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Miscellany Toronto Photographs: Then and Now
- Thread starter Mustapha
- Start date
k10ery
Senior Member
Thanks! Wm E H Carter was still in business in 1914 but lists only his office address. Perhaps he went into the army and sold the house. But Mrs Gibson choosing to renovate her 4-year-old house is still odd. Perhaps it was a lemon?
Mustapha
Senior Member
Then and Now for June 6.
Then. 18 Clarendon Avenue. c1910.
Now. September 2011.
Then. 18 Clarendon Avenue. c1910.
Now. September 2011.
DTowner
Active Member
Hudson's Bay Centre? Really?
The three black monoliths that are TD Centre are (in my opinion) ugly, bland and...well...cheap! I don't care if the architect was some muckamuck of the architect world. It just reaks of late 60s/early 70s laziness — under the guise of 'modernity', 'boldness', 'avant garde' .... 
Red October
Senior Member
Highlight of Mies Van der Rohe's career = cheap.
Now I've heard everything.
Now I've heard everything.
yonderbean
Active Member
Bloor west 1890's
I've always been fascinated by the rare photos of parts of Toronto when they were still virtually countryside. Like this one looking east on Bloor at the CP crossing in 1901:
Today, courtesy of google:
And the houses visible on the left on Perth avenue:
I've always been fascinated by the rare photos of parts of Toronto when they were still virtually countryside. Like this one looking east on Bloor at the CP crossing in 1901:
Today, courtesy of google:
And the houses visible on the left on Perth avenue:
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k10ery
Senior Member
Hudson's Bay Centre? Really?
Funny. If there's a criticism of these great buildings, it would be that they were too retro for their time, not too avant garde. Lake Shore Apts were completed in 1951 and Seagram Bldg in 1958 I believe. The TD Centre is a reprise of those designs but a very good one. Still we might have got something more unique if Phyllis Lambert hadn't put the fix in for Mies.
DTowner
Active Member
thecharioteer
Senior Member
It's an interesting "what-if", k10ery, but would have the original architect Gordon Bunshaft of SOM have actually come up with something more "unique"? Here's a description on Wikipedia of the process that occured:
After the 1955 merger of the Bank of Toronto and the Dominion Bank solidified in 1962, the Toronto-Dominion bank directors decided to commission a new headquarters to demonstrate the bank's emergence as a reputable national institution.[5] Allen Lambert, past President and Chairman of the Board of the Toronto-Dominion Bank, secured a cooperative partnership in the late 1950s with the Bronfman owned Fairview Corporation (now Cadillac Fairview) in order to build a new headquarters for the Toronto-Dominion Bank;[16] this marked a first for the development process in Canada, in that a bank, rather than creating its head office alone, had aligned itself with real estate interests and the city to influence urban space.[17] The partnership was established as a 50-50 one, with the bank having the final say on the design of the complex, and Phyllis Lambert – sister-in-law to Allen Lambert, and a member of the Bronfman family – was called in as an advisor on the T-D Centre competition. Gordon Bunshaft, then chief designer of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, was originally hired by the consortium;[5] his proposal called for exterior structural supports for the main office tower, which then necessitated piston-like slip joints at the roof level to deal with weather related expansion and contraction of the structure. Phyllis Lambert objected to this submission, seeing it as too radical, and later stating in an interview that it "was a ridiculous proposal on many levels... Even in a milder climate, it would have been problematic."[18] Bunshaft, due to his refusal to redesign, was relieved of his commission.[5]
This departure left John Parkin, the local architect who would have worked with the American Bunshaft, to design Toronto-Dominion Centre. His firm put forward a model showing a 100 storey all-concrete tower – to be the largest in the Commonwealth – standing over a plaza with a sunken courtyard containing a circular banking pavilion.[19] It was at this point that Phyllis Lambert insisted that Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (whom she knew from having been the director of planning on his Seagram Building) be called for an interview.[5] Mies was unimpressed by Parkin's concept designs and wondered why one would design a building to be entered through its basement. With this, the Parkin proposal was scrapped[19] and Allen Lambert was convinced to bring Mies on board. Though he was technically commissioned as the design consultant to the local architects, John B. Parkin and Associates and Bregman + Hamann Architects, the project was essentially Mies' design in its entirety, demonstrating all the key characteristics of the architect's unique style.[10]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto-Dominion_Centre
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Mustapha
Senior Member
I've always been fascinated by the rare photos of parts of Toronto when they were still virtually countryside. Like this one looking east on Bloor at the CP crossing in 1901:
Today, courtesy of google:
And the houses visible on the left on Perth avenue:
Thanks Yonderbean; great post and an interesting point you've brought up. The bulk of Toronto Then and Nows here or anywhere else on the interwebs show what was basically already a built up city even in the heyday (1910s) of such prolific photographers as William James. The 'countryside' wasn't nearly as well documented, although I myself gain some measure of fulfillment from the pictures of Old Scarborough that our Goldie has posted in the past - a Scarborough of split rail fences and rutted dirt roads.
Mustapha
Senior Member
My photo of 18 Clarendon.. I wonder
if it's the same tree in both photos.
if it's the same tree in both photos.
Mustapha
Senior Member
Then and Now for June 7.
Then. 62 Lynwood Avenue. c1920. House of Mrs. C.C.E. Malloch.
Now. September 2011.
Then. 62 Lynwood Avenue. c1920. House of Mrs. C.C.E. Malloch.
Now. September 2011.
yonderbean
Active Member
I think it must be - the morphology is similar and its in the exact same spot.
if it's the same tree in both photos.
k10ery
Senior Member
Yes, it's just a "what if". I can't offhand think of a building anywhere in the world built in that period that I would trade the TD Centre for. But I would like to see a drawing of what Bunshaft had in mind. Also the home boy, John C. Parkin, whose unrelenting modernism never seemed to go wrong. Imagine, e.g., a 100-story CAMH tower, with appropriate landscaping around it.
But in the end you can't beat Mies. And without Mies, we might not have got our IM Pei or (less important) our Edward Durell Stone.
FAC33
Active Member
I've been away for a few days...any updates as to a possible new home for the museum? My husband is a member and has also donated his father's papers, and we're really hoping it lands on its feet.