One Delisle, in the St. Clair/Yonge neighbourhood will be designed by the visionary architect JEANNE GANG. The rendering above shows what she’s planning for Toronto’s skyline over the next two years. The Studio Gang, founded and led by Jeanne Gang, is an architecture and urban design practice headquartered in Chicago with offices in New York, San Francisco and Paris. Creating architectural landmarks for the future is their goal.
Tag Archives: Toronto architecture
TORONTO HAS LOST AN ‘ARCHITECTURAL FRIEND’ WITH THE DEATH OF WILL ALSOP ON MAY 12
70-year-old WILL ALSOP, the bad boy of British architecture, is best-known in TORONTO for “the flying tabletop” – that’s the Sharp Centre for Design at the Ontario College of Art & Design University (OCADU). It changed for the better McCaul Street, the surrounding neighbourhood and the city itself. <PHOTO ABOVE – REX Features>
As critic CHRISTOPHER HUME said “It also raised TORONTO’s international profile and managed to make a cold city seem cool.”
Completed under the name of Alsop’s last studio – All Design – two new TORONTO subway stations – PIONEER VILLAGE and FINCH WEST. Both have cantilevered roofs and polished exposed concrete interior walls, with bright colours throughout.
“If I were a politician,” he said in an interview, “I would make a law in every city that everything from the ground to 10 metres and higher should float and not touch the ground … The ground should be given to people and gardens, not buildings.” WILL ALSOP’S OBITUARY in The Guardian – https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/may/13/will-alsop-obituary
GEORGE BROWN’S “ARBOUR COMPETITION” WINNERS – TORONTO & VANCOUVER ARCHITECTURE FIRMS
Moriyama & Teshima Architects of TORONTO and Acton Ostry Architects of VANCOUVER have won the competition to design George Brown College’s tall wooden structure to be built beside Sherbourne Common Park in the East Bayfront neighbourhood.
The ARBOUR
*16,250-square-metre footprint
*research facilities for climate-friendly building practices
*a School of Computer Technology
*a child-care facility
*Canada’s first Tall Wood Research Institute
*$130-million to build
*Construction scheduled to begin in 2021
The innovative design was chosen from a field of four finalists, the other three teams being Patkau Architects of VANCOUVER + MJMA of TORONTO, Provencher Roy of MONTREAL+ Turner Fleischer of TORONTO, and Shigeru Ban of TOKYO + Brook McIlroy of TORONTO <ABOVE – the four finalists for The Arbour>
GEORGE BROWN COLLEGE is a rapidly growing institution, with its Fashion X development in Regent Park, campuses at Casa Loma, the Waterfront, and the St. James neighbourhood. Its School of Media & Performing Arts connected to the Young Theatre Centre in the Distillery District; Studies in Community Health at Ryerson University; the Prosthetic & Orthotic Programs at Sunnybrook Hospital; and the Chef’s House on King Street West.
MASSEY COLLEGE, 4 DEVONSHIRE PLACE, IS ONE OF THE CITY’S MOST BEAUTIFUL BUILDINGS
MASSEY COLLEGE, 4 Devonshire Place, is a well-connected and financially endowed institution in downtown TORONTO. Designed by Canadian architect, RON THOM, and opened in 1963 by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, the College was conceived by VINCENT MASSEY, 18th Governor-General of Canada, as a “place of dignity, grace, beauty and warmth”. <PHOTOS 1 & 2 by SchwerinG/wikipedia>
The Founding Master (from 1963-1981) was Canadian journalist and author, ROBERTSON DAVIES.
A CHARLES STREET EAST ‘BEAUTY’ SAVED FROM THE WRECKER’S BALL
‘BLOOR STREET BEAUTY’ – FORMER WEATHER OFFICE, NOW THE MUNK SCHOOL OF GLOBAL AFFAIRS
After a complete renovation, the Munk School of Global Affairs looks good as new – tower and all.
QRC WEST IS ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFULLY INTEGRATED DEVELOPMENTS IN DOWNTOWN TORONTO
It’s not every day that a TORONTO developer saves two heritage structures, installs a super atrium connector and puts up a multi-storey office building with an eOne sign on top. Such is the case with QRC WEST, at the corner of Peter Street and Richmond West. It’s photogenic in the extreme.
The two heritage buildings were once Weston bread & baked goods factories. Now they’ve been modernized, connected and house some of TORONTO’s most coveted office space.
<PHOTOS – Peter Street as it was in the 1940’s, 50’s>
<Richmond Street West as it once was>
<PHOTO ABOVE – connecting the two elderly red-brick structures; HGC Engineering> Owned and developed by Allied Properties, QRC West was designed by Sweeny, Sterling, Finlayson & Co. Architects.
#10 TORONTO STREET MAY BE SMALL, BUT IT’S BIG IN HISTORY AND INTRIGUE
Built in 1851-1853 for the Province of Canada, the Seventh Post Office was designed by TORONTO architects Frederic Cumberland and Thomas Ridout. The structure, in the Neo-classical style, resembles a Greek temple with the Royal Arms of England on top.
#10 Toronto Street served as a post office until 1873, and then housed government offices until 1937. It was sold to the Bank of Canada and later purchased and refurbished by ARGUS CORPORATION, an investment and holding company. Argus was once Canada’s most powerful conglomerate, controlling Canadian Breweries, Dominion Stores, Hollinger Mines, Crown Trust, Malting Company, Orange Crush and British Columbia Forest Products Ltd.
From Argus Corporation the building was passed on to CONRAD BLACK’s Hollinger Inc., media holding company. It was from #10 that Mr. Black himself was taped removing boxes of documents from his office – against court orders. This partly led to Black’s imprisonment in a US jail for a few years. INTERIOR PHOTOS – Crossley Engineering/Toronto & http://www.carillion.ca
In 2006, the building was sold to Morgan Meighen and Associates, a Canadian investment manager, for $14-million ($1800 per square foot), roughly three times the price of a typical building in downtown TORONTO.
BERKELEY CASTLE, AN ARCHITECT’S DELIGHT, IS A HIDDEN TORONTO TREASURE
Walking by, you could miss this charming collection of old buildings at the foot of Berkeley Street between The Esplanade and Front Street. Dating back to the mid-1800‘s, site of TORONTO’s first knitting mill, these buildings have been perfectly restored and are well maintained. Totally photogenic, the Castle is home to offices and many small businesses, and would look right at home in LONDON.
A PRESTIGIOUS ARCHITECTURAL MEDAL GOES TO TORONTO’S NATHAN PHILLIPS SQUARE
The architects who oversaw the multi-million dollar revitalization of TORONTO’s civic square will be awarded The Governor General’s Medal in Architecture. Finnish architect VILJO REVELL’s modernest design, unveiled in 1965, wasn’t looking its best by 2007 when an international design competition was launched to bring the square into the 21st century.
The rebuild was accomplished by a consortium of mostly TORONTO firms. Architects and designers from Perkins + Will and PLANT Architect Inc. over hauled everything, installing new fountains, a permanent stage, moving the Peace Garden with its full-growth trees, and planting a green roof around the third level of City Hall itself.
Nathan Phillips Square – named after a popular former mayor – is the largest civic square in Canada.
Toronto Savvy 