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Modern Toronto

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shawnmicallef

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I'm writing a piece for an upcoming Coach House Press book called uTOpia (will be a collection of essays about Toronto). I'm writing about 1950s/60s mod utopic-minded Toronto. The stuff I noticed when i was a kid that made me think this place was a space-port. Or that it was, in fact, some clean utopia.

This is Peter Dickenson territory. Or Moriyama even (1970s too).

I've got a number of places it mind to write about - my angle isn't academic or all that technical - more psychogeographical - but if people felt like let me know your thoughts on this, and/or some examples of this stuff that you are very attached to, and why. Ya, mostly to make sure i don't overlook some obvious thing - and to get some other perspective on the thing.

Like, i love the Better Living Pavilion. And the Food building. And TD Centre....
 
I'm in a Peter Dickinson building as I post this. The one with the Dominion Modern at the base.
 
the TSA guide map 1953-2003 has buildings from that era listed along with architect info etc.
 
Jane Exbury. I don't have a personal connection to the buildings, but I love them, rising like a row of Jetsonsiana in flat Downsview. If you click on "Click here to see more files" you can see a blurry photo I took from a plane once of the towers. They're so remote and playful.
 
I remember the Bata Office on Eglinton east the most from my childhood, as we'd drive by it coming down to Toronto to visit my grandparents.
 
Jane Exbury: they're by Uno Prii (a "must" architectural avatar for a project like this).

Bata: classic 60s Parkin. Now threatened by Aga Khan.
 
"Threatened" by Aga Khan? If the threats comes in the form of Maki, Correa and a sublime collection of Islamic art, then my only regret is that they don't come forth more often.

GB
 
Ya, the Jane Exbury's are great - i love looking at them on the way up the 400.
 
I always found the Macdonald Block at Queen's Park woefully underappreciated. It's beautiful, has great art (including a miniature art gallery), and is completely accessible to the public. It's well worth a visit and stroll around, though many areas are not at their best because of a large asbestos remediation project. As well, the building isn't very well-lit as an energy conservation measure.
 
"Threatened" by Aga Khan? If the threats comes in the form of Maki, Correa and a sublime collection of Islamic art, then my only regret is that they don't come forth more often.
Click to expand...

Yes, but Parkin's building is distinguished enough in its own right--even if maybe not enough for salvage under these circumstances (though IMO Bata might actually acquit itself quite well adaptively reused as part of a Maki/Correa/whatever Aga Khan Acropolis, y'never know--its articulated-concrete 60s neo-formalism certainly has more of a "museological" quality than the rest of the corporate offices and HQs this way).

To jump at the nerve of anyone labelling Bata "threatened" is like jumping at the nerve of anyone in labelling Carrere & Hastings' Bank of Toronto "threatened by Mies" c1966. Even if the replacement's better, that which it replaced was sufficiently good to make it a sad loss regardless--and it's simply dunderheaded to ask people to forget about the old Bank of Toronto simply because "Mies is better". And in the context of this particular thread, yes, it's all right to call Bata "threatened".

Methinks, Geeky, that sometimes you're just too "threatened" by any sentiment t/w existing built culture--sheesh, what are you, a bantamweight Herbert Muschamp or something...
 
I always found the Macdonald Block at Queen's Park woefully underappreciated. It's beautiful, has great art (including a miniature art gallery), and is completely accessible to the public. It's well worth a visit and stroll around, though many areas are not at their best because of a large asbestos remediation project. As well, the building isn't very well-lit as an energy conservation measure.
Click to expand...

Agreed there; in fact, the art is the sleeper which upstages the architecture. (And relative to this thread, I wonder if the architecture, fine as it is, is too "formal"...)
 
adma:

What, the fact that the removal of a building is sad doesn't meant the potential of something more glorious is some dreadful, end-of-the-world event you made it to be. The city isn't some museum that stands still for the appreciation of "the few".

Besides, nobody is asking that Bata be "forgotten" - just as the old Bank of Toronto wasn't "forgotten" after TD. Regrettable? Yes, but not really.

re: "threatened"

If I am a bantamweight Herbert Muschamp, what does that make you, Le Corbusier in the same class?

GB
 
re: Macdonald Block

Does anyone know what is the status of the landscape reno?

GB
 
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