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Architecture Junkies

My father was a brickie, so I was always aware of buildings and construction sites but it was the construction of Hamilton City Hall that cemented my enthusiasm. I have never been able to pass a building without counting the number of floors (always omitting the 13th).
 
Ed007's comments made me smile and stirred some old memories.
I was a young teenager (14 or 15ish) with attitude to go along. Dad, on a spur of the moment, insisted on going for a Sunday drive after church.
I had had enough of Sunday drives with my little brother and sister in tow. I had far more important plans but Dad wasn't listening. Perhaps he sensed an impending end to 'the way things were', so it was it was going to be just one more family Sunday drive.
As he was driving the Family Ford Falcon, not me, I realized that sulking was my only recourse.
Next thing I can remember was staring slack jawed through a chain link fence at an almost completed new City Hall. I was totally blown away. Was it really possible to build this kind of a structure? This was the stuff of science fiction. ..and that flyng saucer building in the centre...unbelievable.
That was my moment.
 
I suppose my own interest has less to do with architecture, and more to do with cities, and how buildings and other elements of a city fit together. I remember driving to our cottage in the Ottawa valley (from Ottawa, where I grew up) when I was about five and asking my Mom the question - "If we started at one side of New York City and drove all the way across, would it be as long as the drive to the cottage?". I don't recall her response; my mom has still never been to New York City.

I also recall, though, on a trip to Toronto to visit an aunt when I was quite young, taking the subway (as a "special outing", they lived in northern Etobicoke) and being fascinated by the experience. Because the walls are so close to the train, I was impressed by the speed of the trains and I thought it was going so fast that there would be no way possible of ever walking between stations! Clearly, they were just too far apart. It gave me quite a distorted image of the breadth of Toronto!
 
my first memory of having an interest in a building was the opening of the new city hall in 1965. i used that date as the beginning of what i considered "modern times". anything before that was ancient and black and white. afterward, technocolour futuristic/expo world.
also, i tore out a full page ad picture of a model of TD centre (before it was built) from the back of the paper and started a scrap book roughly the same time period. 1966 maybe?
 
I was born and raised in the Bronx. I also had family living in Brooklyn. Growing up I was always going into the city or driving through it with my mother. From a young age I was amaized by the buildings, whether it be from the back seat of the car, or looking up holding my mother's hand walking down the sidewalks.

I looked up and never looked back.
 
I grew up in New Delhi, which has a lot of different types of architecture, so I was always aware of architecture. However, I never grasped the concept and act of planning and designing until I visited Chandigarh, which is an entire city designed by Le Corbusier. Speaking of which, here's a nice review of a biography of Le Corbusier that you architecture junkies should find interesting: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/20/AR2008112002773.html?nav=emailpage
 
Being born in 1983, I was too young to remember any major construction projects happening in Toronto. Through most of the 90's, there was no significant activity. Architecturally, the city seemed like a very static and uninteresting environment, and my interest was only casual. That was until 2005.

As a university student living in the Annex, with family in Etobicoke, I had little reason to venture to the east side of Yonge. And whenever I was near the core, the CBD blocked my view of anything east of Bay. One day the family was going to visit my aunt in Scarborough. I wasn't driving, so given the rare opportunity to be on the Gardiner without having to keep my eyes on the road, I studied the skyline. As we drove past BCE Place, a brand new 1 King West emerged, seemingly out of nowhere.

My first thought was "Where the f*** did THAT come from?!" Ever since then I've been hooked.

I imagine that these days a lot of people are having that same moment all over the city.
 
I spent my first 4 and a half years in a rural subdivision west of Georgetown, then Dad got a new job in Montreal and we moved to the big city. I still remember running down stairs into the open doors of a Metro and turning to see the anxious face of my Mum who was worried that she wasn't going to make it inside the train with my baby sister before the doors closed.

Last time I ever saw my Mum.

Kidding! I remember riding the Expo Express out to Man and His World, and the Minirail around it the year after it was Expo (there was still a lot open in 1968 from what I remember) and being amazed by things there: while many buildings were fantastic, Buckminster Fuller's American Pavilion was unbelievable. (If you don't know much about what happened at Expo 67, the Library and Archives of Canada website about Expo has a great trip for you - pics and video of the sights and sounds of possibly the greatest ever World's Fair. It's quite the nostalgia trip too - very entertaining.)

