Top 10 Favourite Toronto Buildings

[k10ery]

Oh, I followed your Osgoode comments. But I didn't want to rush you!

 

[Urban Shocker]

Don't know if you've read it, but there's quite a good book on William Thomas ( Lake, at King and Sherbourne, has a copy ):

William Thomas, Architect
Glenn McArthur and Annie Szamosi, 1996,
Published by Archives of Canadian Art
An Imprint of Carleton University Press.

 

[Urban Shocker]

* Victoria College
William G. Storm, 1892.

Storm apprenticed under Thomas from 1845 to 1848, and formed a partnership with Cumberland that lasted until 1871. I've chosen Victoria College, rather than his St. Andrew's Church at King and Simcoe ( which owes something to Thomas's Cooke's Church of 1852 in design ) because, if I had to select one "hefty" Victorian building this is the one that's the most appealing to me. For one thing it's smaller than the more famous, rambling University College ( which he designed with Cumberland ) and more comprehensible, both at a glance and as one circumnavigates. Also, time has been kind to it in that it's now a hidden gem as a result of other university buildings going up around it - which enhances its surprise value when you see it for the first time. Built of Medina sandstone and polished granite, sporting pippypoos and doodads aplenty and as asymmetrical as one would expect for a Gormenghast-type college building of that date, it is nonetheless a finely balanced composition. Dweebs like Ruskin never missed a beat in dissing square-built Classically-inspired barns, and Pugin similarly opined that elements of a house should be expressed externally as, "distinctive and beautiful features" and Victoria College certainly looks from the outside that it does the right thing, but internally it is a simple three storey building with a large east/west central common on the main floor and centrally-located east/west corridors on the two upper floors with rooms opening off of them to the north and south. It thus avoids the wretched excesses of large, boorish asymmetrical British buildings of the time, where every broom closet and larder is given futile exterior expression.

 

[Ladies Mile]

Storm apprenticed under Thomas from 1845 to 1848, and formed a partnership with Cumberland that lasted until 1871. I've chosen Victoria College, rather than his St. Andrew's Church at King and Simcoe ( which owes something to Thomas's Cooke's Church of 1852 in design ) because, if I had to select one "hefty" Victorian building this is the one that's the most appealing to me. For one thing it's smaller than the more famous, rambling University College ( which he designed with Cumberland ) and more comprehensible, both at a glance and as one circumnavigates. Also, time has been kind to it in that it's now a hidden gem as a result of other university buildings going up around it - which enhances its surprise value when you see it for the first time. Built of Medina sandstone and polished granite, sporting pippypoos and doodads aplenty and as asymmetrical as one would expect for a Gormenghast-type college building of that date, it is nonetheless a finely balanced composition. Dweebs like Ruskin never missed a beat in dissing square-built Classically-inspired barns, and Pugin similarly opined that elements of a house should be expressed externally as, "distinctive and beautiful features" and Victoria College certainly looks from the outside that it does the right thing, but internally it is a simple three storey building with a large east/west central common on the main floor and centrally-located east/west corridors on the two upper floors with rooms opening off of them to the north and south. It thus avoids the wretched excesses of large, boorish asymmetrical British buildings of the time, where every broom closet and larder is given futile exterior expression.

As far as Richardsonian architecture goes not designed by Richardson himself I suppose this is inoffensive.

It seems overly fussy and pointy in comparison to, say, the Crane Library in Quincy, MA.

 

[adma]

As far as Richardsonian architecture goes not designed by Richardson himself I suppose this is inoffensive.

It seems overly fussy and pointy in comparison to, say, the Crane Library in Quincy, MA.

I think I once thought of it as HH Richardson as filtered through the wild Victorian Britishness of a Waterhouse...

 

[Urban Shocker]

I think of it as neither of the above. I think of it as Storm.

 

[k10ery]

I think the main reason I dislike the big Richardsonian buildings in Toronto is not the design per se, but the overuse of Credit Valley sandstone. I don't like the colour or texture much - purely my opinion.

As to Vic, a good example of its type, though rather asymmetrical. But I think you could throw a stone from there and break a window on 4 better buildings - Burwash, Pratt, McKinsey, maybe Wymilwood. (OK, you'd need a good arm.)

