1. Review: John Warkentin, Creating Memory. A Guide to Outdoor Public Sculpture in Toronto.
Dennis Duffy

My way into the office takes me by a sculpture garden in the Yonge/Davisville district. I have often wondered at what the various Modernist metal gizmos scattered there purport to mean. Thanks to famed geographer John Warkentins industry, meticulousness, observational skills and most of all, inspiration and taste, my curiosity is satisfied.

Title, sculptor, measurements, artistic and social context, the pieces place in the artists career: all these and more are now at hand. Consider, for example, the late grocery and NHL magnate Steve Stavros self-generated glorietta that towers over the Mount Pleasant Ave. gate to the western half of Mount Pleasant Cemetery. Warkentin will explain to you the emphatic linkages that Stavros monument establishes between himself and that other Macedonian whom you may have heard of. You know, the one who knew nothing of retail foods or professional sports, but got his name bandied about anyway.

Sculptor Derrick Hudsonyou will learn mounted individual square bronze bas-reliefs around the perimeter of the base upon which prances an image of Alexander astride Bucephalus. Thus the ancient lineages of the Order of Canada, the Masonic Order, Knob Hill Farms, the Toronto Maple Leafs, and the Raptors figure forth their evidence of the subjects majesty.

Somewhere, someone either now or later needs to know all this and more. Thus, in the manner in which public memory is created and affirmed, knowledge is here catalogued and assembled.

If there is an outdoor sculpture in Toronto that Warkentin has left unvisited, then it is either very recent or locked away in a subway tunnel. Think of any Toronto sculpture that has appalled, delighted or intrigued you, and you will find it treated here. Above and beyond all this, stands the books analytic sections, on such topics as the national and civic context of the work, as well as the subject distribution of the sculptures. Graduate dissertations are going to be cannibalized out of the rich material that Warkentin has assembled here, while those of us who simply like to walk the city in the manner of learned boulevardiers will find Creating Memory indispensable.

Only its format stands in the way of this book getting the usage it deserves: someone needs to condense the information here within the dimensions of a thick pocket guide on the order of a birding book. As it stands, it is too bulky to tote without resorting to a backpack.

If you are reading this review, then you are the sort of person cherishing a definitive guide such as this. By the same token, you are also interested in the image of a city that is projected by its own randomly-generated collection of sculptural images. Warkentin will lead you to some interesting landmarks along this path as well. Bravo!

John Warkentin, Creating Memory. A Guide to Outdoor Public Sculpture in Toronto. Becker Associates, in association with The City institute at York University, 2010. pp. 347. $32.50 available at York University bookstore:

http://www.bookstore.yorku.ca

2. blogTO: The ruins of Concord Floral
Jonathan Castellino

'Stopping to smell the roses at Concord Floral'

Click here for Link

3. Globe and Mail: Tower defeated at OMB-
Anna Mehler Paperny

OMB decision a victory for opponents of tower

Bloor-Dundas project loses appeal Toronto city council has won its latest battle to put the brakes on a proposed 27-storey condo development in the city's west end. The city has supported increased density in efforts to curb sprawl and make better use of limited land, but it has to be smart density, says councillor Gord Perks, who has opposed the Giraffe condo tower in his Parkdale-High Park ward for years. The Ontario Municipal Board this week dismissed the Giraffe developer's appeal, all but quashing plans for the skyrise condominium building at the busy intersection of Dundas and Bloor. The proposed building, the OMB decision reads, is simply too large for the site and inappropriate for the area & and it does not represent good planning. The Giraffe development went to the provincial arbitration body in late January after city council voted to oppose it in December. Mazyar Mortazavi, principal of TAS DesignBuild, wouldn't say Wednesday whether he will be appealing the decision or what will happen to people who had already purchased or put deposits down on units that have gone on sale. We're declining any comment right now, until we've further reviewed [the ruling] for ourselves, he said. Mr. Mortazavi, whose company has won accolades for its innovative and eco-friendly modern designs, has for years touted Giraffe as a building in the same vein. The decision is a victory not only for the city but for residents like Hilary Bell, who have been fighting to trim down the development. It's a very awkward space and we were concerned about the amount of traffic and problems with impeding pedestrians along the sidewalk there, which is quite narrow, she said. It would have created a very unpleasant sidewalk environment.

