FutureMayor
Active Member
This is my backyard in Cooksville:
The old Confederation Square building in Cooksville, the site of the municipal offices for the Township of Toronto and then for the Town of Mississauga for nearly a century, will soon meet the wrecker's ball.
Mississauga's Heritage Advisory Committee (HAC) recently reviewed a report on the 1953 building that still stands on the site, at 100 Dundas St. W., on the south side of the old Dundas highway, just to the east of the former Mississauga Central Library and Confederation Pkwy.
Because the building was placed on the City's heritage inventory, the owners of the property who plan to redevelop it, were required to commission a report on the site. It was completed by heritage planner Wayne Morgan.
The report provides a telling glimpse into the history of a building and a community. The structure was described in The Port Credit Weekly Apr. 23, 1953 as the "swank new municipal hall," built for a cost of about $220,000 and designed in the International style by architect Gordon Adamson.
Adamson also designed such GTA landmarks as the Redpath Sugar building on Queen's Quay, the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts (now the Sony Centre) on Front St. E., Kipling Collegiate and the E.J. Pratt and Northrup Frye Hall at Victoria College, U of T.
The land came into public ownership in 1872 when the township bought two acres of property from Jacob Cook, for whom Cooksville is named, for the princely sum of $5.
A small township hall was erected the following year. A major addition took place in front of that building in 1953 and a huge crowd showed up for the unveiling of the "modern office building" June 2 that year.
The Confederation Square building's fate as a town hall was sealed in 1969, when a fire destroyed a good part of it. That's when a bright young local developer named Bruce McLaughlin invited town councillors to move their headquarters up to the wilderness of Burnhamthorpe Rd. and Hurontario St.
He would build a new City Hall just for them (at what is now the CIBC building at 1 City Centre Dr.) and, oh, by the way, he was constructing a new shopping mall that would be symbolically named Square One just beside it.
In a decision that remains controversial to this day, politicians forsook the historical heart of the city for Bruce's bucolic backyard.
"I remember a lot of the councillors saying, 'oh, what a stupid man,'" former Mayor Ron Searle said this morning. "'It's nothing but countryside.' All he was doing was showing his foresight."
Searle was a municipal politician from 1962 to 1978 when he lost to Hazel McCallion. In that time, he served on the councils of Toronto Township, the Town of Mississauga and the City of Mississauga.
What does he remember most about the building? "We'd be in the council chambers fighting like hell all morning and then we'd go over to The Orchard (Restaurant) and have lunch and be the best of friends. Then we'd head back and fight like hell again all afternoon," says Searle, 88 and in failing health.
"It was built to be a landmark," says Matthew Wilkinson, the historian at the Mississauga Heritage Foundation and one of the members who spoke up for a better fate for the building at the HAC meeting.
Because the central library building was constructed to the west and an office tower to the east, there was basically no landmark left to see from busy Dundas St., however.
After the town hall was moved, the Dufferin-Peel Catholic board moved into 100 Dundas W. for several years before building its own headquarters. Sheridan College subsequently rented for several years, but the lonely-looking building has been boarded up and empty now for several years.
The International style of architecture features clean, crisp lines, straight edges and "simple Cubist" compositions. It is a style that does not easily find favour with the public or politicians.
Coupled with the fact that the building is boxed in and Confederation Square isn't a shining example of the style, "it makes for a pretty tough sell," says Wilkinson.
Were the building another 50 years old, it might be more likely to be saved but it is not far enough behind us in our collective rear-view mirror to have the cachet needed for heritage preservation.
There are other examples of the International style in Mississauga, such as Port Credit Library and Port Credit Memorial Arena but they aren't exactly stellar either. Chances are we will eventually have to travel to Toronto, where they have some better examples, if we want to see the style on the landscape.
On the recommendation of the heritage planner, at least one piece of the Confederation Square building may live on. The distinctive bas relief sculpture (below) near its entrance was created by Toronto artist Cleve Horne. He superimposed the outline of a family on the map of Toronto Township, with planes and runways symbolizing the airport, oil tanks for the refineries in the south, sailing boats, fish, waves, farm equipment, wheat and apples.
Mmmm.... no cars.
The intent is that the City move the sculpture elsewhere, perhaps to be incorporated in a new development.
A heritage plaque recognizing Sir William Pearce Howland, the only American-born father of Confederation, who settled in Cooksville in 1830 is almost invisible to the public and serves the singular purpose of supporting a parking lot sign. It is also to be saved and relocated, within Cooksville, on public land one would surely hope.
Another good building that served admirably as our municipal headquarters from 1873-1972, is gone.
This is how our history slips slowly away from us — one logical decision at a time.
