Doors Open Toronto Sunday

[wyliepoon]

Photos from Doors Open Sunday. After visiting the more centrally-located sites, on this day I visited some of the non-downtown sites, which I travelled to by car.

Holy Blossom Temple (Exterior photos only, no photography allowed inside. The security was very tight there - guards posted at every entrance, airport-style security checks on all visitors before entering. Apparently the Temple has been the target of all sorts of vandalism dating back to at least the 1967 Six-Day War.)

Check out Diamond + Schmitt plan to renovate/rebuild Holy Blossom here.

Montgomery Sisam's Bloorview Kids Rehab was probably the best building I visited this year at Doors Open. A carefully-designed building on the outside and inside to serve patients, staff and visitors alike. The building's colours, materials, and designs are well thought out.

Toronto Botanical Gardens (aka Edward Gardens). The Dembroski Centre is another Montgomery Sisam building, and I also like this building. It is not as colourful as Bloorview, which is good since it does not compete with the plants for attention.

The older Moriyama & Teshima building may have been inspired by Japanese architecture, but I find it similar to Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple, which I saw while in Chicago.

The gardens are very well kept. Wish this level of maintenance could be applied to all parks and green spaces in this city!

The Noor Islamic Cultural Centre (2003), formerly the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre (1963) is a brutalist building, representing a brutal past, the internment of Japanese Canadians during World War II, as represented by the wooden bars over the windows and the chains hanging from the roof drains.

St. Gabriel's Passionist Roman Catholic Church is seen as the highlight building for this year's Doors Open. Winner of the city's green design award, and a LEED Gold Certified building.

The building is certainly unique for a church, but I'm not especially impressed with the architectural design. The exterior is rather plain (I might compare it to the Four Seasons Centre), and the interior looks awfully temporary (sort of like worshipping in an aircraft hangar). The natural lighting is excellent. The construction of St. Gabriel's Village condos in front and beside the church will block the view of the church from Sheppard Avenue (even now the church is obscured by the sales centre for the condo).

 

[unimaginative2]

That Bloorview Kids Rehab building is the most European building I've seen in this city. I keep expecting to see Fiat Multiplas and Opel Astras in the parking lot.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Tsk tsk, Toronto Botanical Garden is not aka Edwards Gardens...they're separate

Churches are practically never built where no one can see them, and, if memory serves me correctly, the story went that the new St. Gabe's had to be built at the rear of the property for the sake of continuous operations during construction. Honestly, they could have built it to the east or even right up abutting Sheppard...I'm sure Baghai offered more for the land if the church was stuffed away in the rear. As for the building itself, the huge mosaic out front on the old St. Gabe's is sorely missed...they even sell nostalgic commemorative photos of it.

 

[ShonTron]

I started out at Holy Blossom too - the need for security (which wasn't that bad, really) was unfortunate, but they did have a really interesting tour.

I also hit Carlu (no lineup!), Four Seasons (see B&A - great tour), and Campbell House (the Town of York model is worth it alone).

Harvey Shops, TD Centre and Four Seasons (though when I think Four Seasons, unfortunately sometimes I think of the 1960s cheesy band that still does the casino circuit) were the big highlights for me this year

 

[urbandreamer]

Bloorview Kids Rehab in LV?

Yep, when I think of what i'd like to see in Liberty Village (townhomes especially) I think of the Bloorview aesthetic: alternative exterior materials, colour, angled roofs, etc.

You could always go to Holy Blossom on a sabbath. They might let you in if you're respectful.

The botanical gardens remind me that there's many parts of this city i've never been too. Really sucks not having a car i guess.

 

[Observer Walt]

Wylie, thanks for the pictures. Bloorview really impressed me.

Urbandreamer, not to be picky but you can reach all of these places by transit. As it happened, I didn't have my car on Sunday
I was able to get to three or four locations I wanted to see, including the Botanical Garden.

 

[Hydrogen]

The older Moriyama & Teshima building may have been inspired by Japanese architecture, but I find it similar to Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple, which I saw while in Chicago.

Interesting observation concerning the Moriyama and Teshima building and Unity Temple, wyliepoon. Of course, Wright himself was drawn to Japanese design influences.

Concerning St. Gabriel's, I found the interior crisp and refreshing for a church. I just wish they would have followed the same theme with the pews.

 

[wyliepoon]

^ I guess they were trying to do everything possible to get that LEED Gold rating. The pews were taken from the old church, and could be considered as reused building material.

 

[adma]

Urbandreamer, not to be picky but you can reach all of these places by transit. As it happened, I didn't have my car on Sunday
I was able to get to three or four locations I wanted to see, including the Botanical Garden.

Remember that it's not just a matter of lack of car, but lack of allottable time to make a way-out-there trip necessary--esp. when it comes to something like Doors Open.

In which case, I'd recommend a regular-time Botanical Garden visit, as a start of a good long vigorous walk through, uh, Toronto's world-famous ravine system--it's the perfect node for such a urban-day-trippy thing, and it beats treating the Botanical Object as an inert isolated object/destination...

 

[urbandreamer]

To be honest:

I'm just really really lazy. I sit in front of my laptop all day working; at night i'm researching and reading forums like this one. I do like walking around residential neighbourhoods at night. My favourite? Forest Hill for some reason.... There's only one reason I'm getting a car soon--to get out of town!

But someday--maybe when i'm in a decent relationship again?--I'll find a reason to go to uptown parks, gardens and the like (although having severe allergies, not such a good idea )