Click here for Link

4. InsideTORONTO.com: Re-use for Governor's House
Joanna Lavoie

Children's hospice to reclaim Governor's House

Tail Wags Dog...photo from Inside Toronto

Children's hospice to reclaim Governor's House

New site to serve kids with life-limiting illnesses

Children's hospice to reclaim Governor's House. A rendering of The Children's Hospice, which will repurpose the circa 1888 Governor's House near Gerrard St. E. and Broadview Ave. The disused building once housed the head of the Old Don Jail and his family, has sat vacant for more than six months. Photo/COURTESY
A disused and derelict heritage building near Gerrard Street East and Broadview Avenue will soon be repurposed into an innovative facility for children with life-limiting illnesses.
The circa 1888 Governor's House, which once housed the head of the Old Don Jail and his family, has sat vacant for more than six months as Bridgepoint Health embarks on a major redevelopment of its south Riverdale site.

The large two-and-a-half storey building at 558 Gerrard St. E. was used until recently as a clubhouse for guards from the neighbouring Don Jail.

Click here for Link

5. InsideToronto: Good News for East York's O'Connor House
David Nickle

O'Connor Estate restoration gets federal funding boost

from the O'Connor House website

It's not a full pot of gold, but a $2.1-million funding announcement from the federal government will get plans to restore the Senator O'Connor Estate in Don Mills on the fast track, according to local councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong. "It means two things," said Minnan-Wong on Friday, March 12. "It means we'll be able to initiate and undertake the needed repairs to save the house. And the other thing is it will serve as a catalyst for fundraising. When you have a large chunk of money from the government of Canada, that allows you to go to other funding sources and fundraising." Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced the funds at the Ireland Fund lunch, the week before St. Patrick's Day. The timing is auspicious; Senator Frank O'Connor was an early leader in Toronto's Irish community, a noted philanthropist and a noted politician, and the founder of the Laura Secord chocolate company. His house, adjacent to Senator O'Connor College School on Avonwick Gate, was initially donated to the Christian Brothers, then sold to the Toronto District Catholic School Board. Last year, Toronto's Preservation Board refused a request by the school board to demolish the aging building, which has fallen into disrepair. A community group, the O'Connor Irish Heritage League, has been trying to raise the cash necessary to repair and renovate the site - an estimated $4 million. The $2.1 million will allow basic repairs to make sure the house stays stable. The remainder would complete renovations and allow the house to be transformed into an interpretive centre/museum.

Editor's Note:
The local committee has worked long and hard to get attention and support for this restoration. They are to be congratulated for their efforts.

Click here for Link

6. No Mean City: Blog Launched by Alex Bozikovic

Friends and colleagues,

I'm happy to introduce my new blog, No Mean City, focusing on architecture in Toronto, which launched early this year.
This week I've written about a new project by Cindy Rendely and Jerome Markson.

Please drop by and say hello.

All the best,
Alex Bozikovic
_______________________
contact@alexbozikovic.com

Click here for Link

7. Toronto Star: Stephen Otto-In depth profile
Christopher Hume

Stephen Otto: A tireless advocate for better cities

As one of Steve Otto's many admirers put it, he is the very opposite of a loose cannon. Quiet, effective but self-effacing to a fault, he is one of those quintessential Quiet Canadians who make a difference.

In Otto's case, that means heritage, history and preservation. Though these are topics about which we profess to care deeply, reality tells us otherwise; the past is under constant pressure from the forces of growth. In cities like Toronto, the losses have been heavy. And although the destruction wrought by the excesses of 1950s and '60s urban renewal has diminished, nothing can ever be taken for granted.

The heritage movement does what it can on painfully limited means; a myriad of organizations have sprung up to defend everything from old train stations and schoolhouses to streetscapes and entire neighbourhoods. But Otto's special effectiveness comes from the informal but influential network he has assembled over the course of the last four decades. It stretches well beyond the usual confines of a single-issue community to encompass a wide-ranging cast of characters.