After less than a year in Montreal, Dad's head office job moved to Toronto, so I wound up in Etobicoke. I remember little of downtown Toronto way back then - I had already been dazzled by Montreal's Metro and Expo - so nothing compared here until we had Ontario Place open. (It looks rundown now in many areas, but it was pretty spectacular back then.) Even City Hall, which I have always loved, was not all that spectacular or surprising after the buildings I had seen at Expo.

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interchange42 said:
I spent my first 4 and a half years in a rural subdivision west of Georgetown, then Dad got a new job in Montreal and we moved to the big city. I still remember running down stairs into the open doors of a Metro and turning to see the anxious face of my Mum who was worried that she wasn't going to make it inside the train with my baby sister before the doors closed.

Last time I ever saw my Mum.

Kidding! I remember riding the Expo Express out to Man and His World, and the Minirail around it the year after it was Expo (there was still a lot open in 1968 from what I remember) and being amazed by things there: while many buildings were fantastic, Buckminster Fuller's American Pavilion was unbelievable. (If you don't know much about what happened at Expo 67, the Library and Archives of Canada website about Expo has a great trip for you - pics and video of the sights and sounds of possibly the greatest ever World's Fair. It's quite the nostalgia trip too - very entertaining.)

After less than a year in Montreal, Dad's head office job moved to Toronto, so I wound up in Etobicoke. I remember little of downtown Toronto way back then - I had already been dazzled by Montreal's Metro and Expo - so nothing compared here until we had Ontario Place open. (It looks rundown now in many areas, but it was pretty spectacular back then.) Even City Hall, which I have always loved, was not all that spectacular or surprising after the buildings I had seen at Expo.

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Worlds Fairs are great experienences. I never made it to Vancouver in 86; busy with a family. Expo 67 was cool. 1964 New York Worlds Fair was cool too; although I was very small. I had the sense to carry an instamatic with me; still have the pics.
 
My first memory of being into architecture, or being into buildings (I'm not sure I thought of it as 'architecture' at that point) was when we were moving house when I was 8. Up until that point it was only cars that held my fascination (and remember being inconsolably angry when my parents bought a new car while I was away for a week at my Grandmother's).

Anyway, we were moving from one subdivision to another in Brampton, and that whole process of seeing a new neighbourhood carved out of farm land was fascinating. I remember pouring over floorplans and elevations, and really getting off on the subtle variations of everything, and then watching our house get built and seeing these drawings and plans slowly form themselves into real structures. We were some of the first people to move into our part of the subdivision, so I got to see the rest of everything build up around me. It was/is amazing :)

Over the years the scope of my interest has changed - but I still have a soft spot for the kind of mass-produced suburban-anywhere architecture most here would rather pretend doesn't exist :p
 
I've always been fascinated with buildings, but it was David Macaulay's illustrated books Cathedral and City, which are respectively about building a gothic cathedral and a Roman settlement, that really lured me in. My German grandfather was also an architecture enthusiast when I was coming of age (12-14). On visits during the summer, he showed me sights like Speyer, Würzburg and Ulm and explained how the interior of churches evolved over the centuries.
 
Hipster Duck said:
I've always been fascinated with buildings, but it was David Macaulay's illustrated books Cathedral and City, which are respectively about building a gothic cathedral and a Roman settlement, that really lured me in..
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I had a similar experience with David Macaulay books, I still have some very thumbworn copies on my shelves at home. I can recall reading "Castle" over and over again.

Beyond that I've always been amazed by woodwork. To this day, I can't walk past buldings without noting the windows, doors, columns, porches, latticework, bargeboarding, etc. That interest has been with me as long as I can recall, certainly when I was 4 or 5 I received a saw as a birthday present as I kept mucking about with pieces of wood and building things. I suppose it's why I work for a small custom door and window company. It always bothers me to see an old house with cheap Home Depot doors and windows. To quote Prince Charles (I think) "it's like cheap glasses on an old friend".
 
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