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TTC Station Architecture

I

interchange42

Guest
I have been photographing subway stations bit by bit over the last month and a half (and will keep at it through the next several months as time permits) and have been uploading the shots to a flickr page at www.flickr.com/photos/castelmar/ (Click on the TTC Station set on the left when you get there.)

The photos, which concentrate on the art (where some is installed) and architectural details of the stations, have proven rather popular, and have been visited hundreds of times now.

I would like to credit the architects on every shot, as I have done for the artists when I know their names. There is very, very little regarding who designed which station on the web, and very little in TTC documentation either. Inquiries with the TTC are going slowly.

Very ssssssssllllllllllooooowwwwlllllllllyyyyyyyyy.

I know that the majority of the stations are credited to the "TTC General Architect" of the time, but I don't know who that was at any time yet. Otherwise I know the architects for three stations so far (only three!): YORKDALE - Arthur Erickson, LAWRENCE WEST - Dunlop Farrow Aitken, GLENCAIRN - Adamson Associates. (All in a row!). I have heard that Erickson also designed DUPONT or EGLINTON WEST. (I'm not sure which of those two is true.)

I would greatly appreciate help in collecting the names. If anyone has any knowledge of this, please send it along. The data will end up for the first time ever in one place - an architectural history of TTC stations - where it should be residing, for anyone to access.

Thanks! (And give the photos a visit!)

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interchange:

Sheppard Line

Yonge-Sheppard: NORR Architects
Bayview: Richard Stevens
Bessarion: Cole Sherman & Associates
Leslie: Moriyama Teshima
Don Mills: Richard Stevens

There is a fairly long article in a previous issue of TO Life on Sheppard line architecture (citation to follow - please remind me to dig it up).

GB
 
I have a really good reference (at home) to an issue of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada's journal, with about 40 pages of photos/diagrams/text of the original line. I'll forward it tonight.
 
Sounds like a nice project. Actually I have been thinking about doing a similar thing myself, except that I have not found time to do it. Will your architecture page be affiliated with the Transit Toronto website?

I believe Erickson did Eglinton West station. Some surface buildings for the original Yonge subway were designed by architects outside the TTC, but I don't have their names.
 
Thanks GB and Wylie! Keep it coming everyone!

And yes, I plan to send all this off to Transit.Toronto when I'm done.

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...which means that Erickson did Eglinton West, and which then likely means that Adamson Associates did the Spadina line-Spadina Station. The TTC General Architect was responsible for St. Clair West and Wilson, so that would be 2 each for 4 firms on that line.

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interchange: Wonderful photographs that do justice to both the art and the architecture. Interesting that Rita Letendre's "stained" glass in the Glencairn station had to be removed because it faded. I believe it was painted on, rather than made of coloured glass sections. Mind you, some of the hand painted Mediaeval glass windows have retained their original vitality.

www.artspublics.net/album.../pb_23.htm
 
Babel: thanks! Some shots are better than others, but then, so are some stations better than others. I am now shooting my third line: Spadina / University was first, Sheppard second, and now I'm on the Bloor-Danforth. I have only uploaded the University line as far south as St. Patrick as I am not happy with my Osgoode, St. Andrew or Union shots yet: those stations have proven to be difficult for me to make photogenic, and I wonder how the remaining stations are going to go: I have not left the best for last in this case.

In regards to Rita Letendre's faded artwork - the station is much better lit now that her work is gone - owing to its unique design, Glencairn was always too dark. I'd like to see a renewal of art in the skylight, but overall brightness of the station should be taken into account next time.

More than that though, I'd love to see the return of neon to Yorkdale. If Howard Moscoe's recently stated hope that the station rebuilding program proposed by the Toronto Coummunity Foundation eventually comes to all of the TTC's stations comes true, I'd love to see Hayden's Arc-en-ciel recreated with up-to-date machinery that might keep it running longer. Oxford Properties (owner of Yorkdale) could become my favourite developer if they were to donate enough to the TTC to clean and re-neonize Yorkdale station. Not that Yorkdale lacks for customers, but a great subway station there would attract even more people to their stores. Are you listening Oxford? (Probably not, but I can dream.)

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Yes, the Yorkdale artwork was lovely - for the five minutes it worked. As with the Letendre perhaps, the "vision thing" of a strong concept wasn't backed up with enough technical/materials skill. Art gallery conservators are having a devil of a job keeping various experimental collage things by early and mid twentieth century artists from falling apart too.

Why not capture the decrepit nature of much of the Bloor-Danforth line? All those lovely rust stains and dribbly things on the walls and so forth? They have a certain wild beauty!
 
Someone should do (probably has done) a piece on artworks using things like neon lights in various public places to see how many survive. I'm generally against these kinds of installations because they work for a year (a week?) and then you have 15-20 years of passing by a non-functional thing, before it's finally ripped out.

I think if electronic responsive artworks are to be installed in places where it's unlikely they will be taken care of, we should admit this and make it easy to remove after a year.
 
Mind you, some of those old neon restaurant and nightclub signs in bent glass survived for decades.

I'm not a big fan of electronic responsive technology even at the most basic level - overenthusiastic flush toilets in particular terrify me, and the ones that don't work at all are even worse.
 
Babel: I've shot Islington station already - it's the Prince of Tides, it's the King of Decrepitude - and it sits in the way of an underground stream which was thoroughly underestimated by the TTC's engineers when the station was constructed. There are stains and crumbling concrete galore there, and I have captured some of the serious (sub)urban decay. I should have time to put that station up this weekend.

Islington also features a bit of a plaza under the bus terminal that still screams 1968, the year it opened. If I had the cash and the skills, I'd present all of those pics with a cast of actors outfitted in 60s garb and in Sirkian tones. Since I have neither, the pics don't look quite right to me!

I imagine that when Islington is redeveloped, because of all the water damage, the TTC will want to rebuild at platform level too. I'd like to see some project go forward there in the coming few years. It really needs it.

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interchange:

I use the station almost everyday and it seems to be in a constant state of repairs. I can recall at least two distinct attempts to fix the roofing at the mezzaine level (to no avail, thanks likely to the salty meltwater from the bus station above).

As to redevelopment - it's definitely a prime site, when one includes the park n' ride lot (plus the now empty Legion Hall) next door...and one can only wish they'd do something about the platform level as well.

GB
 
In regards to Yorkdale's neon, the artist, Michael Hayden, is the same one who created "All Things Being Equal", the falling neon blinkety blink tubes that have graced the corner of Beverly and Dundas at the west end of the AGO for 600 years. (I wonder what is happening to ATBE in the midst of the AGO redevelopment. It should find its way inside to the contemporary galleries.) Anyway, although I don't know at what cost, they've been able to keep it operational.

ATBE has nowhere near the impact that Arc-en-ciel had, so it's too bad that if one of them had to go...

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