Toronto scraps museum project, plans to raze site instead

[adma]

They are malting silos, which have less sex appeal for the general public than aggregate yards.

And your definition of "general public" has less sex appeal still, so there. As I've said before, when it comes to the eroticism of urban beholding, you're a lousy lay; so, you're the last person I'd trust to judge "sex appeal".

No one is going to pay to see the wonders of early 20th century malting technology, no one. I suspect most people know this at some level, which explains why nobody has bothered to invest a dime in it during two, separate, massive real estate booms.

Well, you could offer the same argument against 19th century malting technology. Yet that didn't stop the Distillery District from happening. (And when it comes to other early c20 port functioning, there's the Terminal Warehouse, the York + John Quay facilities, etc. Not that their adaptations have been uniformly successful; but, still.)

Sometimes, it isn't so much a direct matter of "nobody is interested", as the ambiguity of random chance. (Take that as a double-headed critique: both of you, and of the "Torontonians don't care about history" blubbering at the other side.)

 

[junctionist]

Urban explorers have spent a lot of their own time, risking their own safety and trespassing fines to enjoy the interior of the Canada Malting plant and to get photos for articles.

Here's one such article. There's a lot of amateur produced content on this building on the web, more than for most Toronto buildings actually. And the same goes for the Brickworks and Hearn generating station.

 

[jn_12]

I think the biggest problem with this site compared to the distillery district, Queens Quay Terminal, etc, is the shape of the silos and the amount of usable space. It's easy to transform a warehouse as there is ample amount of space to work with. The silos and its surrounding structures are narrow, and very tall. Taking into consideration fires codes and whatnot, it's hard to imagine a valuable use. The space to economic potential ratio is significantly (exponentially?) less than any of the previous examples of adaptive reuse. Unless we're willing to accept some major alterations, I just don't see how anyone would be willing to take on a site like this.

Are there examples elsewhere of silos being reused?

 

[adma]

Urban explorers have spent a lot of their own time, risking their own safety and trespassing fines to enjoy the interior of the Canada Malting plant and to get photos for articles.

Here's one such article. There's a lot of amateur produced content on this building on the web, more than for most Toronto buildings actually. And the same goes for the Brickworks and Hearn generating station.

If I may play Whoaccio for a sec, those are fringey fanboys (and fangirls), not the "general public"

 

[adma]

I think the biggest problem with this site compared to the distillery district, Queens Quay Terminal, etc, is the shape of the silos and the amount of usable space. It's easy to transform a warehouse as there is ample amount of space to work with. The silos and its surrounding structures are narrow, and very tall. Taking into consideration fires codes and whatnot, it's hard to imagine a valuable use. The space to economic potential ratio is significantly (exponentially?) less than any of the previous examples of adaptive reuse. Unless we're willing to accept some major alterations, I just don't see how anyone would be willing to take on a site like this.

Are there examples elsewhere of silos being reused?

This has long been the North American archetype.

 

[junctionist]

If I may play Whoaccio for a sec, those are fringey fanboys (and fangirls), not the "general public"

It seems to me like they are a small subsection of the many who notice and are interested in the buildings, but actually have the spirit to go behind the fences.

 

[Whoaccio]

And your definition of "general public" has less sex appeal still, so there. As I've said before, when it comes to the eroticism of urban beholding, you're a lousy lay; so, you're the last person I'd trust to judge "sex appeal".

Ok, don't. The Silos will be demolished and I will be proven right. Even Vaughan has come to the conclusion that nobody wants to invest money into some crumbling malting silos. I mean, you could have at least picked an example where history wasn't so clearly backing me up.

Well, you could offer the same argument against 19th century malting technology. Yet that didn't stop the Distillery District from happening. (And when it comes to other early c20 port functioning, there's the Terminal Warehouse, the York + John Quay facilities, etc. Not that their adaptations have been uniformly successful; but, still.)

Buildings, like those in the DD, can be fairly easily converted into things that yuppies are willing to pay for (like places to drink, or pretend to care about art), whereas the Malting Silos can't.

