Toronto: An Urban Portrait (dial-up warning)

These are photos from a CD-ROM I developed. Toronto: An Urban Portrait examines Toronto's history and built heritage through photos, text and interactive maps. I've included some of the text by way of explanation and as a little intro to things local (from the perspective of a still-perplexed American expatriate). There's a heavy focus on the architects who designed these buildings. Architecture was my major until I blinked and changed it to political science and history. All photos Pentax SP... blah blah... 80-200mm blah blah blah...

Casa Loma (E.J. Lennox, architect) 1914





Its 98 rooms, imposing towers, indoor swimming pool, telephone system and stables conferred immediate landmark status at the time of its construction, but Casa Loma is best appreciated as the product of two remarkable personalities: Toronto industrialist Sir Henry Pellatt, who brought electricity to the citizenry, and the prodigiously talented architect Sir Henry hired to build his dream home.

Pellatt wanted a baronial monument to his own achievements, and Lennox might be fairly accused of
being no more tasteful than his client required. A frantic pastiche of centuries of European castle design, the crass ‘castle’ has many pleasures. It takes full advantage of its site high above Davenport Road, with the views from its towers among the finest in Toronto. Within, Lennox fashioned some spaces of surpassing elegance. The conservatory's beautiful stained-glass dome alone cost $12,000.

Pellatt purportedly interviewed each of the hundreds of construction workers personally, which helps explain why three years of building were insufficient to complete the home. Taking up residence in 1913 with much of the interior still unfinished, he spent about $3.5 million on Casa Loma.

A decade later, business reversals had eroded Pellatt’s fortunes, and he retired to the country, leaving Casa Loma to the city. It was converted to a hotel in 1926 by Toronto architect William Sparling (designer of the Masonic Temple at Yonge and Davenport). The venture failed in 1928. Since 1937, it has been operated by the Kiwanis Club as a tourist attraction. One of the first to visit in 1937 was none other than Sir Henry Pellatt.

Church of St Andrew’s by the Lake (Arthur Richard Denison, architect) 1884



The Toronto Islands community once boasted several churches, of which this is the only one remaining. Designed by Islands resident AR Denison, St. Andrew's by the Lake is the home of an outreach parish under the control of St. James. Denison, a scion of the Denison family so influential in early Toronto history, learned his craft from Joseph Connolly and Walter Strickland.

St. Andrew's by the Lake was built near the Avenue of the Islands and moved to its present Centre Island site in 1959. The building was sawn in half to facilitate the move.

The modest little church features stained glass by McCausland, the firm responsible for the windows of Old City Hall and many churches throughout the city. The Anglican congregation now shares the space with the congregation of St. Rita's, a Catholic Islands church demolished in 1984.

St. Andrew's is a reminder that the Islands are the home of a living community as well as being the city's largest park. The community's permanence has been hotly debated for decades, sparking court cases, protest rallies and reams of newspaper coverage.

Osgoode Hall, central section (Cumberland & Storm, architects) 1857





Osgoode Hall is an architectural jigsaw puzzle made by many hands over many years. John Ewart's east wing of 1832 and Henry Lane's west wing of 1844 were simple Georgian interpretations of Classical forms. This central section by Cumberland and Storm, which replaced Lane’s domed loggia, is an altogether more sophisticated take on Classical architecture, filtered through Palladio.

The library and rotunda in particular are among the most beautiful rooms in the city, elegant spaces grand enough to proclaim the paramount importance of the rule of law in a burgeoning frontier town far from the heart of the empire.

The 120,000-volume library, measuring 112’ by 40’ and featuring magnificent plaster ornament, is a truly majestic space. As architectural historian William Dendy has commented, there is ‘no grander room in Canada.’ A portrait of Chief Justice John Beverley Robinson, who once owned the land Osgoode Hall occupies, gazes from the west wall across to a memorial to the war dead of the legal profession on the east wall.

