Toronto Architecture From The 1960's and 70's

[LowPolygon]

Though even there, I'd advise caution re New City Hall; or rather, its "real significance" was more on overriding urban and social grounds that were quite specific to Toronto. In architectural terms, though, it fell short of its "anticipated significance" in the 1950s--essentially, by the time it was finished in 1965, it was deemed more dated than a harbinger of the future: a popular-potboiler version of Great Contemporary Architecture a la Basil Spence's Coventry Cathedral. (Though compared with what it may have been deemed dated relative to--something like Boston City Hall--that circumstance may have been a blessing in disguise.)

This is a very interesting point. I hadn’t ever thought about new City Hall as being ‘dated’ by the time it was finished in 1965. its just “always been thereâ€, as the penultimate symbol (along with TD Centre) of Toronto’s modernist coming of age.

But you’re right, however wonderful and widely loved it is, from a certain perspective New City Hall does look a little like a on-off version of heroic neo-classical googie-ism.

Of course this is because it was selected by competition, and a jury gined-up on creating a symbol of a modern, forward thinking city, was not likely to have picked the most architecturally au courant submission, tending rather to hit the ‘sweet spot’ of pop culture zeitgeist, populist avant-gardism and the all-important crowd-pleasing wow factor.

Given all that, they were not likely to have picked I.M Pei, but they could have picked the John Andrews-Macy DuBois submission, which would have been, in its own way, an excellent choice, but may possibly have ended up being more “dated-looking" than the one they eventually went with.

 

[junctionist]

City Hall wasn't dated by the time it opened. It was part of the expressionistic Modernism of the 1960s that arguably represented the style's high point in creativity, in contrast to the repetitiveness of the rectilinear International Style. What City Hall was not, from my understanding of adma's point, was the "future" beyond the 1960s; it wasn't Brutalism, the contextual Modernism of the 1970s, or Postmodernism. There's a cachet and significance to being ahead of the curve, but City Hall is a brilliant expression of 1960s style rather than an avant-garde piece.

In terms of local buildings ahead of the curve, Ron Thom's Massey College from 1963 comes to mind, though it was not a high profile project. It seamlessly moves between Gothic and Modernist architecture in a way that many Postmodernists in the 1980s couldn't achieve.

 

[Goldie]

The Bata Building was an architectural highlight in Don Mills when it opened in 1965.
Unfortunately, it's been demolished and presumably forgotten.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bata_International_Centre_Toronto_1965-2004.jpg

 

[fiendishlibrarian]

The old terminal 1 (the Aeroquay) always fascinated me with its criss-cross parking ramps and mysterious tunnels:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_5pw-UhfU748/TL79CcaawyI/AAAAAAAALrE/8rLqPj-h1e4/s1600/Toronto,+Canada.jpg

Note to Air Canada: *please* bring back that livery.

 

[thecharioteer]

City Hall: structure:

Opening September 14, 1965:

 

[r937]

Unfortunately, it's been demolished and presumably forgotten.

you've seen the video, right?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBKSwxS7Ko0

 

[cdr108]

The Bata Building was an architectural highlight in Don Mills when it opened in 1965.
Unfortunately, it's been demolished and presumably forgotten.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bata_International_Centre_Toronto_1965-2004.jpg

i loved that building and was so disappointed when they demo'd it for the aga khan building

 

[barit]

I loved it too. It will be interesting to see how they commemorate Bata as stipulated in the agreement with North York Community Council.

 

[LowPolygon]

The Bata Building was an architectural highlight in Don Mills when it opened in 1965.
Unfortunately, it's been demolished and presumably forgotten.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bata_International_Centre_Toronto_1965-2004.jpg

i dont't think there's any question that was a great loss....

 

[adma]

City Hall wasn't dated by the time it opened. It was part of the expressionistic Modernism of the 1960s that arguably represented the style's high point in creativity, in contrast to the repetitiveness of the rectilinear International Style.

Except that by 1965, what you call "expressionistic Modernism of the 1960s" was commonly deemed "dated", at least by professional tastemakers--i.e. to them, it was in fact an "expressionistic Modernism of the 1950s" that met its symbolic "credible" end w/the death of Eero Saarinen. By 1965, it would have been all-too-easy for hypercynical architectural wags to view this as (superficially/inadvertently, of course) a more hifalutin version of 64/65 New York World's Fair cheese; or at least as somethng whose courant-ism was tainted by said cheese.

Actually, I wouldn't be too hard on the City Hall jury for supposedly "populist" decision-making; after all, it was the international cream of its field in the late 50s. However, the presence of Saarinen both within said jury and as the "hot" North American architect of the moment would likely have weighed heavily, all the more so given that it was his reported personal intervention that resulted in the chosen scheme--which just so happened to be a conveniently "more Saarinen than Saarinen" scheme by a fellow Finn. And given that Toronto couldn't have an Eero Saarinen City Hall on account of his being on the jury, this was "the next best thing" (almost like Randall Stout being the next best thing to Gehry relative to the Art Gallery of Alberta in Edmonton).

Which, in the end, shouldn't weigh fatally against City Hall as built--but we're talking about 1958 vs 1965. And in some ways, the taste-fate of this kind of Saarinen/Revell neo-expressionism was not unlike how Jewish Museum/Ground Zero-era Daniel Libeskind was *the* architect of that post-Y2K moment, yet now seems an overwrought artifact of the High Starchitecture age...

 

[thecharioteer]

Let us also remember the style of architecture that symbolized the world of the future in that seminal television series first broadcast in 1962:

 

[Goldie]

It appears that electric utilities know how to create magnificent monuments to themselves - Ont. Hydro Bldg. and BC Hydro Bldg.

 

[LowPolygon]

It appears that electric utilities know how to create magnificent monuments to themselves - Ont. Hydro Bldg. and BC Hydro Bldg.

that is so weird--i went out to photograph the Ontario Hydro Building today! unfortunately i got there, and found that i'd forgot to load a compact flash card in the camera. and here you've posted it...
its always been one of my favourite 1970's buildings, and is almost certainly the greatest reflective glass building in the city...

 

[Goldie]

that is so weird--i went out to photograph the Ontario Hydro Building today! unfortunately i got there, and found that i'd forgot to load a compact flash card in the camera. and here you've posted it...
its always been one of my favourite 1970's buildings, and is almost certainly the greatest reflective glass building in the city...

By the way, credit for the Toronto photo should be given to this Flickr file:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28299495@N04/3882290168/

 

[LowPolygon]

Let us also remember the style of architecture that symbolized the world of the future in that seminal television series first broadcast in 1962:

50 years to the day, as it happens!

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/jetsons-fifty-birthday-hanna-barbera-373084