 

[junctionist]

I love the Credit Valley sandstone used in our Richardsonian Romanesque buildings and in Annex houses. It has an ancient architectural quality to it, and it generally advances a monumental and imposing quality to the buildings on which it was used. It has excellent hues of colour and adds memoriable texture to building facades. All in all, Credit Valley sandstone is a local material that's a refreshing break from brick or smooth grey stone blocks.

 

[k10ery]

All true. But a full facade of it on a large building is over-rustication, imo.

 

[freshcutgrass]

My top ten list of the moment in no order....

Benvenuto Apartments (Dickinson)
O'Keefe Centre (Dickinson)
Beth Tzedec Synagogue (Dickinson)
Wolf Residence (Barton Myers)
Integral House (Shim-Sutcliffe)
The Collonade (Gerald Robinson and Tampold Wells)
Ontario Science Centre (Raymond Moriyama)
100 Queen St West (Viljo Revell)
RC Harris (Thomas C. Pomphrey)
Better Living Building (Marani, Morris and Allan)

 

[Urban Shocker]

As to Vic, a good example of its type, though rather asymmetrical.

Once the language of Classically-inspired design hit the skids and the Mock Goths, and lovers of the Picturesque and miscellaneous Revivalist styles took over, it was all-asymmetry-all-the-time, though, with endless variations of turrets, pinnacles, crockets and busy skyline statements. Fortunately, being a colonial city of increasing but not overwhelming status, we were spared some of the worst examples. Hop the pond and see what the new class of wealthy British industrialists built as status homes, and what some of the nuttier aristocrats of the Victorian era had built, for instance.

 

[67Cup]

I see that Ron Thom's Massey College is on the top ten list. I look forward to hearing Urban Shocker's treatment of this structure. I think it is a wonderful modern restatement of the classic Oxbridge college theme. The dining hall in particular, with its echoes of perpendicular Gothic mullions, is a lovely room, particularly by candlelight. It should be mentioned, perhaps, in the thread about favourite Toronto rooms.


I can't share the enthusiasm for Victoria College's old building, however, though I agree it is superior to St. Andrew's Church. That is one of my least favoured large churches in the city. I suppose large and ugly is more impressive than small and ugly but that's about the best that can be said for it, IMO. My impression is that it doesn't work all that well for its stated purpose, Presbyterian worship which centres around the sermon and it is scarcely an example of a Calvinist aesthetic which is marked, at its best, by austerity and restraint. Think of a New England meeting house as an exemplar.

 

[k10ery]

Once the language of Classically-inspired design hit the skids and the Mock Goths, and lovers of the Picturesque and miscellaneous Revivalist styles took over, it was all-asymmetry-all-the-time, though, with endless variations of turrets, pinnacles, crockets and busy skyline statements. Fortunately, being a colonial city of increasing but not overwhelming status, we were spared some of the worst examples. Hop the pond and see what the new class of wealthy British industrialists built as status homes, and what some of the nuttier aristocrats of the Victorian era had built, for instance.

I worry I disagree with you too much, when basically I buy your aesthetic judgements, and cower before your monumental knowledge. I'm really just making conversation.

But ... I really quite like British vernacular gothic in comparison to ours. They tend to be larger, more imposing, and taller than ours. So it's a bit more Addams family at times. But for a Canadian visitor to London or Birmingham etc. there's a neat presque vu quality when you go over there and see their Victorian neighbourhoods.

 

[adma]

But ... I really quite like British vernacular gothic in comparison to ours. They tend to be larger, more imposing, and taller than ours. So it's a bit more Addams family at times. But for a Canadian visitor to London or Birmingham etc. there's a neat presque vu quality when you go over there and see their Victorian neighbourhoods.

Maybe if I bow to US's argument, the "problem" with Victorian Gothic there compared to Canada is that it's insufficiently "vernacular", i.e. it's all too often mass-produced Gothic-by-the-pound that can get wearing and depressing in large quantities. (It's like a late-c19 version of some of those newer endless Bur Oak-ian zones of Markham.)

 

[freshcutgrass]

I think Toronto victorian (of the residential type) is more tempered by our green setbacks...a luxury seldom available in victorian Britain. Toronto's victorian houses were mostly speculation and subject to competition, so even "cheap" houses got a fair bit of design creativity. We also had a good local source of quality brick.