More Lost Toronto in colour

[androiduk]

^ That looks like the NW corner of Adelaide & Victoria. The Arcade Mall is just north on the left.

 

[thecharioteer]

To see the revised James and James design ( which was built ) go to Volume 2 and Issue 2. Then click on Page 14, and then click on the downwards arrow - this brings up the option of seeing Plate 1a and Plate 1b.

Here's another view of the Boston building by Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge:

http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/fa267/19th/shepley_grain1.jpg

Regarding the Board of Trade, while thecharioteer names the parts that make up the whole, I don't think the whole is greater than their sum. Maybe what we're seeing with it vis-a-vis the Boston Chamber of Commerce is similar to what we see when we look at any number of worthy Modernist buildings that weren't by Mies - but were built at the same time - compared to buildings that were designed by him?

Thanks for the fascinating links. I'm glad to see the discussion focussing on the relative merits of the design as opposed to the hoary Ruskinian "Classical vs. Gothic" direction to which I thought you were leading with your refences to Kivas Tully and the original Bank of Montreal building.

It's very difficult for us today, with our Modernist upbringing, which denigrated so much of "Victorian" architecture (particularly Le Corbusier In "Vers une Architecture") as ugly, old-fashioned and out-dated, that any discussion of the relative merits of various 19C buildings becomes almost impossibe (newspaper comments at the time of the original Eaton Centre debate included that the Old City Hall "should be put out of its misery"). Overlaid on top of this is our own ingrown Toronto sense of inferiority, that the work of Richardson, Furness and Sullivan (according to all classic histories of architecture) were the milestones on the way to "modern"architecture. History is written by the winners, and most histories of architecture do not include Toronto.

Similarly, while it's easy to identify the platonic ideals of various building types, starting with "temple" (Parthenon), "cathedral" (Chartres), "villa" (Villa Rotondo), etc., it becomes much more difficult in the 19C when new types of buildings (factories, offices, hotels, train stations) necessitate facades utilizing the symbolic elements of the Classic and Gothic orders.

How does one objectively evauate these buldings? For Eric Arthur to say that the B of T Building was not particularly impressive, implies that he is comparing it an example that is particulalry impressive. Where and why?

Do we go back to the Vitruvian ideal of archotecture as "firmness, commodity and delight"?

Post-script to the demolition of Old City Hall debate (March 1, 1966, Toronto Telegram):

 

[Urban Shocker]

Toronto's late 19th century speculative builders clearcut scads of Georgian buildings in the downtown core to put up stand-out structures such as the Board of Trade - the American Hotel, which dated from the 1840s, bit the dust so that the B of T could be born. I suspect, but can't prove, that the empty parking lots shown in those circa 1970 photos of the demolished downtown east side don't represent a larger architectural cull than the one they carried out ... just one that's more appropriate to the age of automobiles and breathing space between development cycles. And maybe the trend to architectural competitiveness - the desire to stand out from rather than fit in with the neighbours - dates from that era of developers? Early panoramic photographs of the city from the 1840s/50s/60s show a downtown of remarkably similar and mostly quite modest buildings.

Regarding "styles", I believe that most leading architects ( was it even a profession in the early days of our city? ) designed Classical and Gothic Revival buildings depending on what the client wanted, or what they felt the client needed. It was an age - imperial, religious, cultural - that mined the foundations of the past for cultural values and appropriate styles to represent, and give legitimacy, to their world. So an aesthetic response ( rather than taking sides in some sort of ancients vs moderns, Romans vs Goths thing ) makes sense in dealing with the relative merits of the structures they built. Good and less good designers work in all eras, under all sorts of planning regimes, and where talent exists it will will touch us ... across cultures and across time. Maybe that's all that Arthur means when he evaluates the B of T as, "an unusual but not particularly impressive office building" ?

For me, the most significant thing about the Board of Trade building wasn't what we see on the outside - it was that it was the first local example of structural steel frame construction.

 

[adma]

Remember, too, that Eric Arthur was of a generation that tended to be phobic t/w post-Confederation Victorian "brown decades" eclecticism.

^ That looks like the NW corner of Adelaide & Victoria. The Arcade Mall is just north on the left.

And, of course, Confederation Life in the background.

What's interesting to see is that the rear part, at least, of the Arcade was once only three storeys--when was the rest put up?

 

[thecharioteer]

Here are some pics of the harbour:

1836:

1851;

1875:

1880:

1901:

 

[Urban Shocker]

In those last two images you can see the Examining Warehouse ( on the west side of Yonge, south of Front ), with the distinctive roof of the Second Empire Customs House ( 1876-1919 ) immediately to the north of it - which was demolished to make way for the terribly grand, block-long Dominion Public Building.

 

[Long Island Mike]

Sun Life Building pic...

Deepend: That Sunlife Building pics you posted are from around 1960 or so-the bottom pic shows a white 1959 Ford Fairlane and a Chevy cab 1960 perhaps?
Having basic knowlege of classic cars helps here...LI MIKE

 

[LowPolygon]

charioteer--wow--thanks so much for those harbour images! they give us a glimpse of a Toronto that appears to have a downtown lakefront promenade. the mind boggles at how beautiful downtown might have been if that could have been maintained...

would these images predate the building of the railway that separated the lake from the city?

 

[Spoonman]

would these images predate the building of the railway that separated the lake from the city?

No; in fact, the railway line along the waterfront predates many of the prominent buildings in the pictures. The Grand Trunk Railway built a line along the waterfront as early as the 1850s. Compare that to the Board of Trade Building (1892), Old City Hall (1899) and the Trader's Bank Building (1905) in the last picture.

 

[thecharioteer]

charioteer--wow--thanks so much for those harbour images! they give us a glimpse of a Toronto that appears to have a downtown lakefront promenade. the mind boggles at how beautiful downtown might have been if that could have been maintained...

would these images predate the building of the railway that separated the lake from the city?

This map, dated 1898, illustrates the harbour at that time (large file, but worth it for the detail):

 

[thecharioteer]

Interesting shot of Yonge looking north at Adelaide, 1959, from the Ontario Archives. The old Arcade Building has just been demolished, and not yet replaced by the new one.

 

[J T CUNNINGHAM]

Great map, but they somehow left out Britain Street!

Regards,
J T

 

[Edward Skira]

Funny you mention Britain Street considering that is where Urban Toronto's headquarters are.

 

[UserNameToronto]

St. Lawrence area, early 70s. There is a photo set in the "Then & Now" thread: http://urbantoronto.ca/showthread.php?p=291734&highlight=lawrence#post291734

 

[Edward]

Quite the change in 30 years.