And as Otto will tell you, preserving heritage, refurbishing and re-using it, only makes sense. It's not a question of being charitable, but of building and growing intelligently. In other words, history is a resource, not a hindrance.

"Steve knows how things work," says the Ontario Architectural Conservancy's Rollo Myers, a long-time friend and fellow fighter in the preservation trenches. "He's done a great deal, most of which people aren't necessarily aware of."

More than anything, that would mean Fort York, on whose behalf Otto has struggled for years. One of his legendary accomplishments was to reclaim large chunks of real estate around the fort from landlords as intractable as the railways.

He's also co-founder of the Friends of Fort York, a volunteer body whose dedication knows no bounds.

Editor's Note:
A terrific profile of a man much appreciated by BHN editor, and subscribers. Lengthy, but could easily be twice as long and not cover his accomplishments.

Click here for Link

8. PROUD cries Foul at Inconsistency in OMB decision making
Executive Committee

Please read item below to see how the OMB is totally out of control. They have just stopped a 27 storey condo tower because it is simply too large for the site and inappropriate for the area & and it does not represent good planning yet, they approved a 20 storey height tower for a low-rise, 19th century heritage village! Is this different from the Port Dalhousie situation? Well...a little bit. In Toronto, like here, the City and the residents were opposed. However, Port Dalhousie is a designated heritage district and the Toronto location is not. Is designation actually a handicap?? Some feel the Province only cares about Toronto and the rest of the Province doesn't count. We are reluctant to accept this but, consider the facts: The Ministry of Culture/Heritage would not step in (despite having the power to do so) to save: Historic Alma College in St. Thomas (whose demolition the OMB, of course, approved); The Port Dalhousie Heritage District (one of the best-preserved 19th century canal villages in the world) or; the amazing heritage buildings on Colborne Street in Brantford. However, Minister Carroll recently stepped in to save one historic home on Austin Terrace in Toronto. The OMB approved: the destruction of Alma College; a huge 1400 home subdivision in the rural village of Manotick near Ottawa and; a 20-storey tower in Port Dalhousie. However, it rejected a plan for a four-storey building in the Beaches area of Toronto because, in part, it would be distinctly out of character with the subject neighbourhood. Of course, now it has rejected the inappropriate 27 storey tower in the Globe article. HMMMMM?? And, this is not due to the opinions of one Minister. There have been several Ministers of Culture and Municipal Affairs involved. If you want to contact the current ministers about these inequities, the current Minister of Municipal Affairs is St. Catharines' own Jim Bradley (jbradley.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org) and Michael Chan (mchan.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org) is Minister of Culture.

Editor's Note:
PROUD is right to point out the inconsistency in decision making, which makes the OMB seem arbitrary. However, there have been lots of bad OMB decisions that affect Toronto. As for the provincial failures to intervene, with the exception of Caroline di Cocco intervening in Hamilton, and the more recent rejection of the Dunlap Observatory as a candidate for provincial designation, the common denominator in the failure of the Minister of Culture to intervene has been fear of offending local councils. It is absurd, the powers are there to protect Ontario's heritage...At the very least provincial intervention would create a "time out" for sober second thought. The failure to intervene is more political politesse than favouring Toronto.

Click here for Link

9. Ottawa Citizen: Struggling to Save Quebec's Churches
AGENCE FRANCE

No longer houses of the holy

A brilliant conversion, photo Catherine Nasmith

It is estimated that 20 churches close their doors every year in Quebec, writes Gaetan Pouliot, which leaves conservationists struggling to preserve the buildings -- and the province's heritage.

A side wall remains after an early morning fire gutted the abandoned Franciscan chapel on René Lévesque Boulevard in Montreal, in early February. Members of the order had left the building three years earlier when they could no longer afford to maintain it.

Under a vaulted, blue-sky ceiling, a group of acrobats flies through the air, lunging against a backdrop of Greco-Roman inspired columns in Saint-Esprit Church, now home to a circus school in Quebec City.

