, February 3, 1968.
“New Park Features Trout, Barbecue,” Edmonton Journal, May 30, 1968.
“City Renames Mayfair To Honor Hawrelak,” Edmonton Journal, October 13, 1976.
Leslie Maitland, Jacqueline Hucker, Shannon Rickets, A Guide to Canadian Architectural Styles (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 1993), 192.
City of Edmonton, Evaluation Summary, Application to Amend: Hawrelak (Mayfair) Park Pavilions, by City of Edmonton Historic Resource Management Program (City of Edmonton: Edmonton, AB, February 2014), 52, 53, 54.