In 1882, Storm added the convocation hall, a baronial room flanked by rich paneling and large stained-glass windows. That same year, Osgoode Hall was described by travel writer George M. Grant as ‘the Mecca of Toronto sight-seers’.

The central section has been justifiably criticized for its slightly awkward unification of the older east and west wings, but time and perennial familiarity have blended its disparate sections together better than its makers – some of the finest architects in the city’s history – could have hoped.

University College, University of Toronto (Cumberland & Storm, architects) 1859



Soon after it went up, University College was described as “the glory of Toronto”, a description that is still valid. Before design work began, Cumberland traveled at the university’s expense to England, Ireland and the Continent, examining the newest university buildings, as well as historical antecedents.

After some debate Cumberland and Storm eventually settled on a picturesque Norman Romanesque style, a mode much more delicate than the late-Victorian Romanesque pioneered by Chicago architect Henry Hobson Richardson and so vividly transplanted to Toronto by EJ Lennox. The emphasis on ‘the picturesque’ was derived in large part from the writings of Cumberland’s friend, the famous critic John Ruskin.

University College is a sprawling C-shaped complex wrapped around a quadrangle. Its architecture is endlessly rewarding to the spectator, from the asymmetrical massing of its wings to the delicate cresting of its varied rooflines. The architects incorporated a profusion of distinctly Canadian flora and fauna into the ornamentation, anticipating John Lyle’s similar quest for a specifically Canadian iconography by over half a century.

An army of stonecutters produced the ornamentation. One of them, Ivan Reznikoff, is said to have quarreled with Paul Diabolos, a co-worker. Diabolos purportedly murdered Reznikoff and buried his body in the quadrangle. His ghost is said to haunt the building.

John George Howard Tomb (John George Howard, architect) 1877



This was an extraordinarily remote location in the 1830s. Howard’s property, which he bequeathed to the city and which became the core of today’s High Park, was a wild tract where one would be more apt to encounter wolves, bears, cougars or lynx than people.

Devoted to his wife Jemima, Howard nevertheless sired three children with a Mrs Mary Williams. Howard built this tomb west of Colborne Lodge after Jemima’s death in 1877.

The fence around the cairn is supposedly the oldest cast-iron fence in the world. It was designed by Sir Christopher Wren and once stood outside St Paul's Cathedral in London. The ship carrying the fence from England was wrecked on the St Lawrence River, but the fence was saved. Howard himself had coincidentally survived a shipwreck on his 1832 passage to Canada.

Inside the fence, the Howards’ headstone is banked against a large cairn of rough stone surmounted by a carved pediment, which in turn supports a Maltese cross.

The couple had donated their estate to the city in 1873, stipulating that it be used for public parkland. Howard was paid an annuity of $1200 a year and allowed to live at Colborne Lodge until his death. That he lasted another seventeen years was no doubt vexing to the City Hall beancounters. He died in 1890 and was buried next to his wife.

The Canadian Bank of Commerce, no Commerce Court North (Darling & Pearson with York & Sawyer, architects) 1930



For over thirty years this building was the city’s tallest, and indeed until the early 1960s the tallest in the British Commonwealth. York & Sawyer were an American firm specializing in tall bank buildings. Darling & Pearson’s design involvement with the project was merely nominal.

The most striking external feature is the row of 24-foot Byzantine heads adorning its now-closed observation deck. They were once visible throughout the downtown area, but with the advent of later and bigger skyscrapers are now difficult to see from street level. Some of the original effect can still be experienced from various intersections, where the visages gaze out across upon the mortal business of getting and spending. Less imposing but nonetheless exquisite decoration can be appreciated around the building’s lower floors.

Inside, the banking hall is one of Toronto’s finest rooms, rich with gilt ornament and enormous vaulted window bays. The central vault rises to a height of 65 feet.

Ornate brass reliefs are worked into doorframes and transoms. Everything about the building looks, and assuredly was, expensive. The bank’s decision to preserve the tower as part of the Commerce Court complex was as fine an act of corporate civic-mindedness as Toronto has seen in the last century.

