Fonds AM1399 - Townley, Matheson and Partners fonds

The fonds consists of architectural drawings, photographs and textual materials related to the partnership's activities surrounding the design and implementation of architectural projects. The majority of the records are graphical in nature. Architectural drawing files specific to a particular project typically contain elevation and perspective drawings related to the design of an initial concept and proposal for the project, incorporations of revisions into the initial concept based on the clients input and practical considerations, detailed plans intended to guide construction work, and annotations and alterations to those plans made during construction. Some of the projects (approximately 1 in 10) did not receive approval to proceede, and contain material relating only to the initial proposal. Project photographs include pre-construction photos taken of the construction site used to assist in the initial planning, progress photographs used in the supervision of construction, as documentation of the techniques and practices used during construction and for reference purposes, and post construction photographs used to document the finished appearance of a project. Photographs were also incorporated into promotional material, as collections of albums shown to prospective clients, and in promotional publications.
The majority of the records relate to projects in the greater Vancouver area. Approximately 100 projects were undertaken on Vancouver Island, primarially in the Victoria region, but also in Duncan, Ladysmith, and Nanaimo.There are also records related to hospital projects in the Fraser Valley, several residences in the Okanagan, as well as two hospital projects in Lethbridge Alta.
Projects initiated between 1919 and 1966 were numbered sequentially as job no. 1 through 1047. Jobs located in Victoria (B.C.) worked on between 1929 and ca. 1932 were numbered sequentially as job no. V-1 through V-14. Two jobs done in Penticton (B.C.) in 1936 are numbered sequentially as job nos. M-1 and M-2. Begining in 1967, projects were assigned a 5 digit job number; the first 2 digits of the job number were the last 2 digits of the calendar year, followed by a hyphen and a 3 digit number (e.g. 67-014). Where known, job nos. have been incorporated into titles at the file and item levels.
The fonds consists of 3 series:
Architectural drawings. -- 1897-1977. ca. 5000 drawings (representing approx. 700 projects).
Miscellaneous records. -- 1919-[ca.1990]. 44 cm of textual and and other material.
Project photographs. -- [189-?]-[1971]. 653 photographs.