Louroz
The old Confederation Square building in Cooksville, the site of the municipal offices for the Township of Toronto and then for the Town of Mississauga for nearly a century, will soon meet the wrecker's ball.
Mississauga's Heritage Advisory Committee (HAC) recently reviewed a report on the 1953 building that still stands on the site, at 100 Dundas St. W., on the south side of the old Dundas highway, just to the east of the former Mississauga Central Library and Confederation Pkwy.
Because the building was placed on the City's heritage inventory, the owners of the property who plan to redevelop it, were required to commission a report on the site. It was completed by heritage planner Wayne Morgan.
The report provides a telling glimpse into the history of a building and a community. The structure was described in The Port Credit Weekly Apr. 23, 1953 as the "swank new municipal hall," built for a cost of about $220,000 and designed in the International style by architect Gordon Adamson.
Adamson also designed such GTA landmarks as the Redpath Sugar building on Queen's Quay, the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts (now the Sony Centre) on Front St. E., Kipling Collegiate and the E.J. Pratt and Northrup Frye Hall at Victoria College, U of T.
The land came into public ownership in 1872 when the township bought two acres of property from Jacob Cook, for whom Cooksville is named, for the princely sum of $5.
A small township hall was erected the following year. A major addition took place in front of that building in 1953 and a huge crowd showed up for the unveiling of the "modern office building" June 2 that year.
The Confederation Square building's fate as a town hall was sealed in 1969, when a fire destroyed a good part of it. That's when a bright young local developer named Bruce McLaughlin invited town councillors to move their headquarters up to the wilderness of Burnhamthorpe Rd. and Hurontario St.
He would build a new City Hall just for them (at what is now the CIBC building at 1 City Centre Dr.) and, oh, by the way, he was constructing a new shopping mall that would be symbolically named Square One just beside it.
In a decision that remains controversial to this day, politicians forsook the historical heart of the city for Bruce's bucolic backyard.
"I remember a lot of the councillors saying, 'oh, what a stupid man,'" former Mayor Ron Searle said this morning. "'It's nothing but countryside.' All he was doing was showing his foresight."
Searle was a municipal politician from 1962 to 1978 when he lost to Hazel McCallion. In that time, he served on the councils of Toronto Township, the Town of Mississauga and the City of Mississauga.
What does he remember most about the building? "We'd be in the council chambers fighting like hell all morning and then we'd go over to The Orchard (Restaurant) and have lunch and be the best of friends. Then we'd head back and fight like hell again all afternoon," says Searle, 88 and in failing health.
"It was built to be a landmark," says Matthew Wilkinson, the historian at the Mississauga Heritage Foundation and one of the members who spoke up for a better fate for the building at the HAC meeting.
Because the central library building was constructed to the west and an office tower to the east, there was basically no landmark left to see from busy Dundas St., however.
After the town hall was moved, the Dufferin-Peel Catholic board moved into 100 Dundas W. for several years before building its own headquarters. Sheridan College subsequently rented for several years, but the lonely-looking building has been boarded up and empty now for several years.
The International style of architecture features clean, crisp lines, straight edges and "simple Cubist" compositions. It is a style that does not easily find favour with the public or politicians.
Coupled with the fact that the building is boxed in and Confederation Square isn't a shining example of the style, "it makes for a pretty tough sell," says Wilkinson.
Were the building another 50 years old, it might be more likely to be saved but it is not far enough behind us in our collective rear-view mirror to have the cachet needed for heritage preservation.
There are other examples of the International style in Mississauga, such as Port Credit Library and Port Credit Memorial Arena but they aren't exactly stellar either. Chances are we will eventually have to travel to Toronto, where they have some better examples, if we want to see the style on the landscape.
On the recommendation of the heritage planner, at least one piece of the Confederation Square building may live on. The distinctive bas relief sculpture (below) near its entrance was created by Toronto artist Cleve Horne. He superimposed the outline of a family on the map of Toronto Township, with planes and runways symbolizing the airport, oil tanks for the refineries in the south, sailing boats, fish, waves, farm equipment, wheat and apples.
Mmmm.... no cars.
The intent is that the City move the sculpture elsewhere, perhaps to be incorporated in a new development.
A heritage plaque recognizing Sir William Pearce Howland, the only American-born father of Confederation, who settled in Cooksville in 1830 is almost invisible to the public and serves the singular purpose of supporting a parking lot sign. It is also to be saved and relocated, within Cooksville, on public land one would surely hope.
Another good building that served admirably as our municipal headquarters from 1873-1972, is gone.
This is how our history slips slowly away from us — one logical decision at a time.
Louroz
