[adma]

40 years on, the world is in such a different place with regards to the place of zoos in our society, and all the ancillary and associative issues--animal rights, ecological calamity, loss of habitat, species extinction etc--now definitively colour one's sense of acceptance and enjoyment of the experience that zoos provide. they are just anachronistic by definition now, and on some fundamental level we have rejected them as important or valuable cultural institutions. we can't help but see zoos as places where animals suffer. there is just a massive loss of legitimacy at play here, and i think it has greatly effected the way the architecture is perceived, and probably accounts for the relative obscurity of this place as a modernist site of some great significance.

And the irony being: the Metro Zoo was meant as an bold antidote to all of that--cf. the prison-bars atmosphere of Riverdale Zoo before it...

 

[LowPolygon]

Bloor Collegiate Institute addition, 1964. Architect unknown.




Adjacent to this little wing, on the east side of the building, is a parking lot. At the back of the parking lot is the largest maple tree I’ve ever seen in an urban setting. It’s at least 100 years old, and is growing right out of the asphalt. If you are ever in the Bloor Dufferin area, you should go visit it. Before it gets ripped out for a condo.

 

[thecharioteer]

Its demise will most likely come at the hands of the TDSB who will either argue it's a safety hazard, or that they need the space for parking, etc., not at the hands of an evil tree-cutting condo developer.

 

[LowPolygon]

Its demise will most likely come at the hands of the TDSB who will either argue it's a safety hazard, or that they need the space for parking, etc., not at the hands of an evil tree-cutting condo developer.

its an interesting little area there. i am not sure why, but there are three giant schools crowded into those few blocks north of Dufferin Mall, all arrayed around a very large playing field. at least one of them, Kent has been shuttered for the last few years, and Bloor Collegiate is due to close i think...its a huge area, and unquestionably 'ripe' for redevelopment, especially with the hipster boom that is happening between Lansdowne and Dufferin...

 

[k10ery]

Its demise will most likely come at the hands of the TDSB who will either argue it's a safety hazard, or that they need the space for parking, etc., not at the hands of an evil tree-cutting condo developer.

Doing their best to kill it already it seems

 

[LowPolygon]

MOD TORONTO: A sculptural art school at Central Tech

http://spacing.ca/toronto/2013/07/30/mod-toronto-a-sculptural-art-school-at-central-tech/

 

[LowPolygon]

not sure what's going on here, but it doesn't look good.

 

[barit]

Looks like a stripping and re-clad with what else?

 

[adma]

Not sure yet whether it's as bad as it superficially seems--though it does seem to involve removal of 80s PoMo entrance alterations; and a lot of that scaffolding array may have more to do w/the conversion of a service floor at the top into offices. (If you look at the top of 77 Bloor these days, you'll see a horizontal strip window that wasn't there before--which now lends the place a bit of a "unibrow" look; but otherwise, they haven't been monkeying w/the aesthetic)

 

[LowPolygon]

Weston Collegiate Institute, 1973? Architect: not known

 

[pnpphoto11]

This picture is very similar to architecture effect form 1960-s to 70-s .

 

[thecharioteer]

I'd say more 1940's. Where is it?

 

[LowPolygon]

Phoenix, Arizona, built in 1947.

 

[Conrad Black]

They've done a good job of maintaining it.

 

[thecharioteer]

Somewhat reminiscent of Ross & Macdonald's 1937 Holt Renfrew store in Montreal: