News   Mar 28, 2024
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UofT: Sidney Smith Hall Redevelopment (?s, ?)

If properly contextualized, yes.

And frankly, under the circumstance, if this isn't the one of the four 60s West Campus complexes you'd save, then you might as well sweep all four away on behalf of a massive tabula rasa re-visioning of said West Campus; because, really, "functionality" is the only argument that can be offered on *their* behalf according to the Sid-Smith-must-go barometer. And let Robarts and New and Innis run away with the 60s/70s fabric-decreed-to-remain honours...

I don't think McLennan is in any way inferior to Sid Smith, as a design representative of the time and context. I'd be much more defensive of Burton Tower than the Sid Smith admin wing. What, exactly, is it about Sid Smith that demands such deference? Would it be a better building if we restored it to its original condition?
 
I don't think McLennan is in any way inferior to Sid Smith, as a design representative of the time and context. I'd be much more defensive of Burton Tower than the Sid Smith admin wing. What, exactly, is it about Sid Smith that demands such deference? Would it be a better building if we restored it to its original condition?
Perhaps it would--at least as goes the central "atrium" (the part of the building proper most "transformed").

As far as Burton goes, I'd agree insofar as skyscraper demolition tends to be "problematic".

And generally speaking, I think the universal principle is: the best antidote t/w "appreciating" and living with past architecture is to have a comprehensive, *historically-minded* affinity for preexisting conditions. Or in a manner of speaking, view Sid Smith through a candidate-for-Doors-Open prism rather than through a candidate-for-demolition prism. Think of it as a guidebook or database entry, rather than as that mute thing "nobody" likes...
 
Perhaps it would--at least as goes the central "atrium" (the part of the building proper most "transformed").

As far as Burton goes, I'd agree insofar as skyscraper demolition tends to be "problematic".

And generally speaking, I think the universal principle is: the best antidote t/w "appreciating" and living with past architecture is to have a comprehensive, *historically-minded* affinity for preexisting conditions. Or in a manner of speaking, view Sid Smith through a candidate-for-Doors-Open prism rather than through a candidate-for-demolition prism. Think of it as a guidebook or database entry, rather than as that mute thing "nobody" likes...

IF you would preserve that thing which no one (or at least very few ) like; what would you ever demolish?

Moreover, how do you address problems associated w/function, with accessibility? Yes, these can be remedied, but what's left when your done wouldn't resemble what you started with ......in which case, why are we saving it?
 
IF you would preserve that thing which no one (or at least very few ) like; what would you ever demolish?

Moreover, how do you address problems associated w/function, with accessibility? Yes, these can be remedied, but what's left when your done wouldn't resemble what you started with ......in which case, why are we saving it?
Notice that I put "nobody" in quotes; which illuminates my conviction that it's a Joe Blow argument, in the end. Sure, you can "universalize" it into an unquoted "no one (or at least very few)" argument--but the reality is, most people are inherently in a middle ground that ranges from indifference to open-ended acceptance of the conditions which prevail. That is, if the institutional decision is to retain and even to some degree restore rather than to wipe off the map, this *actual* silent majority of which I speak *wouldn't* be actively WTF-why-are-you-saving-this-cr@p about it. Sure, those on the populist warpath against modernist carbuncles might view such folk as architectural sheeple; but...hey, whatever.

And as far as the "wouldn't resemble what you started with" argument goes; when one *starts* with the principle that Sid Smith is in some way "important" or "significant", that'd be a cue for working to respecting at least *some* conditions that prevail, and pushing back against the more egregious alteration-beyond-recognition likelihood.

And as far as what I'd demolish: maybe more like what I'd stop in its tracks--that is, Forest Hill-style McMansion rebuilds, often committed on behalf of those who, er, "suffered" through Sid Smith in their university years. Otherwise, this is a good *principle* to keep in mind, at least when it comes to regarding our preexisting environments preemptively...


Also this

 
And generally speaking, I think the universal principle is: the best antidote t/w "appreciating" and living with past architecture is to have a comprehensive, *historically-minded* affinity for preexisting conditions. Or in a manner of speaking, view Sid Smith through a candidate-for-Doors-Open prism rather than through a candidate-for-demolition prism. Think of it as a guidebook or database entry, rather than as that mute thing "nobody" likes...

But the building isn't just a passive piece of information on a dusty shelf. It's a building that has thousands of people passing through it each day, and people are having actual experiences of the circulation, the learning space, the offices. I don't see why people should have to deal with poor conditions just because those poor conditions were "the way things were". Do we also remove the accessibility features, because that's how people lived then? Do we allow smoking in the lecture halls? Should we remove the IT infrastructure? How far back are we supposed to roll the clock in the name of context?

