Third Avenue Church goes live on CyArk

Saskatoon's 100 year old church is safely archived

by Jaime Pursuit
April 9, 2013
CyArk is proud to announce the launch of Saskatoon Canada’s Third Avenue Church on the CyArk website. The project is a result of CyArk’s new Data Donation Partner Program and a collaboration between CyArk, Stantec, Tourism Saskatoon, and of course Third Avenue Church itself.

For almost exactly 100 years, Third Avenue Church has stood as a significant piece of architectural heritage in the town of Saskatoon. Rising over 100 feet into the sky, this English Gothic church of solid stone has served as an auditorium, concert hall, and host to important political events. Opened in June of 1913 the auditorium, unobstructed by pillars, represents an engineering feat for the era in which it was built.

We owe thanks not only to the engineers and architects that built the church and Stantec’s astute team who documented the church in 3D, but also to Dave Hutton of The Star Phoenix and to Google alerts for helping Third Avenue Church find its place alongside Pompeii, Mount Rushmore, Tikal and other world heritage sties in the CyArk archive. Last summer Dave Hutton wrote an article featuring Stantec’s 3D laser scanning of Third Avenue Church. In this article Hutton referenced that there “was even a nonprofit” archiving the world’s heritage sites in 3D. Realizing that this allusion was to CyArk, I was fortunately connected with the kind folks at Third Avenue Church, Stantec, and Tourism Saskatoon, who brought this project together.

With permissions and funding provided by Stantec, Third Avenue Church, and Tourism Saskatoon, Stantec donated the 3D data and 3D models of the church to CyArk for archiving and development into a heritage project. The project as it exists on CyArk today is the result of Stantec's hard work to produce 3D models, video fly-throughs and architectural perspectives. We are proud to provide a home for this collection of work.

CyArk’s Executive Director -and fearless Canadian- Tom Greaves is “excited to share the project with his mom,” and would like your help in determining how to best ring in this Canadian project:

[poll]8[/poll]


Tom Greaves, former resident of the village of Hastings, Ontario
Historic photograph of Third Avenue Church
3D model of the church created by Stantec