More and more churches in Canada's most historic province are being transformed from places of worship into community centres, libraries and luxury condos.

While some are sold to private promoters and may be given an afterlife, not all manage to survive. In some instances, the buildings are simply abandoned.

Though long the object of architectural envy in North America, the estimated 4,000 churches and convents in Quebec province are increasingly at risk as the number of churchgoers dwindle.

"Not a week goes by that we don't hear about a church closing, a church being put up for sale, or a convent being demolished," lamented Luc Noppen, an author and expert in the history of architecture and architectural conservation at the Université du Québec à Montréal.

"Ten years ago, this was a rare thing, but now it's an everyday event."

The religion that fortified Québécois culture for hundreds of years has worn away. Congregations have been deserting churches for decades. And members of the clergy are now, on average, 70-years-old and they live in buildings too expensive to maintain.

Editor's Note:
This is a struggle all over the world as churches are abandoned for religious purposes. Some countries are coping better than others. Quebec is generally faring better than the rest of Canada because it has a more advanced system for dealing with heritage matters, which Quebec understands is fundamental to Quebec culture.

Click here for Link

10. London Free Press: New Online Image Gallery Launched
James Reaney

Custom House graced downtown

Erected in 1870-1873, the old Custom House graced the corner of Richmond St. and Queens Ave. in downtown London for almost 100 years. This photograph, attributed to John Kyle O'Connor, dates from about 1875. It is part of the London Public Library Image Gallery, an online collection. (Courtesy of London Public Library's Ivey Family London Room)

The London Public Library's remarkable new online collection took me back to a beautiful building I'd forgotten.

The LPL's Image Gallery has scores of images of lovely London. It will eventually contain hundreds of photographs of local buildings, businesses and landscapes taken in the 1800s and early 1900s.

Of those photographs online in the gallery, my current favourites are of the old Custom House.

Approved in 1870, the Custom House was accepted by the Department of Public Works' chief architect on Sept. 19, 1873. The Custom House disappeared from the northeast corner of Richmond St. and Queens Ave. late in 1971, it would seem, after inspiring London love for almost 100 years.

Its "restraint, deliberateness and refinement" were praised in Nancy Tausky's and Lynne D. DiStefano's definitive Symbols of Aspiration. "The building seems surprisingly retiring, quietly displaying its graces rather than forcing them upon one."

Couldn't have put it better myself. These two historians do right by the Custom House in their mighty Symbols of Aspiration, the 1986 gem also titled Victorian Architecture in London and Southwestern Ontario.

Among its many other admirers was the late London artist Philip Aziz, who once devoted hundreds of Free Press words to the Victorian building. At the time Aziz wrote his piece, there was a concerted effort, which finally succeeded, to demolish the Custom House and so clear the view of St. Paul's Cathedral.

Click here for Link

11. Brantford Expositor: A reprieve...perhaps not for long for Colborne Street

DOWNTOWN: City waiting to finalize agreement with Ottawa

Part of painting by J. Jackowetz, Published Heritage Magazine

The city is not ready to move ahead with its plan to begin demolishing 40 buildings on the south side of downtown Colborne Street on Monday because the federal government still has not concluded an agreement that goes with a $1.38-million federal grant toward the job.

"We don't have an agreement at this point in time," Coun. Mark Littell, chairman of the South Side of Colborne Task Force, confirmed Thursday afternoon.

"We are still awaiting its conclusion."

The city has already let a demolition tender to AIM Environmental to tear down all the buildings in the stretch between Grand River Hall and the Icomm Drive intersection for up to $1.24 million, which could all be covered by the grant from the Southern Ontario Development Agency.

The demolition permit has also been let.

According to the terms of the grant, though, the city would only be able to charge the work done after the agreement has been signed. It has been held up while the city hired consultant UEM to conduct an environmental screening assessment that includes heritage, cultural and archeological considerations in the buildings to be demolished.

That study was discovered only after the fact to be required for the grant's approval.

