Dave LeBlanc was born in Toronto and wouldn't have it any other way. At age 8, he remembers jumping for joy when both the CN Tower opened and Toronto finally snatched Montreal's crown to become the biggest city in Canada; he's been an architecture lover and Toronto advocate ever since.
He attended Ryerson for Radio-Television Arts and York University for English. His radio career has included stints at CJEZ, CJAD in Montreal and CFRB, where he currently works (and sometimes speaks about architecture on-air). His budding life as a newspaper writer began in 1997 at the Montreal Gazette and flowered fully with the Globe & Mail in 2003. Since 2004 he has written weekly as "The Architourist" for Globe Real Estate. His work has also appeared in The Toronto Star, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Concrete Toronto (Coach House, 2007) and international architecture magazines. He has served as a juror for the Ontario Association of Architects and Heritage Toronto.
He lives downtown in a 1920s condominium with his wife and cat.
What a fab idea: Designating a prefab steel house
In Palm Springs, the owner of a 1961 gem sought out the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on a point of pride – and to keep developers at bay
Tweaking Lawren Harris's art deco home in Toronto
The house that Group of Seven painter Lawren Harris once called home gets a 21st-century restoration and expansion
A walk on Toronto’s northwest fringe, with a side of curry
Along with a variety of Indian restaurant delights, some of the most interesting examples of adaptive reuse can be seen in this Rexdale corridor
A tale of two Toronto church conversions
Victoria Royce Presbyterian and Centennial Methodist each transformed to lofts, one slightly easier to convert than the other
A 60s staple, the curtain wall, is disappearing from Toronto
A humble request for developers to take a second look at some Mid-Century Modern gems
A summer camp for Toronto’s budding builders
A kid’s ‘fantastical ideas’ are precisely the type of uninhibited creativity sought by industry professionals
A home that shows Toronto what laneway living can be
Owner’s ethos: ’You live in this part of town, you gotta go with the flow’
A home in Toronto’s Beaches heads in a new direction
Built on a lot oriented east-west, this house takes a novel turn to open up the southern lakeshore vista
Interior designers find the value in being true to form
Authors Michelle Gringeri-Brown and Jim Brown extend their love affair with Midcentury Modern architecture in second book
Uncovering the beauty under bird poop on Toronto’s Yonge Street
Developer Gary Switzer, architect David Pontarini and E.R.A. Architects are combining their talents to resurrect a decaying downtown property and erect a towering new presence on Hog Town’s main thoroughfare
