Christo­pher Hume – Toronto Star

Lined with old fac­to­ries and ware­houses, the east side of Sorau­ren Avenue was his­tor­i­cally lit­tle more than another aban­doned indus­trial precinct, best ignored and, bet­ter still, avoided. No longer. The fact is that 19^th-century archi­tec­ture, even indus­trial archi­tec­ture, just seems to improve with age. Given what archi­tects did to this and every other city dur­ing the sec­ond half of the last cen­tury, that’s not sur­pris­ing. If for no other rea­son than the gen­eral avail­abil­ity of cheap labour, the 1800s were the last great period of archi­tec­ture, cer­tainly in Toronto.

Lit­tle won­der then that so many of these aging struc­tures have found new life after as office, res­i­den­tial and insti­tu­tional cen­tres. Sadly, we are sim­ply no longer able to con­struct build­ings of such qual­ity. One of the best exam­ples, the Dis­tillery Dis­trict, began as the Good­er­ham and Worts plant and in recent years has been trans­formed into a major retail and cul­tural des­ti­na­tion. As the own­ers have proved, even the most hum­ble struc­tures – bar­rel store­houses – can be turned into places of enor­mous char­ac­ter and end­less flexibility.

So no one should be sur­prised that Sorau­ren Avenue has become a sought-after neigh­bour­hood, a place newly attrac­tive to every­one from young sin­gles to fam­i­lies with young chil­dren. Served by pub­lic tran­sit and close to count­less stores, it is proof that one of the qual­i­ties of the suc­cess­ful city rests in its abil­ity to re-invent itself as cir­cum­stances and needs dictate.

ROBERT WATSON LOFTS: 363–369 Sorau­ren Avenue

Few loft con­ver­sion projects are as suc­cess­ful as this one. In addi­tion to a restored circa 1907 candy fac­tory, it includes a stun­ningly good set of addi­tions that could – and should – serve as a model for all such loft con­ver­sion projects in Toronto. The orig­i­nal build­ing, which still bears the remains of the let­ter­ing that once adorned its facade, (includ­ing a Colum­bia Records adver­tise­ment on the north side) stands a mod­est five storeys but feels much more sub­stan­tial, even impos­ing, than its height implies. With its large win­dows, orga­nized hor­i­zon­tally, and neo-classical entrance and por­tico, it also pos­sesses enor­mous dignity.

Indeed, the front yards that come with each of the ground-floor units seem almost out of place in such a grand setting.

Behind the main struc­ture, archi­tects have fit­ted in a series of new build­ings that man­age bril­liantly to make a virtue of an awk­ward site to cre­ate a res­i­den­tial com­plex that feels exactly that – res­i­den­tial. The main entrance, accessed from the south side of the prop­erty, leads to the for­mer fac­tory and the recent arrivals. On any given day, it is used by moth­ers and babies to chat with one another as well as cyclists com­ing and going.

At its extreme east end, the condo over­looks a heavy-duty rail line and a park­ing lot. But even these are han­dled well enough not to become a problem.

Equally impor­tant, per­haps, there has been no attempt to pret­tify the com­plex; its gritty indus­trial her­itage is plain to see and even an old smoke­stack is hap­pily incor­po­rated. Best of all, how­ever, this is a place intended for real peo­ple, not some mar­ket­ing department’s notion of myth­i­cal young pro­fes­sion­als or rich empty nesters return­ing down­town after nearly a life­time in the suburbs.

There are bicy­cle racks, plenty of entrances and even a dog-poop bag dis­penser. As Picasso said, albeit in dif­fer­ent cir­cum­stances, it’s all in the doing. In this case, it has been done extra­or­di­nar­ily well.

GRADE: A+

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Related posts:

1. Indus­trial archi­tec­ture improves with age
2. Indus­trial evo­lu­tion of the loft conversion
3. Indus­trial evolution
4. Robert Wat­son Lofts
5. Empha­sis on architecture