Brickworks Again

I wrote a few years ago about the lovely brick houses in Toronto and the more I explore the city I more I realize that the city really was built out of bricks. You see very few houses built of wood, and of course the new high-rises are concrete and metal, but most houses are completely made of bricks. Even many of the older apartment and condo buildings are faced with bricks. That third little pig would have been proud. 

A nice old Toronto House

The other day I was walking down Sherbourne St to check on my son’s condo and discovered a very interesting case of working with bricks or I suppose you could call it “Brickworks”. There was an old elegant looking house that had been converted to a rooming house a few doors down from my son’s condo and I walked past it on many occasions. The neighbourhood is currently undergoing a bit of a rebuilding or a gentrification and some of the old houses are being torn down to make room for more high-rises. On one of my walks by the house one of the “A Change Is Proposed for this Site” signs went up in front of the house and soon it was closed and the windows covered with plywood. 

Tearing down the walls

Then the other day I found that the house is finally being torn down, but I was impressed with how they were doing it. I saw two workers in front of the house carefully chipping the mortar off the bricks as they were taken down from the walls of the house. Instead of just knocking the house down with heavy machinery and carting everything away in big trucks, the bricks were being carefully chipped off the walls, cleaned up and stacked on the driveway to be reused somewhere else. 

Bricks cleaned and ready to recycle

I wonder where these nice recycled bricks will be used next?

This is what was behind the "good" bricks

Ready to be reused . . .

A Graveyard for Architecture

Back in 2014 while visiting Budapest, Hungary, we visited Memento Park, where statues from the Communist era were preserved, and I wrote about it in a post called “Stalin’s Boots”  . I discovered that Toronto has a very similar park, not preserving Communist Statues, but instead preserving pieces of significant buildings that were torn down to be replaced with Toronto’s  modern skyscrapers. 

In the 1050’s, many of the old stone buildings in downtown Toronto were being torn down to be replaced with modern office towers, and although many of these building were historically significant, laws preserving some of the beautiful old architecture of Toronto was not enacted until the 1970’s, so these buildings were just being demolished. 

Fortunately, Rosa and Spencer Clark, who owned the Guild Inn on the outskirts of Toronto in Scarborough, started taking away remnants of these historic building and preserving them on the grounds of their estate. They hired an architect and a stone mason who found ways to keep some of these pieces of history scattered around the Guild estate. In most cases it is simply columns, or sculptures standing alone, but they also designed and built a Greek outdoor theatre from remnants of the demolished Bank of Toronto building. 

I found that this park was listed in my 111 places book, and although it was a ways out of the downtown, I did want to go visit, so a walk, a subway ride and a 21 stop bus trip took us to Guild Park and Gardens in Scarborough. The old Guild Inn is a beautiful building, although not open to the public and no longer operated as an inn, it provides a backdrop to the gardens and the preserved architecture. There is a large open lawn in front where some pieces stand and behind, paths wander through the gardens and trees allow you to see some of the preserved building pieces. It is a bit odd to see these stone columns, arches and gateways standing alone among trees and flowers in the garden, it is a peaceful and beautiful setting and it was interesting to see these bits and pieces of the old buildings. 

In writing this post, I did a little research, as there are no plaques and guides to what the building bits are, so Wikipedia provided information on the many building which contributed to the collection amassed by the Clarks on the estate. Over 30 old buildings have bits of their history saved in the Guild Park and Gardens. 

And one more place checked off in the 111 Places in Toronto That You Must Not Miss.

The Greek outdoor theatre

One of only pieces that had a sign

Bamboo & Gargoyles

The Bamboo Garden

We set out today to find a bamboo garden at The University of Toronto. Yup, another suggestion from that “111 places” book, and although we did find the garden we ended up finding a lot more as well. I find this often happens when you set out to explore on foot; you see things you did not expect. 

The bamboo garden was a lovely green space within the Terrence Donnely Centre on the University of Toronto campus. Within the garden are wooden platforms with seating areas for students to enjoy. The greenery of the bamboo was lovely in the rather dreary Toronto winter. 

University College Building

Rather than going back out onto College St. and making our way home, we decided to walk through the Medical Sciences Building and discovered a hallway where photos honoured all the graduating classes of the Medical Students, and we spent a while searching the photos to see when females started to graduate with Medical degrees. As far as we could tell, 1907 was the first year with women in the photos.  

We exited out the back of the building onto a large green space surrounded by beautiful old brick and stone university buildings. We had walked through here previously while looking for another attraction, but today I decided to walk around and look closer at all the buildings. I was particularly interested in the architecture of a large building directly across the green. 

Creatures "hanging around"

I discovered that this was the University College building; the original building of the University of Toronto. I first came to a round building at one end and discovered that the detail in the stonework was really spectacular. The stone trim around the windows and the roof were all completely different. All carved in stone and from a distance looked identical but a closer examination showed that every one was a different design. The more I looked the more amazing details I discovered. The gargoyles in the corners were especially interesting. 

We couldn’t get into the round building, but a door gave us access to the main building and inside was just as amazing. The wood trim around every door and window had corner blocks each with a unique carved design. Everywhere I looked I saw repeated architectural details with  completely different carvings. 

