From the Globe and Mail, Real Estate Section, by JBM:
ARCHITECTURE
A rough ride for the new kids on the block
The parishioners may not like it, but all above-ground parking lots in downtown Toronto are doomed.
JOHN BENTLEY MAYS
From Friday's Globe and Mail
May 2, 2008 at 12:00 AM EDT
Toronto's most recent public dust-up over a residential high-rise proposal — this time slated to gobble up a parking lot on the campus of St. Michael's College (an affiliate of the University of Toronto) — featured the usual combatants.
On the side of college officials and the developers — dukes up — stood city councillor Kyle Rae, foe of above-ground parking lots in the downtown core and a vocal fan of inner-city skyscrapers.
On the opposing side was an aggrieved citizens' group, in this instance, the clergy and parishioners at St. Basil's, the college church. They were offended by what they took to be the disregard for their opinions by the college and the city, and irritated by the sell-off and impending loss of their large parking lot.
The critics of tall-building aesthetics were also on hand: The Reverend Paul McGill, a priest at St. Basil's, told a reporter that the proposed towers — 45 and 55 storeys, respectively — were "sterile" and "monstrous." After city council approved the plan, a parishioner at St. Basil's said: "We have to look at our options, but it's definitely not over."
Whatever the merits of the parishioners' argument that they were given the brush-off by city and college officials, the continuing controversy at St. Michael's College pinpoints a number of issues that deserve attention.
One of them has to do with parking lots. The parishioners may not like it, but all above-ground parking lots in downtown Toronto are doomed. And they will stay doomed, so long as our cash-strapped city reaps fat fees from developers of residential towers, and these developers, as they are required to do, provide financial support for much-needed community projects, parks and other amenities.
But there are good public-policy reasons that we should be glad to see the end of parking lots, including the one at St. Mike's. They are environmentally unfriendly eyesores, bleak expanses of gravel or asphalt that fray the urban fabric. The convenience they provide for drivers is far better handled by underground garages. Also, parking lots unfortunately encourage people to drive into our congested downtown, and discourage use of public transit — which, incidentally, serves St. Michael's College and St. Basil's Church very well.
The college is making provision for parking in a lot across the street, at least on Sundays, which is as it should be: Elderly and infirm parishioners must not be disadvantaged by the college's determination to develop its site. All others can walk or cycle or take the TTC.
As a practising Catholic, I would probably agree with Father McGill on most religious matters. But I find his opinions about architecture extreme and beside the point. Designed by the omnipresent mid-career Toronto architect Peter Clewes, the two point-towers will almost certainly be neither "sterile" nor "monstrous." Mr. Clewes does tall glass and steel condo buildings that, so far, have been good examples of austere and elegant architectural modernism, and solid building-blocks in a city in need of repair. Though you never can tell what architects are going to do next, I don't expect Mr. Clewes's design strategy to swerve suddenly into the horrific at this point. At least when it comes to art, St. Michael's surely has very little to fear.
The towers pose yet another and more interesting problem.
The university, along with many of its friends in the community, have opposed the erection of large new buildings on the mostly low-rise and mid-rise campus, except at the edges that directly abut the downtown fabric. And even on the campus outskirts, the structures have not been very tall.
But let's say the Bay Street site of St. Michael's College qualifies as one of the university's edge conditions, and the scheme proceeds as planned. Towers standing 45 and 55 storeys tall on the fringe of the campus would certainly not seem foreign in their urban context, which includes several high buildings. Seen in the academic context, on the other hand — low-rise, compact little St. Mike's — the towers will probably seem audaciously big.
Yet the college and the condo complex will have one thing in common: Each represents the thought of its time about what new buildings should look like, and, together, they comprise a record of architectural ideas in modern times.
In the case of the college, this thinking has passed through several phases, from the mid-Victorian Gothic revival style of St. Basil's Church to the 1960s precast concrete "institutional-lite" manner of the John M. Kelly Library.
For their part, the towers will present to the city and the university a still later version of architectural thinking, as it's been developed by designers seeking a simple, economical, contemporary skyscraper style.
I hope the towers and the college learn to co-exist peacefully. St. Michael's has long been, and Mr. Clewes' high-rises will probably be, notable contributions to the evolving landscape of downtown Toronto.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080501.re-mays-0502/REStory/RealEstate/home
AoD
