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TWO months later, I must say that I'm pleasantly surprised by how well my original essay on the Otter Loop Transit Shelter--at the site of the proposed "Heart Park"--resonated. Or by how correct my original speculations re: dating and provenance turned out to be. Such is the inadvertent power of a well-placed screed--it gets all sorts of gears turning.
In fact, early on, Lorne London of Post City Newspapers (one of the Heart Park sponsors) left a phone message inviting me to offer a Heart Park proposal of my own. The bad news: I have next to no experience in design or landscape or competition entry, or in gathering a team to do the same. The good news: the open-ended nature of the competition, i.e. its being not restricted to "experienced professionals", might well allow for that.
So, here is something in the way of an open-ended outline, or suggested guidelines--steps toward a demonstration entry which, in effect, puts my money where my mouth is. And while it may be "later" in the Heart Park competition process, it gathers from what's been learned in those two months time.
And of course, I gladly invite anyone to help flesh this "programme" out into something concrete and workable.
The Shelter.
Of this, there is no doubt--it is to be repaired and restored, and the "classic" red-and-cream TTC colour scheme should be used. It must retain its interior illumination. As part of the park scheme, it must remain in situ; otherwise it would be awkward and hog the spotlight, and its original contextual raison d'etre would be compromised. It also must not be compromised through extraneous built elements such as fencing et al; a possible exception might be a remanufactured 50s-style TTC stainless steel + backlit glass/plastic signpost (cf. the extant one at the entrance to the Davisville Yard) used as visual punctuation.
Lately suffering from being ill-located and virtually superfluous as a transit shelter--certain neighbours might even claim it to be ill-used--it would now be re-purposed as a de facto park shelter. Which could serve a multitude of functions: a joggers' rest stop, a "potting shed", or even, as a bow to the "heart" theme (and perhaps turning the perceived ill-use on its head), a "lovers' shelter". Or, if one wants, a transit shelter all over again--after all, the bus still stops nearby. However, so as to not render the shelter's retention a mute gesture, it is essential that something in the name of "historical enrichment" be highlighted for the passerby: not only relative to the shelter's history, but relative to the TTC and/or the neighbourhood as well. That way, it shall "remain the same"--only better. And it must be rendered in an enlightening--maybe "artistic"--yet unobtrusive fashion; so as to demonstrate the shelter's own best argument for retention.
The Trolley Pole.
In the middle of the loop is a freestanding pole, which once supported wires for the Nortown trolley bus route (a predecessor to the present Avenue Road North bus route). If possible, it should be retained as a vertical sentinel feature--a counterpoint to the shelter--and again, with some textual highlighting of its former function. A caveat: structural safety, and perhaps the existence of lead-based paint, might be impediments (surmountable or not) to its retention.
The Landscaping.
While I don't claim to be fully versed in landscape design, I can offer general principles: first, the only "architecture" that is necessary is that which is already there and has been identified for retention: the shelter; the pole. (Perhaps some limited sculptural enhancement as well, especially if retaining the trolley pole is deemed unfeasible.) Without fighting the architecture, the park proper should serve as a "naturalistic" counterpoint, generally yet openly speaking. Ideally, this would soften--"organicize"--the perceived hard brick Modernist edge of the shelter, into something more tranquil yet passionate (cf. Frank Lloyd Wright, Eliel Saarinen, early Mies van der Rohe). By comparison, one might say the present concrete/asphalt bus-loop setting highlights the shelter architecture's "worst" qualities--at least to the unversed-in-architecture casual observer. At the same time, a "natural" landscape setting would be complementary to the affluent older bucolic suburban neighbourhood disposition, where the greenery-friendly denizens might be quite vehemently against a self-consciously "architectural" hardscape treatment--fearing, perhaps, a "Dundas Squareing" of Heart Park. The local demeanour is generally white-collar, moneyed, "conservative" or at least suspicious toward the archly avant-garde or overly trendy within their own backyard; it likes its trees, its lawns, its flowers, its hedges, its wild and/or manicured nature and the creatures which inhabit it, and shudders at looming threats such as "urban intensification". At the very least, Heart Park should complement or empathize with this neighbourhood demeanour; this is not Kensington, it is not the Annex. Therefore, flowerbeds might have to take priority over weedpatch-and-faux-wilderness overkill. In this turf, and upon this kind of vestigial-space plot, one can only push the envelope so far without peril (though more so than a lot of locals could have imagined a generation ago, or even now). And the modest scale of the assigned space also discourages landscape "overdesign"--yet, given such modesty, Heart Park can still serve as an effective anchor to this part of town--perhaps as a de facto western pendant to Alexander Muir Gardens?.
The Theme.
Among the responses to my original Otter Loop shelter piece, Michael McClelland offered the following note which might serve as a useful cue as to the kinds of themes that a shelter-inclusive "Heart Park" could reflect:
The Heart-shaped park has connotations that the health of the city and its citizens is owed to its parks as places of rest and repose. But in a way it is the TTC with its street cars like red blood cells and its subways like big arteries that carries the life-blood of the city. The shelter can commemorate that larger sense of the city's health.
Now, that may not serve as the one and only theme; however, it reflects the rich potential of thematic exploration. "Heart Park" is not so banal a concept as it might seem at first. (The "health of the city" theme may even be reflected in the choice of plantings; maybe with a bow to the "medicinal"?)
At the same time, I wouldn't altogether discount the less abstract and seemingly more sentimental/romantic/people-pleasing connotations behind the "heart" idea; I've even referred to the shelter as a "lovers' shelter" to that end. Perhaps, to stretch the metaphor, the trolley pole might be viewed as a "male" element and the shelter as womblike and "female"?
Saving Heart Park From Itself? The transit shelter issue aside, suspicion has been aroused over the very concept of Heart Park; that is, the perception that an open-competition-to-all for a "heart-shaped park" is an open invitation to the danger zone of well-meaning saccharine treacle, to the landscape equivalent of Sunday-painter kitsch. And I regret to say it, but the manner in which those who conceived the original competition brief took so blithely for granted that the shelter was of no discernable merit or importance, fuels that particular sort of fire.
Thus, the gambit of "recognizing" the shelter is not merely meant to save the shelter; it is also meant to save Heart Park from itself. Losing the shelter would compound the kitschy insult; saving it would help subvert the potential of insult.
Thereby we get a space that is worthy not just of the neighbourhood, but of the city at large--particularly when executed and programmed in a modern and sophisticated spirit of urban/historical self-awareness.
And oddly enough, this comes by embracing and celebrating that which some might have wished to be buried--the site's transit past. Turning surplus TTC space into a celebration of the TTC.
Which feeds into recent headlines over a TTC-loving grassroots (fueled by forums and websites such as Transit Toronto) whose conscientious (if sometimes irreverent) affection for the system and its history almost surpasses that of the TTC itself. It just happens to be that busses and subways and the infrastructure that supports it bring out the inner child in all of us.
While I wouldn't recommend an overwrought transit-wise thematic hijacking of Heart Park, I'd happily welcome the endorsement and collaborative input of the forces behind Transit Toronto or Spacing magazine in making a "shelter-ful" Heart Park possible according to the highest standards. And properly done, it should be enough to disarm all but the coldest neighbourhood skeptics.
I welcome any comments.
e-mail: adma(at)rogers.com
Toronto Architectural Conservancy
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