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Globe: An ounce of preservation is worth a ton of history

Re: "Heritage" can be a particularly irritating value. It sometimes seems to be applied to structures that aren't architecturally or historically important, just there. I have to say, in all my travels to photograph heritage buildings, I have yet to see a case where the building is "just there" (outside of heritage conservation districts where the goal is to preserve a scale so many different types of buildings are caught in the web, as it were). Historical importance is also a case of judgement, and the fact of a local store, for instance, surviving on Kingston Road in Scarborough into the 2000's is enough for me. It doesn't have to be where a Premier lived, or some such thing. Small reminders of what we have been before, even if they are not necessarily pleasing to the eye, are in my view important and worthy of preservation.

In the same way that I disagree (though gently) with whoaccio (and I say gently not to be condescending, but because I share his love of early modernist buildings and I wish more people longed for them to be preserved), I also disagree with an approach that labels a building "architecturally unimportant" and releases it to oblivion on that basis.
 
Perhaps, being an archivist, you are loath to lose anything that can be catalogued, just as in the Star of Downtown thread you are grateful that something is being built on that spot?
 
Whoaccio said:
Obviously I have architectural biases, everyone does. I also realize that whether something is "significant" is highly subjective with no universally acceptable answer. Personally, I feel that the Riverdale Hostpital is a worthwhile example of modernist architecture that merits preservation, not because it is old (it isn't) but because it is representative of a broader era.
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But, is it, really, as "representative" --on grounds of "aesthetics and cultural significance"--as you're claiming? Look--Riverdale's scalloped half-round form may be entrancing to us; but let's get real--whatever its merits, this wasn't a building all over the architectural press in its day. It wasn't a City Hall; it wasn't a TD; it wasn't a Massey College; it wasn't a Japanese Cultural Centre; etc. (And AFAIK Riverdale didn't even make it--unless in timeline-capsule form--in the Toronto 1945-65 book which pioneered "Toronto Modern" mythology in the 80s.) In a way, like Uno Prii's apartments, it's more of a recent-years happy rediscovery which, back in the day, might have been regarded as fussy and minor by the reigning tastemakers.

Given all that, I'm still pro-Riverdale, because it takes more than debunked mythology to red-X a building.


By contrast, a dilapidated rail shed in Biggar, Sask. has no particular architectural merits and no overall representative value.
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Any more than a dilapidated brickworks in the Don Valley or a dilapidated streetcar barn on Wychwood? Get the hint?

Beyond their age, I don't see the value of many of the items included on the list. If someone disagrees and thinks they are significant heritage wise, fine. I am okay with debating that, but not preservation of old things for the sake of preservation. Heritage and age are different.
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Have you ever studied (or engaged to the study of) pre-1950 architectural history, particularly as it pertains to Canada--or, for that matter, when it's inflected by other disciplines of cultural study? Something tells me that whatever background you have there is incredibly, gallingly underdeveloped...

This is subjective I realize, but I feel that this is also the time when Toronto became a bona fide "city" as opposed to a kind of provincial backwater.
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Just like Biggar, Sask., I guess.

In that case, might as well deem expendable whatever represents those "provincial backwater" days. Like, Gehry's AGO would have been much better if they got rid of the Grange, a useless old crock and former home of that horrid anti-Semite Goldwin Smith...
 
Take a look at the Parliamentary Library restoration. It's beautiful and something to be proud of.

Parts of the Parliament buildings have not been updated since the 1930's. It's about time.
 
Well, while we are at it we might as well preserve the Gardiner. It's been around for 50 odd years, and it's been important in Toronto's history. Lets preserve that. Why hasn't Regent Park or St. James town qualified for heritage status? SOMEONE has a heritage there. Using the qualifiers for preserving some of these virtually anything and everything in Canada qualifies.

There are some things that nobody really questions the importance of preservation (like, say, Parliament or Old City Hall). There are other things though that are being preserved simply because they are there, not because they actually merit it. The Biggar roundhouse is a prime example. If we are going to preserve this, we might as well preserve all of the light industry in Scarborough and North York. Within 50 years, we will have to start preserving Costcos and Wallmarts.

83508-27519.jpg


ooohhh... it's soo grand and majestic.
 
Better yet, lets preserve that massive parking lot near Queen and Church. I mean, if we are going to preserve decrepit rail infrastructure we might as well preserve decrepit auto infrastructure. It's old, it's there. Isn't that good enough?
 
Heavens, we really don't have a good architectural preservation system here at all. The recent Alma College destruction should have been a loud wake-up call.

I worry a lot about the Winnipeg airport terminal. It has seen modernization to deal with changes to air travel, yet it hasn't been bastardized like Terminal 1 was here, and still works well. I flew in once, and flew out once (separate visits to the city). It's the only demolition that would rival the Winnipeg Eaton's store (replaced by what Guy Madden calls the Empty Centre) in terms of architectural loss for that city.