Sometimes, it isn't so much a direct matter of "nobody is interested", as the ambiguity of random chance. (Take that as a double-headed critique: both of you, and of the "Torontonians don't care about history" blubbering at the other side.)

It's not random chance, anybody who looks at buildings like the Malting Silos critically are able to see they are totally unsuitable to conversion, while buildings like old generating stations (Hearn, Battersea, Bankside) are very suitable for conversion. People don't like living in circles 6m in diameter with no windows or ventilation.

p.s. If there is an example of a subculture more worthy of fringe designation than hardcore urban explorers, I have yet to hear of them.

 

[adma]

Ok, don't. The Silos will be demolished and I will be proven right. Even Vaughan has come to the conclusion that nobody wants to invest money into some crumbling malting silos. I mean, you could have at least picked an example where history wasn't so clearly backing me up.

His conclusion is based more upon the shape they're in today, and upon its really being the 11th-hour-and-three-quarters for anyone to step up and provide the investment dough, etc, and at the very least fix the critical structural problems, like, now, immediately.

It's not about "nobody wants to invest money into some crumbling malting silos"; it's about said "crumbling malting silos" now being all but beyond rescue unless some practical-minded magical jillionaire visionary steps in, fast.

Otherwise, prove to me that Adam Vaughan's change of heart extends to something more retrospective, i.e. "maybe we shouldn't have tried saving them in the first place", etc. My hunch is that in principle, he'd probably still fight your kind of "less sex appeal for the general public than aggregate yards" heritage-philistine judgment--and, perhaps, use the impending loss of Canada Malting as a motivator for such a fight. (IOW as is often the case in heritage fights, Penn Station et al, it died so others could survive.)

Note, too, that my own approach to this current Canada Malting state of affairs is (surprisingly?) fatalistic, i.e. it was a terrific opportunity for visionary thinking and the encouragement thereof to follow through into built form, but maybe sometimes time and luck runs out. Probably not unlike Vaughan's POV, in fact.

Buildings, like those in the DD, can be fairly easily converted into things that yuppies are willing to pay for (like places to drink, or pretend to care about art), whereas the Malting Silos can't.

It's not random chance, anybody who looks at buildings like the Malting Silos critically are able to see they are totally unsuitable to conversion, while buildings like old generating stations (Hearn, Battersea, Bankside) are very suitable for conversion. People don't like living in circles 6m in diameter with no windows or ventilation.

Who said anything about yuppification or "living in" being the optimum here? As with some of the proposals that have been offered over time for Canada Malting and its like, maybe storage facilities are better adapted as a different kind of "storage facility" (archives, et al).

Indeed, there's a certain pro-heritage POV that'd share your disdain for the Distillery District's yuppification--albeit from the other end; that it trivializes what it's meant to celebrate. (Maybe less to condemn what happened here, than as a lesson for the future. Never judge the heritage book by its cover, IOW.)

p.s. If there is an example of a subculture more worthy of fringe designation than hardcore urban explorers, I have yet to hear of them.

You seem to forget that fringey subculture can have sex appeal

Maybe that's what inspires people to get into getting passionate about old architectural wrecks...

 

[movieguy]

If someone puts up the money to refurbish the silos, I'm game. I remember seeing the promo material as a teenager.

but it's quite an expensive task. Wouldn't it be cheaper to demolish and safer to build a new structure?

I'd prefer investing more into the existing infrastructure of the neighbourhood such as more streetcars. There are a lot of people living there and a huge chunk of low income housing. they need better public transit service to get to work/school

 

[Tewder]

And your definition of "general public" has less sex appeal still, so there. As I've said before, when it comes to the eroticism of urban beholding, you're a lousy lay; so, you're the last person I'd trust to judge "sex appeal".

[...]

Sometimes, it isn't so much a direct matter of "nobody is interested", as the ambiguity of random chance. (Take that as a double-headed critique: both of you, and of the "Torontonians don't care about history" blubbering at the other side.)

