[Archivist]

Also, some places that have a rather strong sense of "collective us" are absolutely miserable at preserving any heritage buildings. I am thinking of the Far East, especially Japan and China, where it seemed to me from visits and from reading about their practices, care almost not at all about heritage buildings, or have an extremely limited view of what "heritage" entails. Some of the worst, ugliest examples of facadism I have seen anywhere where in Tokyo. Whole categories of buildings - basically anything that is not a traditional temple-type building - seem to be ripped down without a second thought there. Nothing that I have heard or seen from the Far East would suggest to me that they have the capability of seeing that a residential building, or a commercial building, ought to be preserved in any form at all.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Yes, we could be doing more. Houses that are not, and never will be, on any heritage listing, are being replaced in huge numbers by monster homes.

I think that's something the public could have a healthy debate on in an afternoon...how much more should we do? How many people work in the heritage department at city hall and how many more would be needed to create and administer and enforce more extensive listings? If the public doesn't want more red tape, even if they do want more heritage protection, how much real protection should D- or E-type (or beyond) buildings get and how protracted should the buying/selling/renovating process become? Some people might want strong protection for certain buildings and weaker protection for others, while some might want blanket protection over just about anything...who decides?

I'm not sure how the public would respond to a HCD in a place like Don Mills. So far, few houses have been McMansionized and some people are moving into the area with full appreciation that the neighbourhood's character comes in no small part from the 'completeness' of the 1950s housing stock, which suggests that district-wide protection of some sort may work. Don Mills may be a bit of a special case, whose 'heritage value' is already acknowledged by much of the public, yet the area was always about more than houses and now that Don Mills has seen massive changes, one could ask why bother with preservation of the remaining houses? And if Don Mills may never be protected, what happens to remaining bungalows in a neighbourhood like York Mills? We can't know how valued they will be in 50 years, when they reach 'antique age,' so should we list or protect the last bungalow on every street because they then have heritage value via sheer scarcity? I do think the general public sees heritage value that way...the last of something that is old that someone has stamped HERITAGE. In 50 years perhaps there will be many ordinary people fighting to protect that last bungalow in York Mills...what is certain is that if post-war buildings in general are eventually seen by the public as having heritage value potential, the heritage process and machinery will necessarily be much larger simply because the entire city will now be at stake.

 

[Archivist]

scarb, your questions are all good ones. A few comments:

- ... how many more people would be needed ... My sense from my rather limited dealings with heritage staff is that they are run ragged and work long hours as it is. There is no consistent way for them to know about buildings being demolished that are already on the inventory, and when I have emailed them about "such and such isn't there any more", it has often been news to them. I say this not to criticize them in any way, and part of the problem results from the fact that they inheirited lists from the former municipalities without knowing much about them, but it is there nonetheless.
- ... in a place like Don Mills ... I believe some work was done a few years ago on a Don Mills HCD, but there was resistance and it was dropped. Most HCDs result from locals wanting one, they are not necessarily the initiative of the city itself (I think the Union Station HCD is an exception to this). In fact, when I have gone to photograph all the buildings in an HCD, sometimes you come across one of those chipboard chateaus right in the middle of it, and you think "that's why there's an HCD here!". Blythwood is a good example of that, a walk up the street shows very well why the neighbourhood self-organized into an HCD.

Your comments about postwar also blend well with UrbanShocker's about getting away from the "age" criteria more often. I couldn't agree more, and I think we are already to some extent running low on 1950's bungalows with carports, that haven't been renovated out of existence or ripped down entirely. I myself would declare any building that is largely brown and bears 1970's-style portholes as heritage immediately. Maybe even a (B). But that would take a lot of monitoring.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Seems the heritage machinery and public interest are both still too occupied with old buildings whose heritage value you can supposedly gauge just by looking at them - antique buildings - to really move on to more modern stuff. There's the odd building, like Bata, that gets a public response, or the odd building that is near-immediately seen as worthy of protection (usually some kind of institution that isn't likely to be threatened, anyway). I guess the trick is to list or protect buildings faster than they reach the antique stage...that's the only way to keep up with trends and tastes or to be able to do anything proactively. Strawberry box bungalows will be antique buildings sooner rather than later, after all...it's not just about moving away from age but also responding to the fact that larger and larger quantities of buildings will soon become old (and what will we do with them?). If heritage staff are overworked, maybe hiring even 2 or 3 more people would make a huge difference...there needn't be some kind of massive effort or a billion dollar boondoggle or resources 'stolen' from other places to reach heritage goals, which always plays well with the public. Sneak a bit of heritage red tape in bit by bit over time and no one will really notice, anyway. If people suddenly must fill out an "HCD stroke 7465" form in triplicate if they need to replace a lightbulb in their suddenly heritage home, they're gonna get annoyed.

