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By CHRISTOPHER HUME
In Toronto, where heritage preservation is stuck in the past, it's open season on buildings of the 1950s and `60s.
The casualties are numerous - everything from the Union Carbide Building on Eglinton Ave. (demolished to make for an especially unpleasant condo) to the Bata Shoe headquarters on Wynford Dr. (about to be demolished to make way for an Ismaili cultural complex).
Next to go could well be the unique "half-round" building, the old Riverdale Hospital in the lower Don Valley just north of Gerrard St. Its future will be the subject of a public meeting to be held Wednesday evening at St. John's Presbyterian Church, 415 Broadview Ave. The session, called by councillor Paula Fletcher, is sure to grow heated. Not only have the locals grown fond of the building, they're less than enthusiastic about what would replace it.
Completed in 1963, the half-round is one of those rare structures whose every gesture and detail speaks of the age that produced it. Exuberant and wildly optimistic, this is an architectural relic from a time, the last in our history, when the future loomed brighter than the past.
But now the eight-storey landmark faces demolition, the victim of an ambitious redevelopment program that doesn't include the semi-circular hospital. Renamed Bridgepoint Health, the new facility would consist of a series of low-rise towers, medical and residential. The old 1864 Don Jail, which sits directly south of the half-round, will be restored as an office building, and the 1970s addition will mercifully be torn down, along with a dreary apartment box on Broadview Ave.
Bridegpoint officials and their consultants claim there isn't enough room to accommodate their needs with those of responsible architectural citizenship. The half-round must go, they say, to make way for a new and improved health-care centre.
Arguing against health-care doesn't get you far in Canada, but, critics want to know, is it really an either/or question? Surely there's room for both?
Certainly, the semi-circular monument designed by Chapman & Hurst should be saved. It is unlike anything else in Toronto, a genuine landmark and part of our history. Although architecture has regained its celebratory capacity, it has never recovered this same sense of innocence and faith in what lies ahead. The ironic tones of post-modernism have, happily, disappeared, but contemporary architects must address issues that weren't even a sparkle in their fathers' eyes 40 or 50 years ago.
Though its form alone makes the half-round memorable, it is also a significant feature on the urban landscape, the southern edge of Riverdale Park East and a kind of urban beacon, a reminder that utility is no excuse for mediocrity. Fitted effortlessly into its context and facing north up the Don Valley, this is a condo-waiting-to happen, an obvious residential project that has everything going for it - architecture, location and views. The entrance, with its fantastic multi-coloured mushroom columns, shelters and delights in equal measure.
In its own happy way, the half-round speaks of an era that believed in the power of architecture to change to human experience if not the world itself. Of course, the optimism of the `60s eventually died and the hospital grew old and outdated. Today the place desperately needs refurbishing, more likely for condo residents than long-term patients.
It's revealing that no one has questioned the fate of the Don Jail; it dates from the 19th century, is built of stone and looks more "historic." Were anyone to suggest it be demolished, all hell would break loose, as it should.
The half-round is, however, "modern"; in the collective mind that signifies cheap, ugly and dull. Given what happened to modernism and how quickly it was degraded that's not hard to understand.
But that's also why exceptional examples such as this must be preserved.
Riverdale ripe for condo conversion: Globe and Mail, June 17th, 2005.
Critique of the meeting: Globe and Mail, July 9th, 2005.
Argument for demolition of Riverdale: bad plumbing?: National Post, Nov 11th, 2005.
Demolition of significant modern buildings picks up momentum: Globe and Mail, Nov. 26th, 2005.
History vs Healthcare? Or not...?: Eye, Dec. 8th, 2005.
Debate swirls around hospital's fate at Council meeting.: National Post, Jan. 18th, 2006
Keep historic half-round around as it is: Star, Jan. 26th, 2006.
Demolition plan roundly criticized: National Post, Feb. 2nd, 2006.
Development arguments wanting for logic: Now, Feb. 9, 2006.
Demolition is environmentally unconscienable: National Post, Feb. 17th, 2006.
Locals want to know: Why give land away?: National Post, March 11th, 2006.
Citizens catch Bridgepoint hi-jinx: Now, March 16th, 2006.
Progressives on Council fumble the Bridgepoint
scheme: Now, March 23rd,
2006.
Save Riverdale
Toronto Architectural Conservancy
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