Again, I'm not denying that buildings can be both structures and edifices, and I'm certainly not saying that we ought to bulldoze everything to replace it all with what's faddish or what's more utilitarian. I grant that there's some noteworthiness to Sid Smith, but there needs to be some possible allowance that sometimes buildings outlive their usefulness. And once a building has outlived its usefulness it isn't unreasonable to want to talk about the range of actions and interventions we can take. There has to be some balance between use and context, and in this case the demands of use seem to far outweigh the value of the context.

I guess I'd hold up the University College revitalization as a counterpoint. I don't think it's as much about the historical context as you think. Yes, the building has tremendous historical context, but does the average layman really understand the difference between University College and Casa Loma? Yes, UC gets love because people see it on postcards and think "Oooh, Hogwarts!", and yes, there's a popular sense that "old" automatically equates to "valuable", but how many of those people could tell the story of UC's significance? But then, the building has survived all this time because fundamentally, it's a much better building than something like Sid Smith. The spaces, the circulation, the light, everything about it. UC has a design that is remarkably conducive to the kinds of activities that one would want to engage in in a liberal arts school. I'm struggling to see how you could say the same thing about Sid Smith.
 
Ramsay Wright has a great (though small) lecture hall, the hidden gem of an ecological park along the south side, the layout of the building allowed the space to update the classrooms, and the office space above is serviceable, albeit dated.

Lash Miller is functional. The undergrad labs are easily accessible, the lecture halls are fine, the research space is, again, functional. I'm not crazy about the early 2000s addition, but the main floor is mostly unmolested. My only gripe about Lash Miller is the way the north entrance to the lecture halls dumps onto the narrow sidewalk, but that's been improved via the Sussex closure. I have no love for the style of it, but it works.

Sid Smith just doesn't work. The circulation is bad, the wide but shallow seminar rooms are bad, the windowless offices in the basement(s) are bad, the narrow hallways in the administrative building are bad, the narrow enclosed "porches" are bad, the dining hall is bad... There's just nothing there to save

They renovated the Lash Miller labs about a decade (or maybe a bit more) ago I believe. As to the heritage aspects of Sid Smith - I think we need to have a frank talk as to what we want to see saved from the complex. Personally I don't mind seeing the podium/main hall preserved but I am definitely not against adding to both the Huron and Willcocks frontage (turn the building into open U facing St. George?). I don't find the interior of the building particularly off-putting - though it would be nice to do away the painted cinderblocks walls and reorganize the space. Not fond of how the early 2000s addition looked.

AoD
 
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Two decades (2000), with Diamond Schmitt at the helm: https://updc.utoronto.ca/project/lash-miller-davenport-wing/

That's the addition (I think where the grad labs went). The undergrad lab are in the lower floors and they got renovated a decade or so ago. The vintage labs prior were pretty nasty (though sulphuric acid burning through J-cloths...or lab books were fun). The labs at Earth Science and Ramsey Wright were far, far more civilized at that time.

AoD
 
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But the building isn't just a passive piece of information on a dusty shelf. It's a building that has thousands of people passing through it each day, and people are having actual experiences of the circulation, the learning space, the offices. I don't see why people should have to deal with poor conditions just because those poor conditions were "the way things were". Do we also remove the accessibility features, because that's how people lived then? Do we allow smoking in the lecture halls? Should we remove the IT infrastructure? How far back are we supposed to roll the clock in the name of context?

Again, I'm not denying that buildings can be both structures and edifices, and I'm certainly not saying that we ought to bulldoze everything to replace it all with what's faddish or what's more utilitarian. I grant that there's some noteworthiness to Sid Smith, but there needs to be some possible allowance that sometimes buildings outlive their usefulness. And once a building has outlived its usefulness it isn't unreasonable to want to talk about the range of actions and interventions we can take. There has to be some balance between use and context, and in this case the demands of use seem to far outweigh the value of the context.

I guess I'd hold up the University College revitalization as a counterpoint. I don't think it's as much about the historical context as you think. Yes, the building has tremendous historical context, but does the average layman really understand the difference between University College and Casa Loma? Yes, UC gets love because people see it on postcards and think "Oooh, Hogwarts!", and yes, there's a popular sense that "old" automatically equates to "valuable", but how many of those people could tell the story of UC's significance? But then, the building has survived all this time because fundamentally, it's a much better building than something like Sid Smith. The spaces, the circulation, the light, everything about it. UC has a design that is remarkably conducive to the kinds of activities that one would want to engage in in a liberal arts school. I'm struggling to see how you could say the same thing about Sid Smith.
(a) You're the one leaving the information on a dusty shelf..

(b) Re University College vs Sid Smith: I'd offer a "both/and" argument. Which isn't so much about the *future* of Sid Smith per se, than about a broader, richer, and more nuanced preemptive reading of our preexisting built environment. That is, UC and Sid Smith as mutually...augmenting? As parts of an existing campus fabric, begging to be "read" in conjunction with one another. A "diversity our strength" interpretation of the U of T downtown campus; rather than as dumb standalones.

So for the sake of argument, let's strike the average lay person from the equation; particularly as that's where we start sliding into analogous lay arguments over how Boston Government Center can't hold a candle to Back Bay or Beacon Hill when it comes to being "activity-conducive" and being just plain pleasant to look at and be in. (And if you're of the POV that Boston Government Center should therefore be blown up as a gesture to said lay persons, then you can eliminate yourself from the discussion this second. Never mind that the aesthetics there might be more Robarts than Sid Smith, or none but the most Brutalist-bro of its defenders would suggest blowing up Back Bay or Beacon Hill.)

And with that, my point of attack would be to explore the genesis of the West Campus; and the fact that the whole Ramsay Wright/Sid Smith/Lash Miller/McLennan stretch ought to be viewed as an ensemble, united through its recognizably early-to-mid-60s Modernist aesthetic. And also the element which, following various incremental additions over the years, signified U of T's boldest, most uncompromising thrust into the modern age--for better or worse; because it's *always* had that "International Style sterility" rep to live down. And that Sid Smith's always felt strangely underwhelming as a hub for Arts & Science really emanates from that "Organization Man" era of campus building thinking (and perhaps the whole West Campus served as a dress rehearsal for UPACE's design-by-committee approach to York U and other Ontario suburban campuses in the 60s and 70s--and with many of the same firms involved, Parkin not excluded). Whatever you may think of it, it's fascinating to reflect upon, and fascinating to explore, how all of this came to be.

Personally, I think a lot of Sid Smith's bad rep emanates from how it has been by far the most intensely overused of the West Campus ensemble--and singular because of how it superserves Arts & Science; that is, for those students who go there over and over for classroom after seminar after classroom, the rest of the West Campus might as well be out of sight out of mind except maybe for certain desire line paths or end-of-term exams. And said overfamiliarity breeds contempt--a contempt compounded by, well, incuriosity or hostility t/w the "how it all came to be" part.

But also re the "how it all came to be", Sid Smith is also an artifact of a distinctly postwar, post-ivory-tower, egalitarian way of thinking--a moment when U of T became less college-centric and more centralized and the notion of "higher education for the masses" set in. Even the notion of "arts & science" as an all-of-the-above catchall fed the notion--almost like university went from ivory-tower haughtiness to, simply, a next stage after high school as an alibi for dissolute Boomers to put off adult responsibility for another few years.

And indeed, maybe that's how Sid Smith is best understood--as the most sublimely overgrown version of a postwar Modernist high school there is; a typology that the Parkin firm knew well (and that Alex Bozikovic knows well, having curated the "New School" on-line exhibition last year). Indeed, at this point it's outlived, or "out-integritied", a lot of significant real-life elementary and high schools of that period in Ontario.

But because of its function, Sid Smith got clapped-out quite early--always a workhorse, but constantly beaten to the ground by its users taping and pasting flyers to every available surface. Already by the age of 20, it was like a weary hair-curler-and-slipper mom juggling several bawling and holy-terror brats.

And I have to admit: the last time I actively "used" Sid Smith was something like 25-30 years ago--right before technology changed everything. Things *may* be different now; whereas back in the 90s, we were still using (or at least just starting to transition away from) a lot of typewriter-and-land-line "60s tech" and thus Sid Smith might not have seemed *quite* as obsolescent as it does today.

And in some ways, maybe if Sid Smith seems especially tired now, it's an echo of the fundamental loosey-goosey dillettante tiredness of the "Arts & Science" catchall in our more STEM- and career-oriented educational era (something the other West Campus buildings are more equipped to address--by comparison, even the "Science" part in "Arts & Science" might as well be impractical "soft science"). It's baked into the soul of the place.

And...that's what makes it interesting.
 
I'm not denying any of that history, but why is an extant building the only way to appreciate the 1960s context? The mythos of Sid Smith is far more valuable than the bricks and mortar of Sid Smith. Do we really need to force more and more people to be underwhelmed by this building, so that they too can have that first-hand experience of dissatisfaction?

Write a book about it and I'll read it. Film a documentary about it and I'll watch it. Devote a couple lectures to it in Modernism 101. Incorporate some nods to the original and let students ponder why there's an obtuse painted cinderblock wall in the middle of a formal garden. But I just can't see why we have to force poor grad students to work in windowless basement offices in order to preserve a story that isn't even expressed by the buildings themselves.

