City
Toronto's concrete heritage can't get no respect
Perhaps you've heard Nouvelle Vague's "Dance With Me" being used in radio ads for a new condo development: Chaz on Charles. Launching a condo project in the middle of real estate downswing is probably not the wisest idea. But unlike other condo projects, this one does not appear to be threatening heritage. The building that is currently there - 45 Charles Street East - is a nondescript concrete office building. Even the city does not care that 45 Charles Street East is being torn down. It's one of those concrete buildings that's a blight on the Toronto landscape. Or is it?
Torontonians are often embarrassed by the amount of concrete in our city. Viewed as cheap and bland, to many contemporary eyes it seems like an ugly reminder of what replaced the quaint Victorian homes, office buildings and warehouses that were torn down in the 60s and 70s to make way for it.
But in these decades, the use of concrete was considered avant-garde, and Toronto was seen as one of the most progressive architectural cities in the world. Concrete - a relatively new material that wasn't tied down by a history of design - seemed like the perfect building material to position Toronto as the city of the future. The plasticity of concrete allowed for bold forms and new shapes. And it gave us two of our city icons: the CN Tower and New City Hall.
The competition for a New City Hall generated unprecedented international attention from architects and design proposals poured in. One of the finalists was from a group of Harvard architectural students. While the group didn't win, one of them, Macy DuBois, stayed in the city and helped design some of our best-known concrete structures. One of the most recognizable of these is 45 Charles Street East.
DuBois put many details into the building. In an interview published in Concrete Toronto (DuBois's last public appearance was at the book launch), he speaks of the design's attention to detail. He wanted the concrete to appear very textured when viewed close up, but for it to lighten when viewed at a distance. This dual texture was similar to what had been achieved in some Italian villas DuBois had seen. And because it was set in the middle of the block, DuBois knew that most people would be approaching the building from the side, so he set terraces - a rarity for office buildings - at an angle. As DuBois said, "Being angled to the street is actually more attractive than being parallel."
Although many people don't particularly appreciate these buildings now, a similar lack of appreciation encouraged the destruction of Victorian structures in the 1960s. When Eaton's was considering buying and demolishing Old City Hall in order to build the initial Eaton Centre proposal, there were people who came out in favour of Old City Hall's destruction, citing its lack of "architectural merit." Now this argument seems impossible to understand. Will future Torontonians bemoan our lack of appreciation for our recent architectural past?
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Y'all need to do a feature on 310 and 320 Tweedsimuir before it's too late.
Glass is the new concrete. Every generation has its cheap, soulless building material. It has nothing to do with aesthetics. The lack of an enforceable "style guide" for urban growth (no, I mean a real one) is the real problem here.
This one though, I don't think we can make much of a case for. It's not outright ugly, but it's pretty plain. I'm of the mind that middle-of-the-road 19th century archiecture is simply more attractive and human-scaled than middle-of-the-road mid 20th century modernism and brutalism. It's just the nature of the building style, and I say that long having come to an appreciation of modern architecture, even excitement for it.
So, I feel like we need to preserve as much as possible of the 19th century, while we can be happy with saving just a few superior examples of concrete heritage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CYN14Ki5o8&;feature=av2e
"Y'all need to do a feature on 310 and 320 Tweedsimuir before it's too late."
Actually, it is too late. The last bit of 320 came down a couple weeks ago (I have a couple pictures of a forlorn, 4 storey remnant of the utility core taken a day or so before it too was gone) and 310 is about half its previous height and is at the stage they use the giant concrete pliers things. It too will be gone inside of a month.
Pity really. Another one of those cases of "let it deteriorate until it justifies demolishion".
45 Charles East isn't even in rough shape. It's a perfectly serviceable office building, it just happens to have gotten in the way of some developer. Just like so many other buildings in this city it needs a good pressure washing to get rid of the grime but is otherwise is a pretty decent building.
How did the rezoning slip through? I thought the city wanted to stop the loss of employment sites?
At any rate, I kind of hope the real estate down market keeps this one from getting off the ground until someone thinks better of this.
I still do business in 45 and have never had a problem with it.
Matt, Imperial Oil's headquarters isn't really Brutalist specifically, rather an example of Modernism. It's also faced primarily with limestone.
DanBro, scottd is correct. The building that now houses the MGM Grand used to be the RCMP HQ.
(I lump them in together 'cause they hail from the same and I they both rely on form and shape rather than decorative elements, generally, for aesthetic appeal.)
You know, nowadays, glass & steel is seen as cheap (only by Torontonians), but I don't understand what else you expect them to use?
This building looks like it would be perfect for conversion into larger family sized units. There's already outdoor space for each unit! I can't help but think that this would make more sense from an environmental point of view as well (recycling at it's best). We should be encouraging families to move back to the city, and leave what farm land still exists as farms, not ugly sub-divisions.
Sadly, builders won't think this way. Not enough money to be made! I can't wait until the condo market crashes and burns once and for all.
Dundas on the east side. The Grand Hotel & Suites is
there now. Before that, the HQ was on Sullivan St. near the
Grange Park area.
I remember the construction of the building and how forbidding it looked with blank end walls on the east
and west sides. The hotel put up fake windows to
halfway civilise the building.
C r e e p y
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Heck, I'd go a step beyond that in claiming that Imperial Oil isn't even especially *Modernist*, what with its limestone facing and Moderne/Classical hangover feeling, all of which betrays the legend of its design having been recycled from the abortive mid-50s New City Hall scheme. Indeed, Imperial Oil wouldn't have been out of place housing some Stalin-era Soviet Bloc ministry (oh, and don't read that as condemnation, either--unlike saltspring's uninformed hack judgment label of "those horrible and repressive Soviet-era administrative buildings.")
It's not the materials, it's how they're used.
And yes, it's not the materials, it's how they're used. But that doesn't change the fact that I don't want to live in a city with glass-facaded buildings one after the other.
Matt, I find that even with all of the recent glass-faced buildings, the overall landscape is still defined by brick, and in the newer areas, concrete and stone. Each generation saw large amounts of whatever "en-vogue" styles being built, and even once this trend is over, we won't be over-saturated by glass. Our concrete and brick suburban highrise neighbourhoods could benefit with a bit of glass, anyway.
Anyway, materials come in and out of fashion all the time. I don't want to see us building a bunch of Queen Anne style houses. That would be regression. But to discard perfectly good building materials out of some weird notion of progress is just strange.
Only then perhaps will Toronto be slightly less hideous.
Walking home from a Cabbagetown bar one night, I found a large framed sketch of 45 Charles East in someone's garbage. I stared at it for about 20 seconds, before knowing that I had to take it. I had nowhere to put it in my condo though, but I was pretty sure one of my architecturally-astute friends (and I have many) would be interested. I therefore emailed them all and waited and waited...and waited. Nobody wanted it though and it ended up in my own gabrage about a month later.