The report from UEM is still being evaluated by Public Works Canada and the granting agency, which is holding up conclusion of the agreement.

Littell said there is no cause for concern if the agreement is not ready and the start of work has to be put off to a later date.

"At this time, our position is that we are not going to start any demolition until we have the agreement," he said.

Editor's Note:
Yippee, Congrats to Lisa Bates and Brantford ACO, Lloyd Alter ACO Prez, and Chris Wiebe at Heritage Toronto. And thank you very much to NDP MP Charlie Angus who asked the embarrassing question in Parliament about what federal money is doing funding wholesale demolition of pre-confederation heritage.

Click here for Link

12. Barrie Examiner: Heritage Barrie wooing residents
BOB BRUTON

Heritage Barrie will host an open house March 30 to discuss city heritage initiatives, including the controversial municipal register.

"I think the important thing is dialogue and two-way communication," said Coun. Alex Nuttall, acting chairman of the Heritage Barrie committee.

"We want to encourage community buy-in, rather than telling people what to do."

In early 2010, city council added 81 properties to Barrie's municipal register -- those with cultural value or interest.

This means city staff will inform council members, by e-mail or memo, if a demolition or building permit is obtained for these properties.

The register wasn't expanded soon enough, however, to save the former Steele's China and Gift Shop, at 2 Collier St., from demolition last summer by its owners.

The city is in the process of creating a heritage strategy, and part of that process is making sure heritage property owners have input.

"It's a policy to encourage people to preserve property that has significant heritage value," said Nuttall. "We want people to want to participate.

Click here for Link

13. London Times: Hidden Avenue Uncovered In Egypt
Matthew Campbell

Desert gives up avenue of lost sphinxes

Archeologists are excavating the world's longest processional avenue, lined with hundreds of sphinxes

A HIDDEN wonder of the ancient world is to be unveiled in Egypt after excavation of the first stretch of a two-mile avenue lined with hundreds of carved sphinxes.

Built more than 3,000 years ago, the so-called Avenue of Sphinxes linked two giant temples and was used once a year for a religious procession. It was gradually buried by silt and built over after falling out of use in the 5th century 

Now it is being uncovered and the first part is expected to open within weeks. Visitors will have the chance to stroll under the imperious gaze of the sphinxes — mythological creatures with the body of a lion and head of a human or ram.

The remainder of the buried avenue, 75 yards wide and flanked originally by an estimated 1,350 sphinxes, will be opened in the next few years.

“It is the longest processional avenue in the world,” said Jihane Zaki, a government Egyptologist. Its restoration, he said, would return “dignity and glory” to Luxor, in what was once the ancient city of Thebes.

Click here for Link

14. New York Times: Living Against the Grain in the Czech Republic
DINAH SPRITZER

Milan Janos for The New York Times - Radim Kralik lives with his family in a modern concrete house they built on top of a grain silo. An elevator takes residents up 80 feet from the street to the houses first floor.

OLOMOUC, CZECH REPUBLIC — RADIM KRALIK and his wife, Barbora Kralikova, live in a modern concrete box on top of a 1943 grain silo, a stark contrast to the neo-Gothic spires that dominate this small city about 175 miles east of Prague.

The cost of the home’s furnishings — including materials like the oak floors and granite counters — was $200,000. The media center was built by the family’s interior designer, Blanka Zlamalova.
The unconventional home was inspired 30 years ago, in Communist-era Czechoslovakia, by a photo that belonged to Mr. Kralik’s father — an image of a traditional Bavarian house set on the roof of a high-rise.

“I was struck by the idea of putting disparate elements together, old-fashioned and modern, a crowded apartment building topped by a single home with an amazing view,” he said, but “I tucked away the memory of this photo in my mind and forgot about it until I saw this abandoned agricultural site.”

Mr. Kralik, 41, the owner of an advertising production company, bought the derelict structure 11 years ago for 300,000 koruna — what was then about $10,000 — for his business; the side of the silo seemed like a good spot to put a billboard, he said. “Then I went to the top of it and thought this would be a great place to have a house.”

Click here for Link