A better, brighter Dufferin Station, without that sickly green hue
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By Daniel Blackburn, National Post
One of the city’s busiest subway stations is losing its sickly aqua-green hue.
The $41-million remake of Dufferin Station, to be presented at a public meeting tonight, will introduce dramatic natural light and banish the familiar tiles that define the aesthetic of the Bloor-Danforth line.
Instead, Dufferin will get terrazzo floor tiles, glazed block walls, a suspended perforated ceiling, and public art by Eduardo Aquino and Karen Shanksi. Their art will be featured on glazed block walls on the street and platform levels.
“The aim of this project is ... to make Dufferin Station modern, accessible, and airy and bright,” said project manager Dave Griggs.
“The theme of the art work is ‘something happens here,’ which will feature enlarged pixelated images of people and the surrounding community. Up close, people will see each enlarged individual pixel, but standing back they will see the full image” said Mr. Griggs.
Dufferin is the second station, after Pape, in the TTC’s $275-million modernization of stations along the Bloor-Danforth line, which opened in 1966. Next up are Bloor-Yonge, Islington, Kipling and Victoria Park.
The program aims to improve finishings on the walls, floors and ceilings inside the subway stops, along with better lighting. On the outside, the focus will be on creating new station appearances and landscaping.
In March, TTC commissioners voted to scrap the uniform tile motif of its stations, in favour of unique designs. The decision upset purists angry that the subway line’s iconic visual identity — the system even has its own typeface — is being tampered with.
City councillor Adam Vaughan, a member of the Toronto Preservation Board, has noted each station’s tiles are part of a set pattern along the Bloor-Danforth line, and has warned the TTC against throwing away its visual heritage: “It’s designed as a piece and it speaks to an era gone by,” Mr. Vaughan said last year.
But at Dufferin Station, users cheered the renovation: “It sounds really nice. It’s like the Impressionist movement used by French artists,” said Clancy Pryde.
Added Michael Coe: “It is better than aqua green tile.”
The Dufferin renovation will also add an elevator and two new platform street exits, and also complement the city’s new environmental initiatives. These include landscaping with drought resistant plants, increased natural lighting, LED lighting, green and cool roofs, and bicycle storage. The green roof limits water runoff into storm sewers and will “reduce the heat island footprint” said Mr. Griggs.