Sculpture of chipboard & shingles

We then found signs indication an art gallery and twisted and turned our way to it, where we enjoyed some really interesting artwork. 

After an interesting day exploring the University of Toronto I came home and did some research on the University College building, discovering that it was built in 1856, burnt down in 1890 due to a tipped Kerosine lamp, and rebuilt in 1892. The building was designated a National Historic site in 1968, and “revitalized” in 2018. It really is an amazing building and a nice way to end a day exploring Toronto. 

Every divider was a different design

Every column was a different design

Every column top was different

Ceiling detail

Banister beast

More columns . . .

The round house

University College Building

Modern Scenes on St. Claire

A Modern Building

When you hear something referred to as “modern”, you think of things recent or new, but in fact, I discovered that when referring to architecture, “modern” refers to building built in the 1960’s. Duh . . . I did not know that.

I got a notification on an online newsletter for a walking tour of “modern” buildings on St. Claire Street. This was a reasonable distance from the condo and easily accessible via the subway, so I decided to register for the event. It was being run by The Toronto Heritage Society and the tour leader was a photographer, so I was interested in not only learning something about the city but also the picture taking aspect of the tour. 

The tour started and ended at the St. Claire/Yonge St. subway station and it was only two km

The subway station at St. Claire

long and mostly on city sidewalks. All we actually did was walk around the city block where the subway station is located. 

The actual theme of the walk was about the “modern” architecture on St. Claire St. I discovered that the “modern” referred to the buildings built in the 1960’s. The subway was extended up to this area of the city in the 60’s and the area rapidly expanded as a popular residential area. The leader is a photographer who is working his way around the city recording all the buildings from this period of the city’s history. He stopped and explained the features of various commercial, residential, and government building. For example, did you know that buildings built with brick, usually have five rows of bricks laid lengthwise and then one row laid with the narrow side facing out, or that zig-zag patterns were popular in “modern” buildings? 

The "Ugly" building (In the back)

Personally, I found that most of the buildings he was so fond of were kind of boring, and one building from the 60’s that he said had been ruined when it was renovated recently, I felt was actually quite attractive. He felt that it would have been better to have been torn down, but I laughed with  another participant that in ten years we would be going on a tour which focused on the “ugly” buildings which he disliked. 

At one point he explained how one building was one of the most beautiful and advanced “Condo” building in the area and actually started the concept of the “Condo”, where people actually owned their apartments. He explained that he had been in the building’s entryway, but would have liked to see one of the actual condo’s, but that most of them were still occupied by the original owners so he wasn’t even able to pretend to be interesting in purchasing a “for sale” unit. He was pleasantly surprised when a lady along on the walk, came forward and said she lived in the building and had been there since it was built and was willing to invite him to come visit her condo. 

Discussing the tour

Not only did I get a nice walk in, I met some nice Toronto folks, and I learned a bit more about the city. I will be watching the society’s website for any other interesting walks. I notice that there is one about the Necropolis in my neighbourhood that might be interesting?

Below are some of the "Modern" buildings we visited.

Can you see the Zig-Zag wall here

The old and the New

As Canada’s largest city, an enormous amount of housing is needed to give room for everyone to have a kitchen, bedroom and living space, so Toronto has become a city of tall skyscrapers. The tall buildings are everywhere; the downtown area is full of them, but even the townships out in the suburbs are building higher and higher. 

Today we went out for another walk around the neighbourhood and I noticed that in addition to the growing number of high-rise building there are also lots of beautiful old heritage houses, and many of them are in the shadows of the massive skyscrapers. I started taking pictures of these old houses with the new high-rises behind them. 

In some cases the old houses have been able to maintain sone limited city sized gardens and yards around them, but some have been integrated into the new buildings. I even found a couple of cases where the old heritage buildings were completely gutted and just the facade was kept to be built into the new skyscraper. 

Going To School With Frank

Florida Southern college has the largest concentration of Frank Lloyd Wright designed structures in the world. The president of the university in the 30’s, commissioned wright to design the College of the future and in 1938, construction began on the Frank Lloyd Wright designed campus. Today almost 80 years later, the Wright designed campus remains a spectacular sight, but the college is struggling to maintain the buildings which were designed for a dry California and Arizona climate. In many places the damp and rain of Florida had shown some weakness in the otherwise beautiful designs.

Water Dome

I discovered a simple self guided tour was available and I picked up a brochure that allowed us to explore at our own pace. Although a few buildings were labeled “Open to the Public”, all the buildings are part of a collage campus, so it was actually easy to get into most buildings to explore on our own.

Most buildings share common themes, of triangles, and circles and are constructed with unique interlocking concrete blocks with coloured glass inserts, and copper accents on the roof. This coloured glass can be seen throughout, and one kind administrator, invited us in and turned out her office lights to show us the light coming through the glass pieces. All of the buildings are connected by over a mile of lovely covered Espanades, providing shade and shelter to students moving between buildings.

Design by Frank Lloyd Wright

Central to the entire campus is the water dome, a 160 ft water fountain that under full power created a complete 45 ft high dome of water. Unfortunately, the technology did not exist in 1948 to actually make it work, but in 2007, it was restored and can now create the dome Wright envisioned.

These buildings, almost 80 years old, still look spectacularly modern, and are a tribute to one of the architectural geniuses of the century.