I wonder what will happen to neighbourhoods like Milliken in 50 years. North York bungalows on huge lots are prime targets for McMansionization, but Milliken's houses, on both sides of Steeles, offer tons of house on little land. It's easy to ignore these houses now because they're all pink brick with keystones, but, still, they're not likely to be threatened en masse. Something similar may happen with all those semi-detached houses near Jane & Finch...the house/lot ratio is fairly high and the dual-ownership makes replacement more difficult, so, again, there may no need to worry about those houses even if their heritage value goes way up in the future. Instead, the real threats may be to houses along Huntingwood or in central Etobicoke, just NW of the Kingsway...they're a bit older, on bigger lots, and typically bought by people who can afford more renovations.

 

[Urban Shocker]

I don't see why we can't list good buildings as soon as they're constructed - Casa, say, or Siamak Hariri's art collectors' residence, the new Regent Park cluster, a Teeple or two, OCAD, a few of our smart new library buildings etc. They can be of our time, rather than of some other time, yet their design significance can still be recognized and celebrated. And if such designation sees them through that swampy killing field that's the first trough of the fashionable/unfashionable cycle where many a fine building has come a cropper so much the better.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

What happens if there's another Austin Terrace incident because the overworked heritage staff were busy listing a building, like Casa, that isn't particularly special? Why Casa and not 10/20 Avoca? Priorities aren't universal. Listing things as soon as they're built just because certain architects' names are attached to them does kinda defeat the purpose of a 'heritage sieve' with actual and fair criteria...it becomes more of a prize than a durable institution.

 

[Urban Shocker]

All it takes is a stroke of the pen and a wave of the magic wand and Casa is protected forever from some future Austin-Terrace-emboldened wrecking crew. We can have it all. Nobody would have lifted a finger if Lyle's name wasn't attached to Austin Terrace.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Nobody would have lifted a finger if Lyle's name wasn't attached to Austin Terrace.

There's a difference between 'listing a Lyle' generations later and 'listing a Clewes' or 'listing a Teeple' today just because you're fond of them.

 

[Urban Shocker]

Leading contemporary architects don't need to be dead to be recognized for the quality of their work.

 

[adma]

Obviously I don't think everything is in A, but even your class C and D are of concern to me as a potential purchaser. In fact, when I was looking for a home 10 years ago, I struck off my list one such heritage home that fell into that category. (That home sat unpurchased for quite some time from what I understand.) A clear outline of the various issues involved and the potential solutions to them would help many real estate buyers immensely.

So? You're one individual case. Nobody's forcing you, yourself to buy a heritage home--it's not for everyone. (And if it "sat unpurchased for quite some time", it may be due to extenuating issues that have less to do with its being "heritage", though it might relate to parties concerned who don't know how to handle such a place. Just as not all real estate buyers are created equal, not all real estate agents are created equal--some know how to constructively market the inherent "heritageness" of even a non-heritage property; others are clueless; still others--teardown merchants, above all--are contemptuously mercenary.)

I have two suggestions here: (a) don't project your personal phobia about "class C and D" upon something more universal than it is, and (b) don't discourage the nurturing of a buying (and selling) class who may be more competent at handling such properties than you feel you are.

Think of handling a heritage property as being a little like handling a spouse, or children, or pets. And we'd have a lot fewer personal tragedies and ugly circumstances if we (a) encouraged healthy marriage, parenting, and pet ownership, and (b) discouraged those who couldn't handle either or all of that. Better to be a non-spouse/parent/pet owner than an incompetent or abusive spouse/parent/pet owner, you know. But it doesn't mean you have to project your own self-declared incompetence upon others; it's healthy to delegate to (and encoursge) those more competent than yourself.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Leading contemporary architects don't need to be dead to be recognized for the quality of their work.

So it is about doling out honours...preserving the reputation of architects one is fond of before preserving the city's heritage.

Thirteen years on, Mother Theresa is not yet a saint, and even Hank Aaron only got 98% on his hall of fame ballot. Even if we assume that architectural value is perpetually apparent - and it isn't - contextual or cultural value can't be judged as soon as the hoarding comes down. Time needs to pass, unless we're just going to offer blanket heritage preservation on everything (and is that more or less toothless than what we currently have?) or include buildings just because someone's chummy with the architect. Setting up a sustainable process is more important than ensuring your favourite architects win prizes before their buildings actually contribute anything to the city. There's more to it than waving a magic wand.

