Top 10 Favourite Toronto Buildings

[Urban Shocker]

* Osgoode Hall ( south front )
John Ewart; Henry Bowyer Lane; Frederic W. Cumberland and William G.Storm,
1829-1861.

Why do I select the south front of Osgoode as a favourite? Well, because of the quirky way it evolved over the course of about 30 years, in the hands of various architects. What we see, when we look up York Street to Queen, is what became of the original Osgoode building ( designed by John Ewart for the Law Society in a restrained Regency style ) after Henry Bowyer Lane added a handsome portico with Ionic columns and a rusticated base to it about 15 years later. Lane also added a matching wing to the west, and enlarged a central range that Ewart designed by adding an extension to the south of it with a central dome. Then, about 15 years after that, Cumberland and Storm replaced much of Lane's central section, including the dome, with the larger, more showy central section ( with yet another portico! ) that we see today.

 

[Urban Shocker]

Here's Osgoode in 1856, showing Henry Bowyer Lane's additions, his central section looking rather demure and perhaps a little overpowered by his east and west wings. When Cumberland and Storm built their central section shortly after this photograph was taken, they added a couple more columns to their portico, repeated the idea of Lane's round-headed ground floor pediment entrances as supersized windows on their second floor ( which is equivalent to Lane's second and third floors ) and added a balustrade topped with pointy doodads and pippypoos to the roofline. And they used stone rather than the Ewart/Lane red brick and stone combination. Their addition is set back further from the street and is therefore heftier, in order to create enough sense of visual weight to balance off the wings.

The Lane building:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Toronto_OsgoodeHall_1856.jpg

 

[k10ery]

I don't think it is much of a feature in English Palladian civic buildings and large private residences, but the "obtrusive attic" form, as we might christen it, appears on other Classically-inspired civic buildings built in Upper Canada at that time so perhaps it is a local variation of the form? George Browne's Kingston City Hall of 1844 has one; Edward Horsey's Frontenac County Courthouse of 1855 has one; John G. Howard's Provincial Lunatic Asylum of 1850 has one - as does his enormous, unbuilt proposal of 1834 for a guildhall etc. on King Street East in Toronto pictured in Unbuilt Toronto 2. Pediments were only one part of Classical structures, and in their earlier form ( the Arch of Tiberius in Orange, for instance ) they're sometimes quite overshadowed by what's going on up above.

Nice catch. But the Kingston buildings at least have a prostyle portico that keeps the attic where it belongs, on top of the building. With the engaged columns at St Lawrence Hall, you get the overshadowing effect, I think.

It wasn't just a style in Ontario. Consider this montrosity:

which was completed just a couple of years before St Lawrence Hall. Would its design already be known in Canada? I think perhaps -- but perhaps the news had not filtered through yet that everybody hated it.

That facade is by Blore - perhaps he's not to blame as he was obviously being asked to design a McMansion! The Nash facade of Buckingham palace was much more delicate:

 

[Urban Shocker]

Yes, the Nash design, which was originally considerably set back but now faces into the courtyard, obviously has much more breathing room, compared to the Blore addition ( what we now see is actually Aston Webb's 1913 remodelling of Blore ). It's rather like comparing what's possible with a spacious site such as Osgoode's to the tighter meet-the-street St. Lawrence Hall site. For tight urban sites, I'd be more inclined to compare the St. Lawrence Hall with Henry Holland's Brooks' Club of 1778.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Brooks's.JPG

 

[Urban Shocker]

Nice catch. But the Kingston buildings at least have a prostyle portico that keeps the attic where it belongs, on top of the building. With the engaged columns at St Lawrence Hall, you get the overshadowing effect, I think.

I know what you mean, though the four examples I chose - two in Kingston and two Toronto designs by Howard - also have prominent domes in addition to those attic elements and there's generally far more going on up top, compared to the established flat-toped Palladian great house model that had existed since the 1720s and was based on Colen Campbell's Wanstead House design, and the more compact villa form, which I was comparing them to.

 

[k10ery]

I know what you mean, though the four examples I chose - two in Kingston and two Toronto designs by Howard - also have prominent domes in addition to those attic elements and there's generally far more going on up top, compared to the established flat-toped Palladian great house model that had existed since the 1720s and was based on Colen Campbell's Wanstead House design, and the more compact villa form, which I was comparing them to.

Yes, none of the Canadian buildings you cited is really what we call Palladian today, is it, though they might be more or less true to Palladio himself. There's a broader neoclassical tradition in play. The Kingston City Hall seems to me to be influenced in particular by Robert Adam's south facade of Kedleston Hall, which has the same quotation of the Arch of Constantine as Kingston, and the same shallow dome above (as in Kingston's original built form). Interestingly, Adam's facade also has that prominent attic over the central block but not the wings. But in that case he did without the pediment altogether. It works much better that way, I think.

 

[k10ery]

Not sure anyone cares but me, but it's a bit on topic. Last night I was showing around town a visitor who grew up in Chicago. He's a bit of an architecture buff like me, and we only had an hour. Based in part on this thread, I chose:

- University College
- Grange Park and its 3 very different architectural attractions
- the Calatrava atrium
- Mies's banking pavillion with Commerce Court West behind (if you stand in the right place, you can't see Trump Tower from there

Well, maybe it was just politeness, but the Chicago guy seemed impressed!

 

[junctionist]

Why not? Toronto has many great buildings.

 

[k10ery]

Isn't that what I said?

 

[Tewder]

Well, maybe it was just politeness, but the Chicago guy seemed impressed!

Did you blindfold him between sites?

(just joking, Toronto is wonderful!)

 

[k10ery]

Well, it was dark.

Last year, it was a visitor from Milan. He seemed most impressed with the Eaton Centre. Not sure if he saw the resemblance to the Galleria, I didn't ask.

 

[Urban Shocker]

When it comes to monster attics, k10ery, the two atop George Dance the Elder's Mansion House of 1758 - both later removed - were as good ( or awful ) as it gets:

http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/Corp...ansion_house/History+of+the+Mansion+House.htm

... and Palladio wasn't shy of building prominent attics either - his Chiesa del Santissimo Redentore in Venice, for instance:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...a_del_Santissimo_Redentore,_Venice,_Italy.jpg

 

[Urban Shocker]

Time, perhaps, to move on from William Thomas, architect of St. Lawrence Hall? Here's his gravestone in Toronto:

http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~clifford/May10/StJamesAngThoms.jpg

( note, at the apex of the gravestone, the ouroborus, which was also also a feature of Sir John Soane's tomb in London )

 

[k10ery]

U. Shocker, aren't you going to talk some more about your buildings? You were at Osgoode Hall.

 

[Urban Shocker]

I did Osgoode - posts number 31 and 32 - but you dragged me back to the St. Lawrence Hall.

Now I'm trying to think of something bright and witty to say about ...

Victoria College[/B]
William G. Storm, 1892.

Buildup, why don't you go first on this one? You listed it too.