Blubbering over a lack of 'appreciation' for heritage preservation/adaptation is no different than blubbering over same that would want to 'class'-up the Intercontinental. As with Whoaccio Torontonians in general vis a vis their history are not really all that different than urbanvillageboy or Northern Magus vis a vis the built form. This is dangerous for those of us who do see merit or beauty in malt silos or brutalist structures, and is not as ambiguously random as you might think...

 

[adma]

Blubbering over a lack of 'appreciation' for heritage preservation/adaptation is no different than blubbering over same that would want to 'class'-up the Intercontinental. As with Whoaccio Torontonians in general vis a vis their history are not really all that different than urbanvillageboy or Northern Magus vis a vis the built form. This is dangerous for those of us who do see merit or beauty in malt silos or brutalist structures, and is not as ambiguously random as you might think...

Semi-true--I mean, to go apart from your examples, just consider the Pugs (last year's winner: an old classically-detailed building; this year's winner: a classically-detailed building that looks old). But it's also a warning against actually enacting mob-rule/tyranny-of-the-majority/Sunday-painter approaches to urbanism. Re "the ambiguity of random chance", that's with regard to the rather necessarily elite-ish powers responsible for making something happen at Canada Malting--but if it weren't for such "elite-ish powers", we wouldn't even have something like Queen's Quay Terminal; it might have been written off as a huge concrete industrial eyesore blotting the waterfront vista. Functionally speaking, the challenge was tougher at Canada Malting; but there was evident conviction that there were parties and visionaries up to the challenge...except that time and money and structural integrity ran out.

My own conviction is that "Torontonians in general" are more indifferent than actively hostile to these issues, i.e. they're the sort who would have regarded Canada Malting more as a benign presence than (apart from current repair issues) an outright eyesore. And the simple act of posting to sites like this on behalf of some more actively mad-as-hell notion of "Torontonians in general" paradoxically takes one apart from said Torontonians in general.

Indeed, the more nuanced way I portrayed Adam Vaughan's approach to the current Canada Malting matter probably hews closer to the "Torontonians in general" comfort zone than Whoaccio's "the Silos will be demolished and I will be proven right" bluster. Same reason why, in the recent St Paul's byelection, Sue-Ann Levy's rampage against the HST came off as crass and cloddish to those she meant to woo...

 

[Whoaccio]

Semi-true--I mean, to go apart from your examples, just consider the Pugs (last year's winner: an old classically-detailed building; this year's winner: a classically-detailed building that looks old). But it's also a warning against actually enacting mob-rule/tyranny-of-the-majority/Sunday-painter approaches to urbanism. Re "the ambiguity of random chance", that's with regard to the rather necessarily elite-ish powers responsible for making something happen at Canada Malting--but if it weren't for such "elite-ish powers", we wouldn't even have something like Queen's Quay Terminal; it might have been written off as a huge concrete industrial eyesore blotting the waterfront vista. Functionally speaking, the challenge was tougher at Canada Malting; but there was evident conviction that there were parties and visionaries up to the challenge...except that time and money and structural integrity ran out.

Here is the problem. It's fine for an "elite-ish" body to make the decision to say Canada Malting is worthy of protection so on and so forth. Notwithstanding that, someone has to hit the turnstyles and make the building viable and stop it from crumbling, which is by necessity a function of popular opinion. The dozen or so Torontonians who might actually care about the Silos won't put enough money into the place themselves, so it is stupid to pretend as though the utter lack of public interest in the Malting Silos is irrelevant. Someone has to pay for this, and it won't be you or Tewder. It wont be NASCAR dad out in Vaughan, either, lest you interpret this as some kind of populism. The ideal customer for these reuse projects are childless singles or couples with fairly high earning power who are willing to pay premiums to buy organic beer in a heritage building, but none of them care about the Silos.

And the reasons why Canada Malting is generally uninteresting to the public has little to do with "time and money" running out. Everything about it is poorly laid out for typical reuse projects (lofts, pubs, galleries) and can't be changed without prohibitive costs or changing it to the point where it no longer has much in common with the original heritage item. Heritage officials in the '80s should have been able to see the odds for a succesful conversion here were unbelievably poor. Though their decision should be guided first and foremost by aesthetic concerns, that they were unable to consider basic factors of economics and ergonomics is worrying.