As for the Biggar roundhouse, I can see why one wouldn't care too much about it, though there are few of these types of structures left, and could be adapted into something worthwhile for that town. The Kingston station is badly damaged. There is some consolation that its 1850s contemporaries in Belleville (though expanded), Port Hope, St. Mary's Junction, Napanee and Ernestown survive (with 3 still in active railway service), it deserves a better fate.

I think heritage auto-related buildings should absolutely be maintained. Any remaining art-deco gas stations should be saved, as should some parking garages and road bridges. But parking lots?
 
Whoaccio: It's old, it's there. Isn't that good enough? Who actually said this? No one, not myself or anyone else is this thread, has said anything that could lead to such a dismissive comment. Don't stick up a straw man so that you can knock it down, and be snotty at the same.

Anyways, we know what you would prefer to "it's old, so keep it". It boils down to "whoaccio likes it, so keep it". That, at least, you've been clear about. Frankly, I find that just a bit wanting.
 
Archivist said:
Who actually said this? No one, not myself or anyone else is this thread, has said anything that could lead to such a dismissive comment. Don't stick up a straw man so that you can knock it down, and be snotty at the same.
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In not so many words, yes this is exactly the sentiment displayed. What is the actual reason for preserving some of these things? Are you seriously going to tell me that some of these are nice buildings? If you had a choice, would you build the Biggar roundhouse as is? I certainly wouldn't, and I don't think anyone else here would. So I can't help but wonder why we are so keen to preserve the mistakes of past generations.

Thus far no one, aside from a brief mention of the importance of the TransCanada railway to early Canada*, has bothered to justify why most of these buildings are worth keeping. If we are going to preserve a building, the building has to be justified, lest we preserve such horrors as Regent Park. The burden should be on proving a building is worthwhile, not on assuming everything is worth preserving and whittling you're way down. Everyone knows I hate most of these buildings, that is unimportant. The real question is, who likes them?

* I agree with this point, but feel the railway hotels are an adequate preservation of this.

Archivist said:
Anyways, we know what you would prefer to "it's old, so keep it". It boils down to "whoaccio likes it, so keep it". That, at least, you've been clear about. Frankly, I find that just a bit wanting.
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No, I don't really care. You can knock down most things I like. If people don't find the Riverdale hospital to be worth preserving, bulldoze it. I like it, but I am not an expert and these decisions shouldn't be made by mob rule.
 
Perhaps an inevitable reaction to the demolition of some fine buildings in the past, and the demolition of some fine buildings today, is to elevate the significance of some structures that have novelty value, or that have simply survived and are there, beyond what can be defended on architectural or cultural grounds? There has to be some limit on how deep you can realistically dredge the past to turn up some factoid to justify preserving such buildings, or how generalized a claim that, say, a certain sector of the retail community once sold widgets there can be in order to celebrate it as characteristic of some distant time.

Faced with the possibility of replacing elderly structures that don't serve current needs with contemporary buildings that will work better, such timidity strikes me as being similar to the force behind the uneasy-marriage facadism we're settling for here and there, or the safe bet of historicist stylings for monster homes.

I think the problem the half-round faced - for all its easy, sexy/curvy appeal and the thrilling idea that it might just be a Modernist gem that had slipped under the radar - was that it wasn't suitable renovation space for a new hospital to go into and couldn't be fitted into the bigger plan to develop the site.
 
whoaccio, I don't actually like a lot of buildings, to be honest. Like you, I tend to like more recent buildings, and am at ease with many destructions, like, for instance, the row of houses on Charles that recently went. Toronto is chock a block with those. Therefore, your "reading" of my posts is inaccurate.

As for US, buildings are not retained because they are there, nor because of their "novelty value", and if you think these go into the reasons for inclusion on the inventory, then you really just don't know what you are talking about. Your criteria, "architectural" or "cultural" grounds, are only some of the criteria that are possible. For instance, the wall around the former Mental Health Centre on Queen West has no architectural value, but acts as a reminder of our common past, in particular the incarceration and segregation of patients from society. That, to me, is worth preserving.
 
Then we agree, as we must. I do feel at times that a lot of unnecessary buildings appear on the inventory. Especially when you've just cycled to the bottom of some enormous hill at the lakefront in Scarborough after crossing half the city just to get there to see yet another ratty, unremarkable brick farmhouse with aluminum windows from 1976, completely buried on an abnormally deep lot overpopulated by trees and arbitrary foliage - a house that no one could take even a partway decent photo of under any light conditions at any time of the year and probably wouldn't want to anyways even if they could see the blessed thing - there's a moment there where I contemplate burning the damn thing down myself.

I haven't yet.

So far.
 
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