Though Crossley and Cazaly were only designing a\u00a0rest stop, their\u00a0blueprints elevated a simple structure\u00a0to something truly exceptional and joyful.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, time hasn’t been kind to the Park Pavilion: The washrooms are now permanently locked\u00a0and\u00a0covered in graffiti, the flagstone floor was ripped up ripped up years ago, and a lack of proper care has resulted in the whole thing looking like it might collapse under its own weight.<\/p>\n
To make matters worse,\u00a0the pavilion is currently the subject of\u00a0a well-meaning but architecturally insensitive renovation proposal. Under plans currently funded\u00a0by the City of Toronto, the washrooms will be demolished, textured paving added to the area under the concrete canopy, and the support poles clad in stone.<\/p>\n
According to local city councillor\u00a0Justin Di Ciano writing in his July constituency newsletter<\/a>, the washrooms have “attracted illicit deals and behaviour as well as graffiti and unfortunately they have not been utilised as intended.”<\/p>\n Following a public outcry, which saw\u00a0the pavilion added to the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario’s list of “at risk” buildings and circulation of\u00a0a successful petition<\/a>, the city agreed to put its plans on hold pending a review of the file by Heritage Preservation Services, the folks with the power to protect historic buildings.<\/p>\n That Crossley and\u00a0Cazaly’s pavilion was almost unceremoniously altered is a testament to how little\u00a0Toronto thinks about\u00a0its youngest historical buildings\u2014especially ones from the post-war modernist period.<\/p>\n With that thought in mind, here’s the backstory on the Park Pavilion.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The land that is now the South Humber Park was acquired by Metropolitan Toronto in 1957, three years after the devastating Hurricane Hazel. The storm’s thumping\u00a0rains and high winds caused widespread disaster across Southern Ontario. Previously quiet\u00a0creeks and rivers roared to life, washing out roads and bridges.<\/p>\n On the Humber, Raymore\u00a0Drive near Lawrence Avenue and Weston Road was almost entirely swept away. 30 of the 81 deaths attributed to the storm\u00a0occurred there when houses were torn from their foundations by fast-flowing water.<\/p>\n The fallout post-Hazel included the founding of the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority through\u00a0a merger of several smaller conservation authorities. New legislation allowed groups like the TRCA to acquire vulnerable or potentially dangerous land for protection, including parts of the Don and Humber rivers.<\/p>\n Before it was acquired by the conservation authority, the land on the west bank of the Humber River near the lake shore was\u00a0part of the Humber Valley Golf Course. In 1957, the area was partially cleared\u00a0to allow construction of the Humber Sewage Treatment Plant. The remaining land, much of it still landscaped,\u00a0was repurposed as public parkland and fitted with paved walking trails, benches, and picnic tables in 1958.<\/p>\n The new South Humber Park\u00a0lacked all-important washroom facilities, however, so\u00a0Metro Parks and Recreation Committee under Commissioner Tommy Thompson retained architect and urban planner Alan Crossley to design a “shelter and comfort station.”<\/p>\n Two months later, in July, 1958, Crossley presented his work\u00a0to the approval of the parks committee.<\/p>\n “The design of the building, while unique, is extremely functional and all details of design have been carefully calculated to render a facility which provides all services for which it was planned, at a low maintenance cost and with little if any opportunity for vandalism,” recorded the minutes of the meeting.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In addition to Crossley’s plans for the washroom, the blueprints included work by precast concrete pioneer, Laurence Cazaly. It’s not clear if\u00a0Crossley, the official\u00a0lead architect, designed the distinctive spaceship shelter and consulted Cazaly on how to execute it,\u00a0but Cazaly’s initials appear\u00a0on the\u00a0box indicating\u00a0the designer of the roof.<\/p>\n The first round of tenders for construction of the shelter and washroom were opened in January, 1959, but Parks and Crossley agreed all three, including the lowest of $35,198 submitted by the Carr Construction Company, were too expensive. The tender was reissued and the second round of bids opened in March, 1959.