{"id":8171,"date":"2009-12-07T09:00:32","date_gmt":"2009-12-07T14:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=8171"},"modified":"2009-12-07T12:40:08","modified_gmt":"2009-12-07T17:40:08","slug":"john-lorinc-its-more-than-an-architecture-fetish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2009\/12\/07\/john-lorinc-its-more-than-an-architecture-fetish\/","title":{"rendered":"JOHN LORINC: It&#8217;s more than an architecture fetish"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" title=\"Canada Malting Plant, by David Michael Lamb\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2069\/2497622355_e11077e19f.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/images\/feature-graphics\/feature-lorinc.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"85\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Dear Marcus Gee,<\/p>\n<p>In last Thursday&#8217;s Globe and Mail, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/news\/opinions\/columnists\/marcus-gee\/some-reminders-of-the-past-just-dont-deserve-to-be-rescued\/article1386560\/\">you dismissed as a &#8220;fetish&#8221; efforts<\/a> to protect two noteworthy features of Toronto&#8217;s built heritage: the Canada Malting towers on the waterfront, and the decommissioned <a href=\"http:\/\/arconserv.ca\/news_events\/show.cfm?id=207\">airport hangers at the former Downsview airforce base<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Where heritage buffs see iconic majesty,&#8221; you observed, &#8220;the ordinary person sees vast, empty boxes of plain brick and steel.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;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.<\/p>\n<p>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&#8217;s architectural and cultural heritage.<\/p>\n<p>Yet the game-changing lesson of the Wychwood Barns &#8212; easily understood in hindsight, but hardly obvious during the decade-long planning battle &#8212; is that urban communities have the capacity to re-imagine ostensibly unremarkable &#8220;old&#8221; structures, with one critical proviso: that City Council denies the demolition permit.<\/p>\n<p>There are, of course, plenty of examples of adaptive re-use of historic industrial buildings, from the warehouse lofts of lower Spadina to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tate.org.uk\/modern\/\">Tate Modern in London<\/a>. Less famously, the re-development of London&#8217;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.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>In New York &#8212; which eagerly devoured its heritage until Jackie Kennedy lobbied for the establishment of a landmarks preservation commission &#8212; a community group pushed the city to transform an unused rail spur into a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehighline.org\">post-industrial linear park<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n<p>The High Line story is also about recognizing the sculptural essence of these forlorn objects. The  <a href=\"http:\/\/mute.rigent.com\/index.php?ladat=2009-11-13\">Water Table<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n<p>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&#8217;s history, after all, didn&#8217;t take place only in A-list buildings.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Where truly historic, distinguished or interesting buildings can find new life at a reasonable cost, it only makes sense to save them,&#8221; you write. &#8220;But let&#8217;s not tie ourselves into knots trying to rescue unremarkable or simply ugly buildings merely because, in a young city, they qualify as old.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Rescue&#8221; is the wrong word, and &#8220;ugly&#8221; is a highly subjective category.<\/p>\n<p>Rather, I&#8217;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.<\/p>\n<p>When we demolish them, we forgo the ideas they inspire.<\/p>\n<p>Yours, etc.<\/p>\n<p><em>photo by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/arcticlamb\/2497622355\/\">David Michael Lamb<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Marcus Gee, In last Thursday&#8217;s Globe and Mail, you dismissed as a &#8220;fetish&#8221; efforts to protect two noteworthy features of Toronto&#8217;s built heritage: the Canada Malting towers on the waterfront, and the decommissioned airport hangers at the former Downsview airforce base. &#8220;Where heritage buffs see iconic majesty,&#8221; you observed, &#8220;the ordinary person sees vast,<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2009\/12\/07\/john-lorinc-its-more-than-an-architecture-fetish\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;JOHN LORINC: It&#8217;s more than an architecture fetish&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4051,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22,24],"tags":[13811,756,13809,4498,313,13810,1030,359,13812,12451,469,672,762,19],"class_list":["post-8171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","category-history","tag-canada-malting-towers","tag-city-council","tag-creative-solutions","tag-david-michael-lamb","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-jackie-kennedy","tag-john-lorinc","tag-london","tag-londons-canary-wharf","tag-marcus-gee","tag-new-york","tag-real-estate","tag-steel","tag-toronto"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - 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