Let’s build the Bathurst Bridge Toronto deserves
Posted by Shawn Micallef
"This is an important project for two reasons.
First, Toronto has the chance to build a real landmark. In the past, Toronto has built great pieces of public infrastructure in a manner this city deserves. Think of the RC Harris Filtration Plant in the Beach, or the Prince Edward Viaduct leaping across the Don Valley. These are iconic bits of city building that have come to define Toronto in our imaginations but have also become part of our lives, as familiar as our own living rooms. More recently, the pedestrian and cycling bridge over the mouth of the Humber River has achieved this status — Spacing even uses a photo of it on our promotional postcards. It is almost impossible to imagine Toronto without any of these structures now.
Great cities will often use bridge building as an excuse to construct something that reflects their collective civic pride — leaps of faith in themselves. Ten years ago London built a pedestrian bridge from the Tate Modern across the Thames to St. Paul’s Cathedral. The “Millennium Bridge,†with its bold and unique design by famed architect Sir Norman Foster (same fellow who did the Leslie L. Dan Pharmacy Building at University and College), has become as familiar and beloved a London landmark as the historic Tower Bridge just down the river.
For Toronto, Bathurst is an ideal location to engage in this kind of heroic city building. The current workaday bridge passes by and over Fort York, the birthplace of the city and one of our most sacred of civic spaces. As I wrote in The Toronto Star back in September, the land underneath the bridge is also the location of the original mouth of Garrison Creek and contains multiple layers of archeological heritage (read the article for more history of the bridge). This location deserves a striking landmark — one that would not only mark and respect this important area, but also create a welcoming and important new link to the waterfront, something Torontonians often express a desire for. Build this bridge well, and suddenly Toronto has a grand avenue leading to the lake the likes of which few cities could match.
before you start bad mouthing other countries architectural designs.
