1960s Toronto

[Urban Shocker]

I had supper with Mrs. Prii and two journalist friends earlier this week, over at the RCYC. She's nearly 84 now, and hanging in there pretty well. A very gracious lady, who reads Spacing and is in touch with contemporary Toronto. She and Uno chose to live here and never regretted it, coming from post-war Europe after enduring some terrible times. They were avid sailors, but she sold the boat a year after he died, and goes over to the yacht club several times a week during the summer. Uno wasn't part of the "in crowd" of the architectural establishment, and frankly couldn't have cared less about being so. He also painted and sculpted, and architecture was just one of the things he did. The Prii's did know just about everyone, however - including Peter Dickinson, who I tried to find out more about but wasn't able to. I told her that 77 Elm and the Jane Exbury towers were my favourite examples of his designs.

 

[Spoonman]

Those buildings are very reminiscent of his handsome (and recently repainted) tower on Prince Arthur, except the "swoosh" element continues to sweep down to the ground, rather than arcing back towards the building, in turn giving it, in my opinion, a more graceful proportion.

 

[Lone Primate]

I hope you don't mind that I scaled it down a bit. This image reminds me of the movie, Logan's Run.

Yeah, that's a gorgeous image. It's so moody and retro-futuristic. Ah, the future as it was supposed to be.

 

[MarketMan]

Every time I see this picture, it makes me sick that the Registry building was torn down; especially the way it's perched up on top of that hill in such a grand fashion. I can't think of any other buildings in Toronto with such grand steps, and a proud entrance. It could've easily been kept, nothing worthwhile replaced it at that position.

A parking ramp replaced it. Unbelievable.

 

[Urban Shocker]

The original design for New City Hall incorporated the Registry building, but a group of architecture students at the U of T denounced it in The Varsity, and the publicity they helped to generate created enough opposition that the design was subsequently defeated in a plebiscite. This paved the way for an international competition that selected Revell's scheme.

Here's the original design, by Mariani & Morris, Mathers & Haldenby and Shore & Moffat:

http://www.toronto.ca/archives/images/pt344_c_5.jpg

 

[adma]

A parking ramp replaced it. Unbelievable.

But it's only mid-demolition photographic illusion that makes it appear perched atop a hill. And all things considered: except as a puzzle piece in a Beaux-Arts civic-centre scheme that never came to pass, was the Registry really *that* important? Well yes, important enough to save had it lasted a decade or more longer--but when it comes to the early 60s, its expendabililty was wholly understandable, maybe even more so than the Riverdale half-round today. (Which, incidentally, is about the same age now as the Registry was back when the New City Hall competition took place.)

Unfortunately, these photographs exist for us to react to it as though it happened yesterday...

 

[urbanboom]

Those pictures (especially, the skyline pics.) really remind me of the Buffalo of today. I find it fascinating how the two evolved differently.

 

[Lone Primate]

Here's the original design, by Mariani & Morris, Mathers & Haldenby and Shore & Moffat:

http://www.toronto.ca/archives/images/pt344_c_5.jpg

Hmm, I have to say, I like the building we got better. That looks like the sleepy, could-be-anything city hall Hamilton got. But I would have loved to have been able to keep the Land Registry building. It was impressive. Startling to see it in those shots of the New City Hall construction. A real pity it's gone.

 

[Lone Primate]

Those pictures (especially, the skyline pics.) really remind me of the Buffalo of today. I find it fascinating how the two evolved differently.

Well, the US already has a Chicago. They probably didn't need a second one.

 

[Edward]

The original design for New City Hall incorporated the Registry building, but a group of architecture students at the U of T denounced it in The Varsity, and the publicity they helped to generate created enough opposition that the design was subsequently defeated in a plebiscite. This paved the way for an international competition that selected Revell's scheme.

Here's the original design, by Mariani & Morris, Mathers & Haldenby and Shore & Moffat:

http://www.toronto.ca/archives/images/pt344_c_5.jpg

I'll take what we have today over that.

 

[jaborandi]

The original design for New City Hall incorporated the Registry building, but a group of architecture students at the U of T denounced it in The Varsity, and the publicity they helped to generate created enough opposition that the design was subsequently defeated in a plebiscite. This paved the way for an international competition that selected Revell's scheme.

Here's the original design, by Mariani & Morris, Mathers & Haldenby and Shore & Moffat:

http://www.toronto.ca/archives/images/pt344_c_5.jpg

Didn't the tower bit end up on St. Clair West?

 

[smuncky]

Hmm, I have to say, I like the building we got better. That looks like the sleepy, could-be-anything city hall Hamilton got.

funny you say that, because city halls all over the country were being built in this style.

City Hall, Hamilton, Ontario Stanley Roscoe with Fleury and Arthur 1959

City Hall, Ottawa Rother, Bland, Trudeau 1958

City Hall, Edmonton, Alberta Dewar, Stevenson and Stanley 1957

also, with that first proposal, there are some similarities with the beaux arts plan for toronto from 1911 by John Lyle.

my apologies for the small picture, but you can see the grand avenue (federal avenue) coming from union station to the plazas which were to hold all the civic buildings, federal and municipal.

here is the plan for the original city hall proposal.

Marani & Morris / Mathers & Haldenby / Shore & Moffat 1955

 

[Urban Shocker]

I think the underground parking garage was a feature of the rejected design, which would make it the only part that was built.

In the rejected design, the way in which the treed open space south of the retained Registry building is set apart from the larger plaza south of the new City Hall isn't unlike what we got on the west side of Revell's built design. And the perimeter trees form a version of the elevated walkway, though I think that walking into the Square beneath the walkways is a more effective way of marking a transition from one realm to another.

 

[taal]

Your kidding me what we have today is way better ... minus the square. But the building, that's unbeatable - have you seen the city council cambers, the way the whole thing comes up from the bottom into a disk ... that was a really bad explanation : - )

Anyway the square needs a ton of work but that can be fixed the buildings are great don't touch them!

 

[adma]

funny you say that, because city halls all over the country were being built in this style.

And the irony is that that *isn't* the style of the 1955 Toronto scheme. Edmonton and Hamilton, especially, are flat-out vernacular Corbusiana. Whereas Toronto's was stodgy, retardataire "modern classical".