How much time? I don't know. A generation, maybe, whatever that means. Threatened buildings should get bumped up the organ waiting list, of course. There's nothing like the crucible of imminent destruction to stimulate debate, unfortunately.

 

[Archivist]

I am of two minds about designating recently built buildings, I see the points of view of both Urban Shocker and scarb. If I can make an analogy with architectural awards, if you pay close attention to the buildings that have won awards, it's always the case the some have enduring value and it's clear why the award was given, and some have less value and the qualities that led to the award being offered are not evident now. And there is always the question of what didn't get an award, and why. It's far from a perfect process, in fact, the 1970 Masseys were such a disaster that it essentially killed off the awards series for good, until the GGs came along a dozen years later. If UrbanShocker wants Casa on the Inventory, and wants it on now, he would also have to accept and live with the decisions made in say, 1984, that would have led to a series of protections for our postmodern buildings, which would certainly have occurred. The risk, as Scarb states, is that you end up with buildings of the moment on a perpetual list of saved properties.

On the other hand, I like the idea of getting in there and preserving a building before it is significantly degraded. Perhaps, for instance, the interior of the Royal Bank Plaza might not have been as chopped up had it been added to the Inventory earlier. (It is on now, but somewhat incidentally, as part of the Union Station HCD). From the moment a building is occupied, it is threatened with changes big and small that can run counter to its original vision and degrade it significantly. It would be nice to have a mechanism to identify and preserve some of these buildings, without waiting for an arbitrary period of time to have passed.

I suppose it's the same argument around the Order of Canada - Steve Fonyo or no Steve Fonyo. There are risks in either direction.

 

[Urban Shocker]

So it is about doling out honours...preserving the reputation of architects one is fond of before preserving the city's heritage.

No, it's about recognizing quality. Lyle's work was recognized in his lifetime, and Austin Terrace is part of his body of work, and anyone with eyes to see can recognize a superb Teeple or Clewes or Alsop when faced with one today ( except you, of course, with your reactionary "good taste" addiction to pretentious faux dreck like Design Guild and your desire to see it repeated across an entire block ... ). But, to be generous, let's just say you're probably a late-adopter.

And being a late-adopter is a perfectly honourable station in life. Archivist, in the recent "Toronto Style" debate, adopted that position when he concluded:

US's point is a good one: in some years to come, with the benefit of hindsight, all may become clear. We may see a certain collection of buildings as stylistically informed by each other to a degree that they merit their own designation as a particularly Toronto-centric instance of a style. Even if it becomes generally acknowledged, it's fringes will always be vague and undefined. Those who pretend to know with certainty where it begins and ends will be the fools in this debate. We may find that what we are seeing now is the early days in the emergence of a Toronto Style that is clearly and unambiguously ours.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

A building's "original vision" may be flawed and need tweaking as soon as the hoarding comes down. Defective cladding, landscaping, interior walls, expansions (especially with buildings like malls or hospitals), whatever. Having to go through council or face the bite of heritage supporters just to move a few light fixtures in the first year doesn't seem like a particularly useful change, despite good intentions. No matter what, some part of the process will be arbitrary, unless we just protect everything - and then we really risk losing developments.

No, it's about recognizing quality. Lyle's work was recognized in his lifetime, and Austin Terrace is part of his body of work, and anyone with eyes to see can recognize a superb Teeple or Clewes or Alsop when faced with one today ( except you, of course, with your reactionary "good taste" addiction to pretentious faux dreck like Design Guild and your desire to see it repeated across an entire block ... ). But, to be generous, let's just say you're probably a late-adopter.

No, it's about doling out prizes to your favourite architects. And, as usual, it's about trying to 'win' other threads and bludgeon others to death with your monochromatic design tastes. Better to judge each building on its own - and this does take some time and distance - than to react to every new Clewes or Teeple or Alsop by turning it into a museum/shrine before the paint is dry for reasons that someone with an unashamed bias deems obvious.

Practice what you preach...why haven't you moved into a Clewes?

 

[Urban Shocker]

I'm happy where I am, living in a nice little house.

My 'tastes', you see, are quite catholic.

Clewes doesn't live in a Clewes either. Like most sane architects he also lives in a nice little house.