Roy Thomson Hall 1982 (Arthur Erickson, architect) 1982



Roy Thomson Hall stands on the old site of Government House, a grand Second Empire mansion built for the convenience of the Lieutenant Governor. The intersection of King and Simcoe was jocularly known as ‘Four Nations Corner’ where Education (Upper Canada College’s first home on the northwest corner), Salvation (St. Andrew’s Church on the southeast), Legislation (Government House) and Damnation (a tavern and hotel on the northeast), seemed to vie for supremacy. Everything but the church has been torn down and replaced.

Criticized from the outset for its awkward relationship to the street, and for acoustical shortcomings, Erickson's striking glass hatbox replaced Massey Hall as the home of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. As the hall's acoustics elicited growing dissatisfaction from critics and the concert-going public, so too did the orchestra's fortunes decline. After a period of fiscal turmoil and pitched battles between management and musicians, the orchestra managed to right itself. A key element of this was the upgrading of its home. Over Erickson's public objections, the hall was reconfigured and acoustically modified at a cost of $20 million by KPMB and acoustical engineer Russell Johnson of New York. It reopened in September 2002 to generally favorable reviews.

For all that Erickson felt ill-treated by the renovation episode, he has experienced more indignity with his other significant Toronto project, the 1977 Yorkdale subway station, which has degenerated alarmingly since its construction. Rain leaks through Erickson’s arcing glazed roof, grime encrusts the walls, and the elaborate neon sculpture integrally worked into the plan went dark long ago.

photographer, writer, historian!
Hi, Jeff, and thanks for the history lesson and pics.
I've been out of pocket for a few weeks, went to very hot and got back to very cold temps, I hope you both are doing well and staying warm! If it's cold here, I'm thinking it's cold where you are.
I've never been to Canada. How dumb is that? Maybe this summer ~ will you both be around?
BTW, my husband's the only one of us four that might claim some Canadian lineage! :silly:

Was wondering where you were. I don't know the precise definition of #$$%&, but it's probably a valid description.

Yes, it's cold here, though a little warmer than usual for early December. Anything much below 68° is cold as far as I'm concerned. I'd weep for joy to see a palm tree or some Spanish moss.

Can't tell you how much we'd enjoy having visitors here. There's no end of things to see and do (and photograph). You'll find that being anti-Bush scores big points with the locals! And if your husband has some Canajun blood, he may be able to handle oddities like poutine or no beer and wine in supermarkets and convenience stores.

I'm too tired tonight to read all the words, but I love the shots. :)

:)

I caught these on my way to sleepy time last night but didn't have the energy to post a reply. The narrative.... the photos ... ya' had me craving more. Definitely put me down for a copy of your CD.

While I almost didn't graduate from High School and my "college" majors were Rare Columbian Herbs and Audio Vibrations Caused by Revolutions of 33 1/3.... I've always had an interest in History. I could talk History for hours. Not just the History of something but the subject itself.

It is a grave concern of mine that the yute' of today is seriously neglecting... ignoring... History.

This is a fantastic piece of work you've done. It's obviously not something that you just threw together one night while drinking a box of fine wine. I'd tip my hat to you... if I owned a hat.

Thank you much.

It's a broad generalization, but Canadians don't much care about their history, and their track record on historic preservation and heritage awareness is disgraceful. That was part of the motivation behind this project. It started as a series of pics of architectural details and turned into 200 pages of text and 900-odd photos, with a ton of research and a couple of years traipsing around to look at what remains from so much indifference and rapid change. And then there was the design and programming aspect. I described this to someone as "writing a book and turning it into a movie simultaneously".

And now if I could find a buyer... I couldn't sell a donut to a Canadian, sadly.

And you know, the herbs and audio vibrations sound eerily familiar.

do you sleep?

I only found out that the usual size of multimedia production teams is 6-10 people or more when I was halfway through the thing. I'd advise anyone not to undertake something like this alone.:scared: