Dear Marcus Gee,
In last Thursday’s Globe and Mail, you dismissed as a “fetish” efforts to protect two noteworthy features of Toronto’s built heritage: the Canada Malting towers on the waterfront, and the decommissioned airport hangers at the former Downsview airforce base.
“Where heritage buffs see iconic majesty,” you observed, “the ordinary person sees vast, empty boxes of plain brick and steel.”
What’s missing in this formulation is an increasingly important third vantage point: city-dwellers who collectively project an emerging brand of urban creativity onto seemingly redundant industrial artifacts.
That we must not view the city as an erasable chalk-board is self-evident. And, as you point out, there are iconic buildings that obviously embody a city’s architectural and cultural heritage.
Yet the game-changing lesson of the Wychwood Barns — easily understood in hindsight, but hardly obvious during the decade-long planning battle — is that urban communities have the capacity to re-imagine ostensibly unremarkable “old” structures, with one critical proviso: that City Council denies the demolition permit.
There are, of course, plenty of examples of adaptive re-use of historic industrial buildings, from the warehouse lofts of lower Spadina to the Tate Modern in London. Less famously, the re-development of London’s Canary Wharf left many of the old cranes, moorings and dock walls in place among the skyscrapers as evocative reminders of the shipping trade that once flourished in the east end.
In New York — which eagerly devoured its heritage until Jackie Kennedy lobbied for the establishment of a landmarks preservation commission — a community group pushed the city to transform an unused rail spur into a post-industrial linear park. Where some saw only rust, others imagined a unique public space. Now, of course, developers see gold in the real estate around the High Line.
The High Line story is also about recognizing the sculptural essence of these forlorn objects. The Water Table, on the underside of the Gardiner, has had a similar effect because it is allowing us to appreciate the aesthetics of a massive, unloved piece of infrastructure.
Most importantly, such structures permit the remote past to converse with the chaotic present. While they may not fit the narrow legislative definition of heritage, the Downsview hangars and the Canada Malting towers remind us that our sophisticated global city was once a blue collar, smoke stack sort of place. The city’s history, after all, didn’t take place only in A-list buildings.
“Where truly historic, distinguished or interesting buildings can find new life at a reasonable cost, it only makes sense to save them,” you write. “But let’s not tie ourselves into knots trying to rescue unremarkable or simply ugly buildings merely because, in a young city, they qualify as old.”
“Rescue” is the wrong word, and “ugly” is a highly subjective category.
Rather, I’d argue that such crumbling icons offer a uniquely compelling challenge to the urban imagination. With sustained attention and patience, creative solutions and innovative financing solutions do emerge, as the Wychwood Barns has proven. But only if these buildings remain standing.
When we demolish them, we forgo the ideas they inspire.
Yours, etc.
photo by David Michael Lamb
22 comments
Well said. After reading Gee’s column last week, I found myself missing John Barber more than ever.
The NOW criticisms of the Downsview plan are more thought provoking, although I doubt the GTAA will permit Buttonville operations to move to Downsview given the likely impact on flightpaths.
As for Marcus Gee… well, it’s kind of like the CBC hiring Ian Pulver for the satellite hotstove for a couple of weeks. Like they sat down and said “who would REALLY annoy Mike Milbury and get people back watching the second period interval”. I think Marcus Gee goes “what would annoy Spacing/Torontoist/BlogTO and get my page views up and the Globe’s advertising cashbox ching-ching-ing”.
I don’t know. I think this piece is another example of what’s so typical of this issue… people waxing poetic, dressing up crumbling, uninspired old buildings with flowery language to make them seem important. Yes, there are buildings that should be preserved — but not every building. Yes, buildings and facades can be preserved — but often at huge cost. It’s easy to say “preserve this” and “innovative financing” when it’s not your money at stake.
I think the average person would respect these Heritage discussions more if they seemed to be based on some objective criteria.
Paper-thin sheet metal and single pane glass at the hangars – cracked, foot-thick concrete at the malting silos. These buildings have served their purpose, let them go. They’ll be nothing but an architectural headache, and will never be zero-net-energy. There’s plenty of inspiring ideas out there without these two.
The silos should come down as they are already falling apart and repairs would be costly but more important is that unlike others structures mentioned they have very little potential for useful space as they were not build to be inhabited.
The site may be the best on the waterfront and all we have now is blob that blocks the view.
Gee marks a creep back to Common Sense populism that we are still recovering from.
I thought Gee’s piece started off well, but then didn’t really make a good argument and just fizzled out. I find it worthwhile to consider a reasoned proposition that not all old buildings ‘ought’ to be saved. Drawing the line between ‘ought’ and ‘ought not’ would make for an interesting discussion. And when we all agree that “it’s obvious” a particular building should be saved, we should be wary of anything that’s ‘obvious’ – it reveals some underlying ideas of how we see ourselves as a city, what we think is good, how to live, etc. I mean, I’d hope that others find it interesting (perhaps strange) that in the last 50-ish years we’ve completely swung from ‘raze and re-build’ to ‘preserve everything.’ I’d suggest that the current preservation movement isn’t uncoupled from the cultural ‘fetishism’ with nostalgia, retro, mash-ups, appropriation… all things that ‘preserve.’ And I find it a bit unsettling that the term ‘sustainable’ has been equated with the Good … perhaps not everything should be sustained.
I wonder, too, if urban design hadn’t been so terrible over the last 50-ish years if we’d be so inclined to preserve the past.
I think the eastern silos are an opportunity to retain an industrial context in an area whose new reality has yet to be fully decided and where the incoming developers can be told that integrating them is the price of participation in their vicinity.
The western silos are a remnant in an area whose fate has been decided – i.e. condofication with a rearguard amount of accessibility to the waterside. The silo zone impedes the integration of Ireland Park into the waterfront proper and should be removed, to be replaced by a connecting park between the Music Garden and Ireland Park, with some infill at the inner quay wall (reversing the current angled section at the end of the Music Garden with one pointing out towards the lake).
Mark D — the waterfront’s bookend silos represent an intriguing symmetry on our otherwise slap-dash lakefront. The access issues btwn ireland park and the water can be solve at the ground level.
mark. — I sat through a seemingly interminable series of public consultations on the Barns, and I was very much a skeptic early on — that changed the moment Joe Mihevc managed to open them up for tours. During that process, a number of heritage experts — no quotes here: they were genuinely experts — opined that the Barns had no historic or architectural value and thus did not deserve to be saved from the wrecking ball. Others, however, were able to perceive value that the experts missed, and that, I believe, is the key point. The value, interestingly enough, actually derived from the community imagination and effort invested in the project. And it is real value. You don’t have to work to see it.
I do agree with some commentors that some buildings don’t need to be saved. I can think of some old small CPR rail station buildings around town that people should let go & use their enthusiasm to save
But I also agree that the ‘experts’ aren’t the best sources of opinion as they provide only their specialties’ perspective. The Wychwood Barns, Distillery District, Liberty Village are all great areas & neighbourhoods now, thanks to community participation and civic leaders.
I’d much rather see an existing building reinvented or reused than another blank walled Costco or Ikea replacing it.
I was part of a team working independently from the City which took a look at all potential and possible alternatives for the Silos (including examples from overseas) as a means of somehow preserving anything from 100% of them (including the buildings) to maintaining only 1 silo. None of the ideas worked from a financial perspective because all alternatives were costing millions and millions of extra dollars as a result of the silos. That area is perceived by the private sector as being too far away from the core to be worth any significant value despite it’s waterfront status. No one wants to front the extra cost of incorporating it or demolishing it. The silos have been costing the city anywhere from a few thousand dollars to hundreds of thousands per year to maintain (depending on who provides the cost info to you).
The costs ranged from having regular workers visit the site to make sure all the fencing is still properly in place, that the building is not being inhabited by homeless people or animals (rat traps have been setup inside), structure engineers visit the site on a regular basis to inspect it for safety, work has been done inside to maintain its structural integrity, and engineers also have to check the dock wall to ensure extra stability due to the silos (example: if a large chunk of concrete fell from the silos and somehow hit the edge or side of the dock wall, the engineer had to ensure that the dock wall won’t collapse).
