The Wychwood barns project started a decade ago with a row of derelict maintenance sheds, barns built in the 1920s by the TTC for its streetcars. Despite loud opposition from the neighbours, the renovation is a brilliant essay in remaking the old to incorporate the new.
RENE JOHNSTON/TORONTO STARNever underestimate the power of architecture. Though Toronto doesn’t possess the architectural depth of some cities, what we have we love. That has been demonstrated again and again by Doors Open, which in its first decade attracted 1.5 million visits.
This year, Doors Open’s 11th outing, could be the most popular ever. With 150-plus buildings in the lineup as well as a number of architectural practices, the emphasis is on design as a process as well as a product.
And in fact the number of first-rate architectural firms in Toronto is much larger than it should be. That hasn’t always been the case — just look at what architects did to the city in the 1960s and ’70s — but now the community is in the midst of an architectural renaissance. This goes beyond the big cultural projects — the Art Gallery of Ontario (Frank Gehry), the Royal Ontario Museum (Daniel Libeskind), the Ontario College of Art and Design (Will Alsop), the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art (Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg) — and includes more modest schemes of the sort that are often overlooked.
To this end, Doors Open organizers have put together a program called Ask an Architect that will give visitors a chance to visit to speak to practitioners both at buildings they have designed and their offices. Among the participating firms are Diamond and Schmitt, du Toit Allsopp Hillier, Farrow Partnership, Levitt Goodman, Kasian Architecture, Stantec, Taylor Smyth and Zeidler Partnership.
But for most, buildings are what the excitement is all about. Though they make up the world we inhabit, for the most part, they are off limits. And even when they’re not, Doors Open provides an occasion when for one weekend normally private spaces become an extension of the public realm.
Think of 401 Richmond St. W., for example: That’s the early 20th-century factory restored by Margie Zeidler as a home for small cultural groups that would otherwise have a hard time finding premises. The building is open during the usual business hours, but the architectural visitor might feel somewhat self-conscious wandering its halls without an appointment. For one weekend in May, Doors Open will serve as that appointment.
The superb McKinsey Building of Charles St. is another example; Monday to Friday it is a working building, not a place you’d drop in to visit on a whim. At the same time, it happens to be one of the best pieces of corporate architecture in Toronto’s small corporate centres; it is an urban oasis, one of those rare business structures designed not to intimidate passersby with corporate might but intended instead to be fully integrated into the larger context.
Also on the list this month is Phase 1 of the new Regent Park. This is a story that goes beyond architecture, though design lies at the heart of the transformation now unfolding in this well-intentioned but troubled neighbourhood.
When construction of Regent Park started in the late 1940s, it was considered one of the most progressive housing communities in the world. Experts came from all over the globe to have a look. But half a century later, the Utopian ideas on which the neighbourhood was based have been discarded.
Back then the thinking was that social housing should be set in the middle of shared green space cut off from the surrounding city. Today’s approach couldn’t be more dissimilar. Now Regent Park is undergoing changes that will see it reconnected to the rest of Toronto; the street will be opened up and it will be impossible to tell whether the new condo towers are for subsidized or full-market-rent residents.
Another example of contemporary attitudes to architecture, past and present, is the hugely successful Wychwood barns project. It started a decade ago with a row of derelict maintenance sheds, barns built in the 1920s by the TTC for its streetcars. Despite loud opposition from the neighbours, the renovation is a brilliant essay in remaking the old to incorporate the new.
Doors Open will also offer the chance to have an advance look at the Evergreen Brick Works, now under construction in the Don Valley. In this spectacular and imaginative project, the former industrial site will be revitalized and turned into a showcase of urban environmentalism. Though much work remains, it’s already clear that Evergreen picks up where Wychwood ends, seamlessly blending old and new.
Though Doors Open has always been considered a way to get in touch with Toronto’s past, this time around it will also offer a glimpse into the city’s future.
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