{"id":71148,"date":"2025-12-29T08:15:56","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T13:15:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?p=71148"},"modified":"2025-12-24T09:15:24","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T14:15:24","slug":"joe-medwecki-and-the-triumph-of-the-wraparound-balcony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2025\/12\/29\/joe-medwecki-and-the-triumph-of-the-wraparound-balcony\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Medwecki and the triumph of the wraparound balcony"},"content":{"rendered":"

Location, location, location is the old saying about what matters in real estate.\u00a0 But what if you combined location, with architecture, and terrific views, as Joseph (Joe) Medwecki did at 190 St. George St.?<\/p>\n

The building, at the corner with Lowther Ave. in Midtown Toronto (yes, it\u2019s the one with the pointy balconies), has been featured in architectural books and was No. 7 on a National Post list of top ten condominiums in Toronto. Jack Batten, in his book The Annex<\/em>, called it \u201cone of the winners in elegant appearance\u201d among towers that from the 1950s onward marched up St. George St. from Bloor St. W.<\/p>\n

I once wrote that it is rare for the public to know the names of designers of apartment buildings (or condos, I\u2019ll now add). \u201cHow many apartment-house architects, anywhere, can this be said of? Gaudi in Barcelona; maybe Friedensreich Hundertwasser?\u201d Perhaps Uno Prii, in Toronto?<\/p>\n

Like many Spacing<\/em> readers, I like multiple-unit dwellings and think some are very good as architecture and as homes, including 190, which is why I live there. Its distinctive look may be familiar but it\u2019s not likely you have heard of Joe Medwecki, who died in Toronto on Nov. 10, 2025, at age 98.<\/p>\n

Shy and reserved, Medwecki once told an interviewer, about 190, \u201cThe building speaks for itself,\u201d insisting, \u201cI have nothing more to contribute.\u201d However, tempted to tea and cookies in an upper-floor suite by a group of residents, Medwecki told them all about their 12-storey, 70-unit \u201chome,\u201d erected 1970-1972 on the site of one or two Annex mansions.<\/p>\n

From the second floor up, balconies wrap around, with the apartments enclosed in double-pane floor-to-ceiling glass. The end posts are placed outside, letting window extend into the corners. See-through metal railings allow air, light and views through while giving privacy from below.<\/p>\n

\"Balcony<\/a><\/p>\n

The design added appeal, said Medwecki, while \u201csimplifying construction considerably,\u201d eliminating bricklaying and heavy masonry. The famously pointed balconies on the east and west sides gave middle units patios, with \u201ca view towards the lake.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you are in a high-rise building, you should take advantage of the view toward the city,\u201d he said. At 190 \u2014 and I can vouch he\u2019s right \u2014 \u201cyou can enjoy that view even if you are quite deep in the living room.\u201d<\/p>\n

My well-thumbed copy of Patrica McHugh\u2019s Toronto Architecture: A City Guide<\/em> calls 190 \u201cA distinguished essay in Late-Modernism.\u201d In East\/West: A Guide to Where People Live in Downtown Toronto<\/a>, Joe Panabaker suggested Medwecki one-upped Mies Van der Rohe by making the glass house private and habitable even in the big city, using \u201cthe great late-Modern trick of the continuous balcony.\u201d<\/p>\n

Set back on its corner by the day\u2019s zoning rules, and now sitting discreetly among mature trees, it also pulls off Le Corbusier\u2019s \u201ctower in the park\u201d idea successfully.<\/p>\n

The architect told me the building was conceived in an extended \u201cexchange of thoughts\u201d about architecture with his fellow Polish emigr\u00e9, the developer Tadeusz (Ted) Lempicki. At that time, the late 1960s, Medwecki was studying for a Master\u2019s in urban design under the younger architect Jack Diamond, at the University of Toronto.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was talking [to Lempecki] about what I was doing, a small sort of presentation of my thesis,\u201d Medwecki recalled. \u201cAnd he said, \u2018you know what? I think I would like you to do that building for me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

It was originally to be rental, like Lempicki\u2019s earlier Irving Grossman-designed 50 Prince Arthur (look for a statue, \u201cRosalyn,\u201d out front), but 190 was finally offered to the public as one of Toronto\u2019s early condos.<\/p>\n

Medwecki was born in Poznan, Poland in 1927. He studied at Warsaw University of Technology and worked under the celebrated Bohdan Pniewski on the postwar rebuilding of the National Opera, whose mosaic floor of exotic woods is Joseph Medwecki\u2019s design.<\/p>\n

Cold-war Poland mostly blocked emigration but, finding a loophole, the young architect came to Canada in 1956, joining his father, an aircraft designer who had been evacuated here in 1939. Accompanying him was his wife, Antonia \u201cTosia\u201d Kajetanowicz, whom he married in 1953. Later, her Toronto dental practice became known for its background music of soothing Mozart symphonies.<\/p>\n

Medwecki\u2019s practice was small, \u201cthe most I ever had in the office was five people,\u201d adding \u201cI did all the working drawings [for 190 St. George St.] myself.\u201d He focused on commercial buildings, factories, and warehouses in greater Toronto but did some in the United States, plus an occasional house, \u201cprimarily for my industrial clients.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among his other projects are the medical arts building at 600 Sherbourne St., also for Lempicki, and a mansion at 937 Whitter Cres. in Mississauga, recently on the market<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Teaching at Humber College in the 1970s, the architect \u201calways had a carnation on his lapel, that was his signature,\u201d said Stan Kedzierski, a former student, now a resident in Medwecki\u2019s\u00a0building.<\/p>\n

During the 2000s the architect attended the Ontario College of Art and Design as a mature student, earning another diploma and creating a self-portrait featuring 190 St. George and the tools of his trade.<\/p>\n

\"Portrait<\/a><\/p>\n

Pedestrians walking by can often be seen looking up at the building, and that is how many of us who live there came to know of it. My spouse and I moved in during 1999, but the building \u201cwas cherished basically from the very beginning,\u201d said resident Hanna Bartel.<\/p>\n

In the oft-times (but not always) tower-anxious Annex, opinions have evolved.<\/p>\n

The erection of 190 marked the end of tower-building on St. George street for quite some time. More recently, a member of the district\u2019s famous residents association was heard to say, when visiting an 8th<\/sup> floor apartment, \u201cTHIS is where you move, when you sell your home in the Annex.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t beat the terraces, the windows,\u201d said Royal LePage realtor\u00a0David Fenster, who has sold countless units, and lives there too.<\/p>\n

Medwecki himself never resided at 190 St. George, but he could see it from his own condo at 284 Bloor W.<\/p>\n

A shorter version of this story appeared in the e-newsletter of the Annex Residents Association.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Location, location, location is the old saying about what matters in real estate.\u00a0 But what if you combined location, with architecture, and terrific views, as Joseph (Joe) Medwecki did at 190 St. George St.? 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