Re-purposing older buildings opens up plenty of creative solutions, and nods respectfully to our past. Why waste excellent opportunities like that?
I love the look of the west end silo. It’s massive and totally contradictory to the rather dull glass condos going up all around it. Even if the building offered limited useful space, something should be done with it, and the city-owned grounds around it should be redesigned to better integrate it with the waterfront.
We’ve seen what LEDs can do for the CN Tower, another concrete behemoth. Surely whoever did that can pretty easily slap together a crazy light show for these silos. Turn the sides into a massive rock climbing wall. Carve the faces of important national figures into the sides of the silos. Build stairs scaling the sides of the silos for fitness-mad citizens to get their fix. Wouldn’t it be neat to see Sir John A. and Terry Fox together looking over the waterfront?
I have always loved the Canada Malting Company Silos and it would be a sad day for Toronto if they were demolished. That is one of the only moments of history on a horrid strip of green glass nothingness. I don’t think they are ugly. In fact I would be down there ready block the demolition if it were to happen because I KNOW that if this can be pulled off, one day that site will be an icon of what is possible in this city. It needs a dreamer. They should just give it to the Zeidlers to do whatever they want with it. Expensive–perhaps but how about dreaming of something great. Think Tate Modern.
“The silo zone impedes the integration of Ireland Park into the waterfront proper and should be removed, ”
Wasn’t Ireland Park designed with the neighbouring silos in mind, to some extent?
Indeed they were.
A personal anecdote…My parent’s friends, from Dublin, on a visit to Toronto thought the backdrop of the silos were Ireland Park’s “pià ¨ce de résistance.”
@Gareth – who’s going to pay for what the Zeidlers do to the silos? Who’s going to pay for keeping it secure and stable afterwards? I’m not saying these questions are unanswerable but somebody’s gotta answer them because the status quo is just going to lead to them falling down one day.
Silos generally are highly evocative landmarks. I always regretted the city’s decision to allow the demolition of the silos on Mount Pleasant at Merton. The set in the Junction Triangle, near the end of Davenport, are also quite majestic. But the most amazing silos I’ve ever seen are the massive cluster on Thunder Bay’s waterfront — now a protected national heritage site, I believe. I was in TB several years ago on an assignment, and I couldn’t take my eyes off them.
That’s interesting, John, that many (most?) experts didn’t see any architectural or historic value of the Barns until ‘others’ were able to see the possibilities. Seems to me that there’s a significant difference between a building’s ‘heritage value’ and the value from renewal/re-purposing. I mean, I can imagine a building that no one finds attractive or interesting, but might be preserved if a group has a great plan for re-purposing it. Risking unpopularity, I’d suggest that the Barns re-development is far too recent for any judgments regarding its ‘success.’ I know it’s a great art space, has incorporated many eco-initiatives and I agree that it’s quite cool in that the building used to be a streetcar garage. But it’s far too early to tell if this continue to be attractive to people. Having lived until recently near the Barns, I’d also suggest that it ‘caters’ to a very specific crowd and isn’t that appealing to those outside of this crowd. This on it’s own isn’t that big of a deal, though I find it too bad that it doesn’t present people there with any alterity. But if this demographic shifts or fades away, the Barns might be in trouble.
Interesting that JT (above) tells us preserving the silos (or even one) is too costly for developers. I assume, then, that the only way one or any of the silos could be preserved would be if gov’t funded it. Difficult to think of a different use for a silo than holding grain. Indoor wall/rock climbing?
I’m not sure what the nature (or vested interest) of said “heritage experts” who did not see value in the Wychwood Barns might be–these days, I’d suspect that the heritage status quo ticker’s moved far enough to allow for the benefit of the doubt, at the very least.
Maybe a useful if different comparison point (though with less of a “happy ending” pending) is the controversy over the Riverdale Hospital “half-round. Yet even there, the motivations behind its “heritage expert” write-off had more to do with circumstantial grounds than with some kind of “it has no value, nobody’s interested in it” yahoo judgment…
The silos look interesting, but if they can’t be re-purposed they should be demolished. Don’t spend money maintaining something that will never be used, that money is taken away from far more worthy budgets.