And the eventual replacement needn't be seen as destroying context so much as deepening the context and extending the story. Maybe the new building can dialogue with both UC  and the 1960s buildings. Why can't the 2020s add its own voice to the story?
 
I'm not denying any of that history, but why is an extant building the only way to appreciate the 1960s context? The mythos of Sid Smith is far more valuable than the bricks and mortar of Sid Smith. Do we really need to force more and more people to be underwhelmed by this building, so that they too can have that first-hand experience of dissatisfaction?

Write a book about it and I'll read it. Film a documentary about it and I'll watch it. Devote a couple lectures to it in Modernism 101. Incorporate some nods to the original and let students ponder why there's an obtuse painted cinderblock wall in the middle of a formal garden. But I just can't see why we have to force poor grad students to work in windowless basement offices in order to preserve a story that isn't even expressed by the buildings themselves.

And the eventual replacement needn't be seen as destroying context so much as deepening the context and extending the story. Maybe the new building can dialogue with both UC  and the 1960s buildings. Why can't the 2020s add its own voice to the story?
Maybe because through my telling, I (a) offer a means of preemptively mitigating the so-called underwhelming/dissatisfaction reflex, maybe with a bit of a "god bless this mess" undertone, and (b) in so doing, offering the tools for a subtler means to said dialogue. That is, the 2020s' "own voice to the story" needn't involve a tabula rasa approach.

And in the end, as I offered before, if the institutional decision involved *any* degree of retention and restoration, I doubt there'd be a whole lot of "why did you cave to the postwar-modern hysterical preservationists?" bellyaching among those so-called/supposed underwhelmed and dissatisfied masses (unless it was a John Lyle Studio-style--or 2323-Yonge-style--pathetic scrap which makes a travesty of the notion; and even then, the unwashed masses would be rather meh about it).

Plus, at least I reflect upon Sid Smith's past and its vanities affectionately--*however*, a less affectionate perspective *could* take a rather, well, aesthetic alt-right form (y'know, the Paul Joseph Watson "this is why modern architecture sucks" approach). When it comes to "do it and I'll watch it", there's a thin line involved...
 
I guess I'd hold up the University College revitalization as a counterpoint. I don't think it's as much about the historical context as you think. Yes, the building has tremendous historical context, but does the average layman really understand the difference between University College and Casa Loma? Yes, UC gets love because people see it on postcards and think "Oooh, Hogwarts!", and yes, there's a popular sense that "old" automatically equates to "valuable", but how many of those people could tell the story of UC's significance?
But actually, to return to this point: while I'm not expecting people to tell the story of its significance, *inferring* it is another matter. However, what this point reminds me of, once again, how many people relate to architecture in terms less historical (in the historical-space-and-time sense) than "memetic". You know, "Hogwarts". An evocation of an ooh-aah fantasy notion. And that even goes for those on the architectural alt-right speaking up for "historical" architecture; quite paradoxically, it's more about identity than actual history for them. Because history bores them. The real world is too prosaic for them.

And may I say this: as someone who was engaged to the "dateability" of physical culture from a young age--that documented through cornerstones and plaques and printed material, even copyright dates in books and films, or dates offered for popular "gold" music on the radio--and who was endlessly fascinated by it, the pinpointing-in-time of that which surrounded me, even that which was seemingly banal--I find this kind of dateless, memetic vacuum of existence to be even *more* depressing than Sid Smith.

And if such people are so depressing in their existence, no wonder they're so depressed by Sid Smith, a building that cannot be positively "memed" in that ooh-aah "Hogwarts" fashion. (Heck, even modern-day Modernist/Brutalist meming--that which might fixate more upon Robarts than Sid Smith--too often suffers from that same historical disconnect.).
 
I think in the case of an institutional building such as this, you also need to consider how functional it is. Forcing U of T to save a building that fails at its job as a university space because some architects say so isn't ideal either.
To be clear, my argument was about popularity not about functionality. Those two aspects are quite different.

...and if it being the latter, then compromises will most likely have to be made if preserving any of this building is on the agenda. As do with all buildings of historical value looking for more breathing room, I gather.
 
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Perhaps if the public Sid Smith was designed for, namely students, hate the building it says something about its merits or lack thereof. The "committee of experts" has been set up already. It's the thousands of students - and faculty and admin - who've used Sid Smith over the decades and continue to use it today. I've never met anyone who's had a kind thing to say about it. On the contrary. What I've heard over the years, from students and profs, are plenty of snarky complaints.
I get that. And I have indicated as such above when it comes to functionality. So it would be unfair in this case to preserve something as is when many institutions where allow to expand on their buildings both historically modern and elder building alike with that in mind. But this should never be a popularity contest, but rather of something of real and needed change. Again, there is difference IMO.
 

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