At the end of the day, what is the dream situation here for heritage fetishists? This just feeds more people's "in Europe..." complex and gives them space to vent about culturally backwards North Americans. Never mind that most of those Forts and Churches in Europe are funded by tourist revenues. The two proposed "solutions" (Metronome, Toronto Museum) have both sucked in so many ways it's hard to know what their worst aspect is. The QuakerSquare conversion was ghastly (and would likely run afoul of 'heritage protection" aswell) and uneconomic (hence why Hilton moved out, nobody wanted to pay to sleep in a grain silo. University students don't have a choice). There are just so many better solutions for the site than what currently exists. A Jack Diamond box would be at least a 10x times improvement.

Indeed, the more nuanced way I portrayed Adam Vaughan's approach to the current Canada Malting matter probably hews closer to the "Torontonians in general" comfort zone than Whoaccio's "the Silos will be demolished and I will be proven right" bluster. Same reason why, in the recent St Paul's byelection, Sue-Ann Levy's rampage against the HST came off as crass and cloddish to those she meant to woo...

If Dalton did decide to repeal the HST out of mass public opposition, SAL would probably be pretty well vindicated. The issue here is obviously that most people who look at the HST conclude that it is fairly decent policy and find SAL's rhetoric to border on demagoguery. Most people who look at the Silos come to one unavoidable conclusion, "I don't want to pay to visit that." Hence why they will be destroyed.

 

[jn_12]

At the end of the day, what is the dream situation here for heritage fetishists? This just feeds more people's "in Europe..." complex and gives them space to vent about culturally backwards North Americans. Never mind that most of those Forts and Churches in Europe are funded by tourist revenues.

I agreed with everything except for this. I'm actually doing my masters thesis in the use of tourism in heritage preservation and heritage preservation isn't just a European thing nor is the idea that most are funded by tourism true. heritage preservation is found on every continent in many examples and government funding programs are actually pretty common as well, simply because tourism can't do everything. In terms of religious heritage tourism, most Cathedrals and Churches don't charge admission and depend entirely on donations, which rarely meet the needs of the Church. To make up the difference, they typically get their money from public sources (whether it be through taxes or lotteries).

In Toronto, we don't market heritage to tourists. Good luck finding St James or St Michael's Cathedrals in a tourism brochure for the city. Fort York? Barely on the radar. We're all about mass tourism here in Toronto, and it's a shame because people are getting tired of that stuff. They want unique experiences that have greater meaning, which is exactly what heritage tourism provides. But the people in charge of our tourism industry don't realize that. So, if these places aren't getting tourism dollars and aren't getting adequate government support, what then?

I think tourism can be an answer, but we have to recognize that it's entirely on a site by site basis. I think the best chance for the silos was as a unique attraction, but no one is stepping up, and on their own, they don't provide enough substance to attract. And because of their size, shape and location, it's not like we can just transform them into a multi-use facility like Queens Quay Terminal. Personally i think they can be used in another way (I mentioned earlier that they could be used as part of an aquatic park) but in their current form, I don't see it being on par with the Quaker Silos that were mentioned earlier.

As for this idea that it's a fetish, I disagree. I think heritage preservation can become a huge asset. However, the problem is that there is a lot of grey area in terms of what should be preserved and what shouldn't. So we need there to be a way to figure this out. I don't know if a heritage preservation board is needed or what, but we have to make sure that the horrors of the 50s-70s when everything was torn down isn't repeated.

 

[Urban Shocker]

I think we should just leave them alone ... to gradually crumble and turn to dust. They're increasingly picturesque ruins, and in another century or so they'll be quite charming.

 

[Edward Skira]

Which I find is why the Malting Silos are so important - they and the Parliament silos effectively bookend the "new" central waterfront with reminders of where we came from.

Both the Parliament and Bathurst silos were part of Canada Malting.