<\/p>\n The lowest estimate for the building\u00a0of the washroom was this time filed by Connolly Construction Limited, but Parks was concerned the company lacked the experience to tackle the complex roof structure. The tender of\u00a0the second lowest bidder, Young & Apperley Ltd., which\u00a0priced the work at $33,428, was therefore the one accepted.<\/p>\n Etobicoke Hydro laid down the necessary electrical\u00a0cabling in July, 1959 and construction on the shelter began around the same time. The simple structure consisted of a men’s and a women’s washroom and a janitorial storage area, but the star of the show was of course the reinforce concrete canopy with its central oculus.<\/p>\n Midday and afternoon sunlight that shone\u00a0through the circular opening was focused into\u00a0a beam of light that illuminated an sculpture\u00a0of birds in flight. The remainder of the concrete roof, which was supported by seven poles, provided important shelter and shade for park goers.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Before designing the spacey Etobicoke washroom, Crossley worked in the architectural department at\u00a0the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, a Crown corporation of the Canadian government that provided affordable housing in the post-war years.<\/p>\n It was Crossley’s job to prepare blueprints for the CMHC catalogue, which provided a selection of prepared house designs to home builders across the country.\u00a0Crossley left CMHC in 1957\u00a0to establish his own practice in Toronto at 4199 Dundas Street West near the Humber River.<\/p>\n Around the same time as he was designing the Park Pavilion, Crossley designed a house for a former colleague in the Rothwell\u00a0Heights neighbourhood in Ottawa. He also built a home for himself out of an\u00a0old barn in Erindale that was threatened with expropriation by construction of the University of Toronto’s Mississauga campus in 1965.<\/p>\n In the late 1950s, Laurence Cazaly was an expert in precast concrete forms with a particular interest in bridges. He built a concrete bridge at the Royal Canadian Yacht Club on the Toronto Island that was for a time the longest prestressed concrete span in Canada. Cazaly also consulted on the 1960s redesign of University Avenue as well as the concrete forms use in New City Hall.<\/p>\n In 1968, he was appointed to\u00a0a three-man design team\u00a0with Raymond Moriyama\u00a0to prepare the plan for the new Metro Zoo.\u00a0“Cazaly is a brainy, creative guy who just loves a footbridge, say, if it poses an engineering problem,” said Brad Johnson, a consulting engineer and one of the leaders of the zoo project.<\/p>\n Cazaly was also the consulting structural engineer on Winnipeg apartment building\u00a0811 Grosvenor Avenue<\/a>\u00a0in 1960. The 8-storey structure<\/a> won the\u00a0Centennial Award for Residential Design from the Canadian Housing Design Council was the tallest precast concrete building in the country when it was finished.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Crossley and Cazaly’s park pavilion opened at almost exactly the same time as another under-appreciated concrete structure in Toronto\u2014the Dufferin Gate at Exhibition Place<\/a>.<\/p>\n Initially derided\u00a0as\u00a0\u201cmakeshift\u201d and \u201clopsided\u201d by the same Parks committee that lauded Crossley and Cazaly’s work, the parabolic arch designed by architect Arthur Keith was nevertheless approved in 1958.\u00a0\u201cI think it will look beautiful at night when bathed in floodlight,\u201d said alderman May Robinson.<\/p>\n Perhaps the South Humber Park pavilion needs illuminating, too.\u00a0Soft white lights set in\u00a0the ground to highlight a rejuvenated, graffiti-free spaceship\u00a0roof. The flagstone floor should return and the washrooms fixed up for the users of the Humber trail.<\/p>\n After all, this is a building that epitomizes the optimism of Toronto’s\u00a0post-war years. When the city is looking at ways to transform\u00a0its ageing inner\u00a0suburbs, doesn’t it make sense to protect\u00a0the things\u00a0that made those places\u00a0great\u00a0in the first place?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"toronto](\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2016\/07\/20160718-HumberShelter-Aerial-Alt.jpg\")
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